The scandal over AI in the police raises the fear of a society based on false intelligence. Look around: we're living in it already, says Mark Smith

What kind of society do you want to live in? With respect to the readers who’ve been giving me a hard time over my recent column on dogs, my first suggestion would be a society that’s more tolerant of other species. Some readers thought I was showing disrespect to people who aren’t fond of dogs, but as I pointed out in my piece, the aim is to get along with each other. That being said, a society that’s more respectful of dogs and other creatures and less centred on the human animal sounds like one I’d like to live in. And my dog agrees with me.

What else do we need for a good society? Watching the way in which some of my fellow humans have been flailing around in the worlds of politics, police and policy in the last few days, I’d like to suggest that what we need is more of the thing that’s supposed to separate us from other species: human intelligence. It’s human intelligence that created AI, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, ChatGPT and all the rest of it, but it’s a lack of human intelligence that’s allowing the tech to start to cause some serious harm.

The furore over Craig Guildford, chief constable of West Midlands, and the Aston Villa / Maccabi game is a good example. The decision to ban the Maccabi fans supposedly on the grounds of safety and security was wrong in principle – as Keir Starmer said at the time, it’s the role of the police to ensure all fans can enjoy games without fear of violence. And if there were threats towards Israeli fans, it’s not the Israeli fans who needed to be banned. Even worse, it risks emboldening and encouraging anti-semitism, as if that’s what we need in this fragile, febrile age.

The way in which the police’s handling of the situation has........

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