This week, its the 50th birthday of the internet. We will hear how it was switched on, how democracy could be rebooted, and how hard it is to tell apples from. Apples. Every single day, we upload 4 million hours of video to youtube. We send 682 million tweets. We post over 67 million instagram pictures. 4. 4 billion of us use the internet and collectively, we create 2. 5 exa bytes, thats 2. 5 million tb or 2. 5 quintillion bytes of data every single day. And a significant proportion of all of that data searches, views, messages, social media, video streaming, goes through here. This is telehouse north, one of the most important parts of the internets backbone. Its one of four buildings here in london for with computers, cables, cooling equipment, and sheer geekery. The internet was built on many earlier ideas but the big one happened exactly 50 years ago this week. The work had origins in 1969 when the American Defense department, specifically the Defense Advanced Research projects agency decided that he needed a network to connect about a dozen University Computer systems together in order to promote sharing of information and acceleration of research in Artificial Intelligence. And so they promoted the design and development of a packet switch network which they called arpanet. On october the 29th 1969 at 10. 30 in the evening, the first message was sent over arpanet. A computer at the university of california in los angeles sent a word to Stanford Research institute in san francisco. The word was login. Although the system crashed before they got to the g. Nevertheless, those two nodes became hundreds and then thousands and then millions of connections, a Global Network of networks now consists of over 1. 2 million kilometres of submarine cables sometimes layed as deep as Mount Everest is high. These connect massive server buildings and immeasurably more smaller cables connect those to individual computers. An interconnected network that vint cerf and robert kahn named the internet. Its important to understand that the internet is not the World Wide Web. The web is a great invention, it is the way that data, web pages, services, and documents are arranged, accessed, and addressed. But all of that sits on top of the hardware that is the internet which allows many, Many Networks to talk to each other in a really clever way. So, say you want to watch a cute video of a cat. Well, your request to see the video shoots out of your device. Along Regional Networks and at some point races through telehouse north. And off across the globe to where the video is stored, and this is where it gets really clever. See, sending the whole video in one go down one route will likely mean that it will get stuck in traffic and take ages. So, the video is torn apart, broken up, split into little packets, and each one makes its own way back down different routes. And when they start arriving back at your device, theyre juggled into the right order. And once enough of the start of the video has arrived, and there is your cat as cute as you want it. Aw this is how information spreads across the world. But unfortunately, its not always the right information. We have a tough problem ahead of us which is to try to help people distinguish good quality information from bad quality information. One of the big problems seems to be that these days we are all locked in our own echo chambers. The information we hear comes from people that weve chosen to listen to. So as well as democratising information access, the internet seems to have isolated us from rational debate and made it really hard to distinguish facts from opinions, from fake news. London is the capital of one of the oldest democracies in the world, but it is a democracy which as you may be aware, is in crisis. Divided by a single issue struggling to move forward. Some argue that the Eu Referendum asked the wrong question, some argue that the question was too simple for such a complex issue and that is why we find ourselves where we are. But maybe there is another way to find consensus. Carl millers been looking at a new tool thats hoping to reboot democracy and find Common Ground even amongst the most polarised of the fuse. Of views. And its being used in a most unexpected place. Thousands of miles away from brexit. Here i am in taiwan, a place that is sometimes known as technology island, it is famous for producing semi conductors. But now it is using technology to disrupt a completely different kind of industry, one we often dont link to computers. Democracy itself. The disruption began with the 2014 sunflower revolution when citizens stormed the legislative parliament after trade laws were brought in. Like brexit in britain, it split the country in half not least because many thought it brought taiwan too close to china. But mostly because they felt their views, theirfears were ignored by those in power. Amongst the crowd was a new kind of protest are called civic hackers. As well as marches and banners, civic hackers use the power of computers and data. Theyve come up with new ways of making decisions and astonishingly got the government on side to ask them for help so they could listen better to. One of the people in the crowd that night was civic hacker audrey tang. It was the night before they burst in when they were just about to burst in and i was there providing internet connectivity. Having recently returned from a high flying career in silicon valley, she turned from technologist to politician. Describing herself as a conservative anarchist, audrey became the youngest member of taiwans cabinet and the worlds first transgender minister. She and her colleagues became the champion of a new transparent process of decision making. It was called v or virtual taiwan