Britain has “fallen out of love with the future” and is “out of whack” on free speech, former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has warned.
The ex-Liberal Democrat chief, who was David Cameron’s second-in-command in the course of the coalition of 2010-2015, stated the nation was affected by a way of “underlying grumpiness”.
Chatting with Sky’s Wilfred Frost on his The Grasp Investor Podcast, Mr Clegg stated the UK wanted to “think long and hard” about “whether we’ve overdone it”.
“When I’ve looked at some of the examples, I thought to myself, ‘yeah, that’s really unpleasant speech or egregious speech’,” he stated.
“But really, surely part of the definition of being in a free society is people say ghastly things, offensive things, awful things, ugly things, and we don’t sweep them under the carpet.”
He added: “I do think the balance [on free speech] is out of whack here.”
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File pic: Reuters
Sir Andy Cooke hit out after the broad condemnation of comedy author Graham Linehan’s arrest, publicly, by 5 armed officers for tweeting messages about trans points, which allegedly incited violence.
Mr Clegg misplaced his seat on the 2015 normal election and went on to affix Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the place he turned largely liable for efforts to reinforce moderation requirements and enhance the corporate’s picture.
He give up as head of worldwide affairs in January forward of Donald Trump’s return as US president.
Defending the austerity insurance policies pursued by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, Mr Clegg claimed Britain’s restoration from the 2008 monetary disaster had been “messed up” by Brexit – and that, in comparison with the US, the financial system had struggled to bounce again from the pandemic.
However America will not have issues all its personal manner within the years forward, he instructed, as he makes China the favourites to win the synthetic intelligence race.
“I don’t believe that America is going to beat China in this AI race in the way that they appear to imagine they might. I think China is far, far too powerful and technologically gifted and adept to be sort of treated like that,” he stated.
Mr Clegg’s former employer is only one of a number of US tech giants investing massively in AI. Others embrace OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT, and Google, which is behind the Gemini chatbot.
China’s DeepSeek made headlines within the West earlier this yr after releasing a ChatGPT-like AI mannequin that carried out quicker – and extra cheaply – than its rivals.
Mr Clegg stated whereas he was “a little sceptical about some of the hype” round so-called synthetic normal intelligence, which specialists say might match or surpass people, competitors between the US and China can be intense.
Nick Clegg was talking on The Grasp Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, obtainable to look at in full right here and hear right here.
