Im stephen sackur. Wherever you live, however you live, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, is going to change your life in the next few years. Will it be for the better . Well, there are Tech Visionaries with very different views some benign, others, dystopian. But on one thing, the futurists can agree what will matter most to the outcome isnt The Machines, its the humans. My guest, neil lawrence, is a professor of Machine Learning who says we face a choice. Either we use alas a tool or we will become a tool for al. So, which is more likely . Neil lawrence, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much for having me. Its a great pleasure to have you. Now, you are a computer scientist, but it seems to me, as youve journeyed deep into the potentiality of Artificial Intelligence, youve also thought a great deal about Human Intelligence and what is so very special and unique about us humans. Can you try to put that into words . Yeah, i think, for me, what weve seen with a lot of the artificial Intelligence Debate has been a sort of naturally narcissistic in tendency to think about our intelligence. And what i think it does is offers the opportunity to introspect about our intelligence, to stand in a different place, to look at a different type of Information Processing, that thats done by a computer, and use our understanding of that, which we built and created, so we understand it, to look back and think about whats special about us. Is intelligence the right word to use when it comes to discussing what machines can do in this digital, data driven era . Its a really good question, and my mind changes a little bit about it either way. I think the problem with the word is we tend to think of intelligence as something very particular to us. And the nature of Machine Intelligence is nothing to do with us. So, if we want to use the Word Intelligence for machines, then i think theres a question about, well, should we use the Word Intelligence for our ecology, which is also an Information Processing ecosystem . And we dont tend to do that unless were sort of doing animistic practices. So i think thats a really important question, goes to the heart of the debate, because i think people are confused by its use when were talking about machines. You have caused quite a stir with this book, the atomic human. Its subtitled understanding ourselves in the age of ai, and what i find so interesting about it, and were going to get deep into ai in a minute, butjust to stick with Human Beings for a second, is that you talk about, quote, the immense cognitive power of the Human Brain, and yet you also point out that the Human Brain is utterly inadequate to compete with the computer when it comes to conveying, processing information. Try and explain to me how you can both describe us as having this immense cognitive ability, and yet, in some ways, be quite useless. Yeah, its to do with the physics. So, our brain is using neurons, which use electricity to compute. And its an extraordinary, extraordinary entity. I mean, i dont want to call it a machine. Its beyond our best understanding at the moment. And it uses electricity. Now, that comes from our evolution of animals, which first used electricity to move, and a multicellular organism, which has each cell, which probably on its own is thinking, im a little cell well, its not thinking. They become coordinated through these electrical signals. Now, when i communicate with another human, i have to use sound waves. Now, the Speed Of Sound is, roughly speaking, A Million times slower than the speed of light. And that means that the rate of communication i can do with another human is roughly A Million times slower. And you break it down to bits of information. And you quantify, in any given minute of human speech, how many bits of information we can convey to another. And you compare that with how a computer talking to another computer can convey, immeasurably, more bits of information in that same minute. So, what roughly is the ratio . Well, depending on whether youre talking about ten gigabit or one gigabit internet, but basically 300 Million times faster. Right which is why, when it comes to our discussion today, which is going to be about Big Data and algorithms and how one can use immense, unimaginably large data sets to perform all sorts of tasks through algorithms, the human Being Cant compete. Well, its interesting. I wouldnt say we cant compete, but we can be easily manipulated by something that we wouldnt think of as intelligent. Theres certainly tasks that we do a lot better than The Machine, but The Machine is doing many things in a very different way. So, even when we think, oh, its doing something relatively simple, likejust looking at our data and choosing whether or not we like certain posts, classic Machine Learning algorithms, it can manipulate us because it sees us in a very different way to the way we see Each Other. Again, philosophically speaking, much of the way in which Human Beings convey meaning to Each Other isnt based on words at all. Its based on many different forms of expression. You could think of art and the way we convey meaning through paint or music. One could think of the facial expressions that, through socialisation, weve learned to invest with great meaning. Are those powers that are really important, do you think, to the way we shape the next century, Living Alongside these Machine Learning devices . Well, i want to be careful about Living Alongside, because i dont quite know what we mean by that. They should be tools that are operating under our guidance, but even that is a difficult question to answer, what does that look like . Because they are Making Decisions that are often beyond our conception. And those decisions could be things that go in ways that are not the decisions we would make if we brought our context to it. And i think the point you made about theres so much to us that is different from The Machine, in terms of, like, were here physically. I mean, how much more, how much different is it for you, even if youre not doing this on zoom to be together in the studio . Youre right. Fundamentally different. And so, how much different is it when the thing youre discussing with doesnt even have a bodily form . Im very aware that you are different