and its first big job was to get people talking, and its first big test was literally on the roads of taiwan itself. It all started at uberjust like the one that i am in now, the company moved in and was trying to get more of a share in taiwan but like in so many other places around the world, it was disruptive. It was disrupting laws, and regulations, and no one knew what to do. Then a new digital platform was used and a deadlock that existed was broken. Central to the v taiwan process was a platform called polis which originated in seattle. When the question of uber arose three years ago, citizens and drivers and Industry Experts from across the divide were all invited to join that Single Online space and submit their views. Polis would then punch them up into clusters of similar attitudes. So what is this amazing Digital Solution . Well first it allowed you to see just what cluster you were in yourself. But then and this is what made it so different from other digital platforms rather than surfacing what divided each of the clusters, it gamified what they actually had in common instead. The game here is to win consensus, not majorities. Polis works to unearth what almost every one has in common. Not just the 52 . So, i log onto polis, ijoined the debate, i can respond to the statements of others and then eventually draft my own. But my statement has to win support from all sides of the argument, notjust my own. So, i have to rewrite it. But if i keep drafting the same entrenched message over, and over, i wont be heard. I might as will not be there. Its only when ive refined my message enough to reach across the whole debate that polis allows me to be heard. Meanwhile, the site sits there all the statements as they are added and red rafted to the statements as they are added and redrafted to work out Common Ground. And as the discussion changes, so do people pause like avatars to reflect their new relative position within their new relative position within the debate. After a handful of weeks, the most central statements emerge, they might not look like anything that were set at its beginning. But now because they are consensual, they can be turned into regulations and laws. Its certainly settled the uber question three yea rs settled the uber question three years ago. But now v taiwan is tackling a new problem, e scooters on the roads. These are the things that disrupt a smock democracy, they deserve all the rules and regular asians that exist and if they all adapted quick enough itself, it quickly becomes more releva nt. Itself, it quickly becomes more relevant. Whether east guida should be around on public roads and wa lkwa ys be around on public roads and walkways has been dragging on for about five years. Whether e scooters. Almost as long as its taken me to stand up straight on one. But these guys have no such problem. They are keen writers and the one change. Is this giving you a route to deal with this how we do democracy in the normal ways which we do it . Mixing it is easier because you use facebook every day. Are you ready to listen to people that may be listening to people who are not thinking every legal should be made illegal and that is why youre here . I am back to audrey to ask why v taiwan is so successful. It will it is the people who know more about what to do when there is an emerging technology. When there is an emerging social issue. It closes the division promotional much more portly it shows that the consensus outweighs the division. If you have a platform,. Because there no reply button there was no way for a troll. So far it is said tojennifer over 20 laws way for a troll. So far it is said to jennifer over 20 laws and regulations. And for now on at least some element of it will be used for all future legislation too. But it will be interesting to see if it will be interesting to see if it will ever be used for highly sensitive significant divisive issues. I am sensitive significant divisive issues. Iam not sensitive significant divisive issues. I am not convinced politicians are ready to give up this much powerjust yet. We still have a so called digital gap in our society which means some older people or some people in other places dont use Digital Tools very much. So that is why i think we still have some function to collect opinions from different groups. But the digitally savvy groups of bees found that previously distant views had actually much in common with each other regarding both taxi safety a nd each other regarding both taxi safety and writing convenience. Uber was allowed to operate in taiwan under certain conditions while relaxing the laws on taxi so they could operate more like uber. As for e scooters, people express fears about safety and whether roads could cope but all the diversion aptitude zen oppositions boiled down to the two main groups. Through the platform, the next agreed step was to watch a site, which is being debated tonight so bill up before polis there would be people on poor opposites who would refuse to sit down. But what we switched to polis, it never happens again. Audrey sees these changes driven by agriculture vital for democracy. My question these changes driven by agriculture vitalfor democracy. My question is what we have seen is really truly here to stay. The v stands for virtual, but it could also stand for vulnerable. But the spirit of collective. Its a gorgeous than any experience. I think it is enduring and indeed inevitable. If the democratic executions do not hold ourselves accountable to this new culture, then we risk being rendered irrelevant. The relativity of institutional democracy will go down for some if democrats do not it down for some if democrats do not it democracies do not for the souls accountable. Hello and