Re: "Eight dead in Nonthaburi school shooting", (Online, Aug 7).
The event is a tragedy, of course. But it's also a big lesson. It shows how decrepit our global (not only Thai) education system is. Children are born engulfed in a cancerogenic atmosphere of materialism and dead traditional values. One-third of their day or nighttime is spent dealing with a miniature display that distorts their brain functions, morality and human compassion.
And what's the real image behind such a so-called school shooting, something that now is common worldwide? That poor soul in Nonthaburi was only repeating the examples that it observed from its surrounding society, now behaving like the primitive mankind of the Stone Age, using not only the principle of physical aggression but additionally the morally corrupt world of robotism and Artificial Intelligence where love and human fraternity, beyond race and language, is suffocated by a spiritual vacuum.
A new era for a peaceful mankind has already been born for two millennia, but we still behave ourselves like animals.
Ralf G
China AI challenge
Re: "Why is AI model distillation now a US-China flashpoint?", (World, Aug 1).
Much has been made of the extraordinary rise of Chinese open-source AI models such as DeepSeek and Kimi, which are approaching the capabilities of leading American systems while dramatically undercutting them on price. But isn't there a larger question here about reciprocity?
Western technology companies have long faced severely restricted or nonexistent access to the Chinese market. Google, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are effectively shut out, while leading AI services such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude are likewise unavailable in mainland China.
Meanwhile, Chinese AI companies are free to compete for users, developers and corporate customers in the US and elsewhere, offering increasingly capable open models at prices that American companies may find difficult to match.
The imbalance looks particularly strange given America's treatment of Chinese electric vehicles. Washington has erected formidable trade barriers to prevent heavily subsidised Chinese EVs from overwhelming domestic manufacturers. Why should strategically important AI and digital services operate on an essentially one-way street?
There are complications. Unlike a Chinese EV, an open-weight AI model can be downloaded and run on American servers, making conventional tariffs or bans difficult to enforce. Nor would it make sense to deny American businesses access to useful, inexpensive technology merely to protect OpenAI, Anthropic and Google from competition.
But surely the principle should remain: if American technology companies are denied meaningful access to China's enormous domestic market, why should their Chinese competitors automatically enjoy unrestricted access to America's?
Perhaps the coming battle over AI needs to include an old-fashioned concept: reciprocity.
Concerned observer