from some other leaders in this sort of tech debate, because you do not take what i might call a sort of Doomsday Approach to the future. There are many eminent thinkers, like geoff hinton, who i imagine you probably know, who used to work at google. He quit. Hes a professor of computer science. He believes that al represents an existential threat to humanity. Elon musk has said that he believes that agi, as he puts it, that is artificial General Intelligence, will supersede the intelligence of all of Human Beings within, he says, a year. You dont seem to share these views and these fears. Well, that would require a Rankable Definition of intelligence, and we dont have that. Intelligence is a multifaceted thing. We cant simply rank it in that way. In fact, the idea that we can rank intelligence is fundamentally eugenic. It comes from the eugenicists, and the term General Intelligence comes from eugenics. So i think we have to be very careful with that, because its the same form of thinking that the eugenicists participated in when they said, oh, we could breed more intelligent people by measuring the intelligence of people. Intelligence is nothing like that. So, the idea of an artificial General Intelligence would be like, whats the artificial general vehicle . Whats the best vehicle for all tasks . It does everything better than all other vehicles. This is a ridiculous notion. The vehicle you would like to use is dependent on the circumstance, and in intelligence, unless we define the context, the right form of Intelligence Cant be defined. So the word is more like beauty, in that we all have a sense of what it is, but actually we cant say much more about it other than our sense. We cant define it from first principles. What matters most to you in the Here And Now of the Development And Deployment of Artificial Intelligence . I think were in a very difficult situation, where people are being told that this technology is too complex for them to understand, that they shouldnt be worrying about it, that only certain people, only certain companies, should be controlling this technology, and ifind that horrific. You mean you are seeing the rise of sort of Monopolistic Tech Oligarchs who are, in a sense, telling The Public, dont worry about it, well offer you services that you wont understand, but believe us, theyre in your best interest . And theyre gaining mindshare with governments. Of course, theyre only doing it in their. Thats their objective to, as i think Satya Nadella said, capture the ai market. But we know that the history of that, this is one of the most important changes that has occurred, certainly in 500 years since the printing press, but we can go back to 5,500 years, the development of writing. We are talking about a fundamental change in which the way we share information between Each Other, and were talking about a small group of people who are saying, you regular people, you dont understand this, let us look after it for you, and there is no Track Record of those entities doing this well. If we look at the history, these companies, they do not have a good understanding of how society works. They do not have a good understanding of the things that are most important to people, such as health, Social Care, education, security. Im struggling to square what youve just said with the fact that, for three years, very recently, you went off to work for amazon, one of the biggest Ai And Big Data corporations in the world. Why do you struggle to square that . Well, youve just described to me your deep mistrust of the agenda of. You didnt name amazon, but when you talked about the technocracy, im imagining amazon would be up there as one of the key members of the technocracy. Well, i think increasingly, because theyre increasingly moving away from their core business, which is selling directly to customers and putting customers first, where those customers are directly aligned with the purchase of a product, and theyre more getting in the business of selling to other businesses or advertising, and as these businesses. If i may interrupt, i mean, they are one of the greatest owners of data on individual consumers in the whole world today. I mean, again, imjust struggling to see how you can be so worried and fearful of these biggest global Tech Companies, and yet go off and work for one. Because you have to understand these systems if youre going to understand how to intervene, and the first level of understanding, and one of the areas i worked in predominantly was amazons Supply Chain and the possibilities for benefit through better organisation of Supply Chain, particularly when you start realising, well, Supply Chain of goods is similar to Supply Chain of availability of staff in hospitals. So, the same sets of algorithms that allow you to efficiently move goods Around The World could also allow you to more efficiently deploy nurses and doctors. So, if you want to understand the problems that come up, you have to work with these companies. Ive also worked with oil companies, you know, and understood whats going on in terms of how we extract oil. But im also worried about the climate. I think its not a healthy world where we totally disassociate ourselves from these companies. Theres very many well meaning people in these businesses. Well, do you think politicians, who, in oursystem, ultimately make the rules that the big Tech Companies have to abide by, do you think politicians have been naive in the way theyve approached this challenge of how best to control, regulate, make accountable Big Tech . I think its, part of being a politician is an extremely difficultjob, and i think a lot of it. Were so lucky in the uk that we have really good advice structures to support the politicians. But, of course, this isntjust a uk issue. It isnt, and imjust, again, looking at something you said, a sort of Siren Statement of yours society is indulgent of companies, that is the big Tech Companies that are using ai, in the way that parents are indulgent of children. We allow companies to do things that we would never let other public institutions get away with. You know, as you look Around The World, do you see that still being a profound problem . Thats a deep problem, isnt it . I mean, its extraordinary, when companies do the most basic of