welcome to the wii contact. This week apple ceo tim cook became an adviser to a Top Business School in china, india announced it is conveyed to watch the worlds biggest facial recognition system and we saw what Artificial Human skin looks like on a phone. The creator of the skin case said he understood why people found his case a bit creepy. It was also the week that google claimed a mile stone in quantum supremacy. In a paper published, it said its quantum computer performed a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds which it said would take over 10,000 years ona it said would take over 10,000 years on a classical supercomputer. But not everyone agreed with the definition of supremacy including ibm who said they mislabeled their achievement. Facebooks ge ceo at Mark Zuckerberg was questioned by sceptical us lawmakers by his attempt to launch libra. Lawmakers said that it could be abused by crimson terrace. He said it would not be once without government approval. Amazon chief jeff bezos announced his Space Company blue origin would be working with a group of industryjoin us to build a lunarlanding with a group of industryjoin us to build a Lunar Landing system capable of transporting humans to the moon. And here on earth, air taxis might be getting one step closer to reality. German start up william ruiz video of what it said was its firstairtaxi, ruiz video of what it said was its first air taxi, its 36 rude electric prototype may be ready to ta ke electric prototype may be ready to take passengers as soon as 2025. You remember all those massive data halls filled of noisy computers . What there were five fours of those above me and it will not be long before this becomes one too. And as the internet continues to expand, we wa nted the internet continues to expand, we wanted to hear from the internet continues to expand, we wanted to hearfrom one the internet continues to expand, we wanted to hear from one of its creators about its future. 50 years on, didnt serve as a googles internet if angeles and he sat down with us to talk about the dangerous road that the internet has taken, how to fight back and what the future holds. Vint cerf. My name. My name is vint cerf and i am chief internet evangelist at google but people know me as one of the co inventors of the internet. First of all the good part is the World Wide Web emerged there was this an enormous desire and the general population that had access to the internet to share information that they knew and the World Wide Web was a tremendous facilitating means by which this could be done. Thenin means by which this could be done. Then in the 2000s, we start to see the arrival of social networking. But those platforms have been essentially subverted by some people who wake to use them as a way of injecting misinformation and disinformation in the system for either put a coat or pecuniary or other nefarious purposes. Political. We have a temperament had of us which is to help people distinguish good quality information from bad quality information. We have a problem in front of us. People hope that this can be done algorithmically, i am people hope that this can be done algorithmically, iam noticing people hope that this can be done algorithmically, i am noticing about that. Algorithmic detection of misinformation and disinformation is not so easy. The expectation that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and computer programmes will somehow solve all these problems is an expectation which cant be fulfilled. Some people will say the country should have rules and enforceable rules that suppress misinformation and disinformation. Just make all that bad stuff go away. At that particular practice has a very dark abusive side. It is called censorship which is intended to suppress access to information that the general public should have. There are machines in the world that you can if you have any information of the which is critical the regime should be uncensored. I think the best tool we have with dealing with disinformation is called what is a peen disinformation is called what is a peer, and it is an exercise of what is called Critical Thinking where you ask questions like where did this information come from, doesnt have any corroborating references from other sources. All those things should be top of mind and part of the Digital Literacy that we need to have as we use these online technologies that are so global in scope. I think if we are trying to move towards the future of the internet, one thing thats for sure is that more and more of it will be accessible. The second thing that we know thats happening is the arrival ofan know thats happening is the arrival of an avalanche of programmable devices that have the ability to become part of the internet. If we wa nt to become part of the internet. If we want to go a little further out into the future, one thing that we know we will see, i am sure you will see, is the expansion of the internet off the planet. Way back in 1998, we began asking ourselves what would happen if we had a network that is the size of the sewer system that could support manned and robotic space expiration . So we now have a set of protocols that together create an interplanetary backbone network. Its an operation between earth, mars, and the International Space station. So you can anticipate that there will be an evolving planet interplanetary backbone over the next days to support robotic exploration. Manned and robotic exploration. Manned and robotic exploration. This exhibition at the london provides an insight into ai data trailing. Huge numbers of pictures like these are needed to create a artificially intelligent algorithms. From apple to anomaly, attempts to show visitors how some things are