Officials in the Chinese city of Suzhou had to apologize after releasing ‘shaming’ pictures of people walking the street in their pyjamas, along with their names and ID cards. The idea was to stop ‘uncivilized behaviour’, but it came as a harsh reminder of how quickly facial recognition technology is moving.
As our cover story writers make clear, the Artifi cial Intelligence revolution is upon us and it is moving too fast for the regulators to catch up. At stake is the last shred of our privacy.
Events in the Middle East have been developing dramatically. Our interview is with Ryan Crocker whose 30 years at the heart of US policy in the Middle East puts him in a unique position to explain how Washington, while seeking to crush the Iranian regime, has ended up strengthening it.
On page 34 former Foreign Offi ce minister Alistair Burt argues that, for all Donald Trump’s boasts of energy independence, he will fi nd it impossible to withdraw from the region.
