BBC News launches AI focus
July 17, 2023
This week BBC News is taking a closer look at Artificial Intelligence (AI) – exploring how AI is already affecting our lives, and looking at the ways it could impact all our futures.
Every day this week BBC News will launch new thought-provoking and informative journalism to help audiences understand what AI is, what it can do, and how it is shaping the world we live in. BBC News will speak to leading experts in the field and deep dive into issues around jobs, security and technology.
It kicks off with an interview with Ian Hogarth – the recently announced chair of the UK’s AI Foundation Model Taskforce.
In the interview, Hogarth talks to Zoe Kleinman about the importance of tech innovation in Europe, saying that we need to scale up companies in Europe instead of selling them on to be grown by larger global companies, citing the sales the sales of Skype to eBay and Deep Mind to Google.
He also warns about AI and calls for greater understanding of the risks – telling the BBC “we’ve got to think about how to protect British jobs” and explore how we “really hold these [AI] companies to account in an appropriate way”.
They also discuss the environmental cost of the energy the data centres will need which will add up to “a tremendous carbon footprint”.
Additionally, an interview with Deep Mind founder Mustafa Suleyman explores security, the culture of risk taking in the UK to facilitate significant tech innovation, and the potential impact of AI on the way we live.
He told the BBC: “[AI] is going to be hugely product productive and beneficial for our civilisation. And clearly that also means that some people are going to struggle to make the transition. The question is one of values, how do we compensate those people who need to retrain and rescale and give them opportunities to improve and get back into the workplace. And to me, that’s a question of government subsidisation and support and ultimately, of taxation.”