simple to categorise. For sample and apple is an apple, we all agree on that but some concepts are a lot harder to explain. And the algorithms we create have to deal with these abstract ideas. Even as a human, it can be quite tricky to do in five what an artist model or a creeper may look like or in fact many of the concepts up here but people are having to create these categories and then teach what they believe to be the right answers to the machine. A train set is a database that is organised into concepts and each of those concepts have pictures associated with them. But as you go further through the installation, the concept gets more absent. We move through apple picker, and other things having to do with apples but towards the end we come to the concept of an anomaly. It is very abstract and yet a bstra ct anomaly. It is very abstract and yet abstract concepts like this are still built into technical systems. If you have a concept like a bad person for example, that indicates a certain worldview. The whole point of this is that we may think that al is all about technology, algorithms and statistics. But actually it has human bias at the heart of it. Take the search term 0bama for instance. 0bama isa the search term 0bama for instance. 0bama is a figure in many different categories. It is almost like where is waldo. Is been labelled as a good person, a greedy person. And a leader, a loser. What you find in what i think the example of 0bama speaks to is that you have a kind of underlying bedrock of sludge and contradictions and absurdities quite often that al systems are built on. Creating this display of approximately 30,000 images was a hefty process. To make this installation, i pretty much sat down and go to at about 14 million images that were organised into the tens of thousands of categories. The database that this is drawing from was made by researchers who went and scraped the internet and collected tens of millions of pictures. They put those images together and then hired online workers on the amazon platform to sort those pictures into many thousands of categories. All of this just leaves me feeling that there is a so many different ways of seeing the same thing. And as a person, you and contextual. But can we train and machine to do the same . That was laura appreciated the beauty of data. Now, if you would like to see lara onstage at click life, this is your reminder you have less tha n life, this is your reminder you have less than a week two of to register. Shes appearing on stage. But if you can be in dundee on november the 19th, we would love to see you there. The website you need is. That is it for now though. Thanks for walking teaching, and we will see you soon. For walking teaching, and we will see you soon. for walking teaching, and we will see you soon. For watching. Hello. The soaking rain affecting wales, parts of england will gradually clear as we go on through saturday, and the weather we have now, chilly but clear, it will take over across the uk for part two of the weekend sunday. As this rain bearing weather front eventually pulls away, we look to the north, colder air is pushing southwards, but there will be sunshine on sunday and we may see a shower, and most will not. Before that happens, concerns about rain totals mounting and parts of england but certainly into wales, where the met office has an amber warning in for 60 80 mm and more flooding. Saturday looks like this. Temperatures to begin with a big contrast from north to south across the uk, close to freezing in parts of scotland, 15 degrees in southern england. Notice it is still raining into parts of southwest england, midlands and Northern England to start the day. Standing water is on the road, horrible travelling conditions but all of this is moving southwards into east anglia. So drying up where it has been so wet, brightening up for many of us in wales and Northern England by the end of the afternoon, sunny spells in scotland and Northern Ireland with a few showers, blustery winds in northern scotland, still quite windy along the south coast but the winds will slowly be easing getting deeper into the day. The cold air is gradually winning out. Just the far southeast in the rain by the end of the afternoon, holding onto temperatures into the mid teens. The rain after a wet saturday evening, finally then pulls away here. Still a rash of showers overnight, pushing into scotland. Wintry on the hills. Clocks go back on saturday night. The end of british summertime. Nothing to do with the weather but appropriately enough going into sunday, it is the cold air and the chilly feel that has won out. That is a big change were it has been so wet for the past few days. So a colder start across the uk on sunday morning. We may see a touch of frost in places but this is the big difference of part two of the weekend. Still showers rattling to northern scotland and wintry on the hills. Maybe the odd exposed coast in england and wales. But for most places, it is looking notjust dry, but it is sunny as well. There will be a chilly breeze but you may like this sort of weather compared with we have had, lots of good visibility, a clean crisp air and temperatures into double figures, but they will not stay there too long. Dropping quickly again on sunday night. But a big change for part two of the weekend where it has been so very wet the past couple of days. Welcome to bbc news. Im duncan golestani. Our top stories six vietnamese families tell the bbc they fear their children are among those who were found dead in a lorry outside london. A day of deadly protests in iraq, as thousands demand jobs and an end to corruption. At least 40 people are killed across the country. 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