things, like, oh, weve opened a Research Centre in nairobi, they expect us to all cheer them as if theyve suddenly become the most saintly thing, like a child, and its because we have a somehow a moral exception around companies. We dont expect them to behave like we would expect a civil institution to behave. But we also want them to generate economic wealth. I mean, you know, if you imagine a politician in the united states or the uk, they dont want to impose a set of rules on a company at the Cutting Edge of ai, which that company might well argue would dampen down their desire to innovate, to be entrepreneurial, to push the boundaries of the technology, you know, because then they would say, we might go work somewhere else. Absolutely. But theres a sort of confusion about this space. This is one of these subtleties. So, the uks policy is actually pro innovation and one i greatly support. But pro Innovation Isnt like pro very large companies that dominate the ecosystem and prevent small players entering. The Way Market economics works is if im a doctor or a teacher and i have a good idea about how to use al to benefit patients or my colleagues, that i should be able to enter the market with that idea, and thats not the situation. Weve got a situation where digital markets are dominated by a few very large players, and government has already recognised this. So, one of the sort of extraordinary things that happened just before the election came to be, 24th of may, the digital Markets Competition and Consumer Act got passed, almost unreported in the wider press. This is one of the most important acts because its trying to address that problem, which is a problem of how Market Economics Works in the digitised era, with these information passing. As you point out, we do have laws and regulations. The eu has begun implementation of its Ai Act as well. We see that, but you go beyond that. Youve come up with this idea of Data Trusts, that peoples data, which, in a sense, is one of the most important things they own in this digital world, it should be handled in a way which they are fully aware of. There is transparency. They know what happens to their data. Theres accountability for their data. Is this world of Data Trusts ever going to happen . I hope so. Its a difficult thing to introduce because it involves educating people about how their data is being used. And it undermines the commercial principles on which so many big Tech Companies are Making Gazillions of dollars� worth of profit. It undermines data monopolies. I mean, i think that the analogy i think of most often is its the feudal system we have with data right now, where the data. So, in fact, in data protection law, we are data subjects, and the Data Controller is kind of like a feudal lord who controls that data on our behalf. But theres an asymmetry of Power And Knowledge that means that we dont understand when theyre making errors, and we struggle to hold them to account. So, the notion of a Data Trust is that we sort of democratise that, by having people, trained people, professionals, who look after that data on our behalf and do that negotiation with those companies and have what we call undivided loyalty to the data subjects. As we deepen and develop our ai capabilities, do you actually who look after that data on our behalf and do that undivided loyalty to the data subjects. As we deepen and develop our ai capabilities, do you actually want to see the huge global tech corporates, the dominant players in this field, certainly in the western world, do you want to see them broken up . I think thats not something that i understand whether its the right action. I think what is much more interesting is the recent legislation thats come in, which has this notion of strategic Market Status. So, strategic Market Status is, im not a deep expert on it, but its a situation where if a company is dominating in one digital market sector, they become subject to particular regulatory provisions. Now, it might not be the right solution to break them up, and who knows . Because, actually, you have to be. What we have to do is support our regulators in getting an understanding of what the right interventions are, an understanding of how these things are affecting the markets, which can reflect the speed at which these companies are deploying new technologies. Most of this conversation has essentially been in the context of a sort of western world and a democratic form of governance. Now, sam altman, ceo of 0penai, he posits a sort of binary conflict going forward, which is, as he puts it, between democratic ai and authoritarian ai, and he worries that, from Vladimir Putin in russia to xijinping in china, there are authoritarian leaders who are piling State Power and resources into ai development, which may well outpace and overwhelm the private sector in the western world. Do you have those same fears or not . Its a really important question, but the answer thats being given, that we fight autocracy of the state with autocracy of companies, is not a very good one. So, the idea that the way we fight fire is with fire of our own, that is taking things, decisions that should be given to the people, shared, discussed, co created solutions, we take that away and we give it to large companies to decide, is a very depressing prospect, because if you give me the choice between states that are run by corporations or states that are run by governments, autocratically, im not sure which i prefer. Isnt there also a complacency to the argument, because it sort of suggests that democracies and State Power in democracies will handle ai with great responsibility, when often times we cant be sure of that at all. I mean, imjust thinking of one particular example. Its just come out of argentina, where the new government of president Javier Milei has created what he calls an Ai Security unit, which the argentinian state says will use Machine Learning, and this is the quote, To Analyse Crime Data and predict future crime. Now, you can imagine all sorts of ways in which that might be abused. Yeah, i mean, its a. Its a, its a deep worry, and of course, our Data Protection Legislation that exists today is not initially inspired by what companies might do with data, but by peoples fears of what states might do with data, coming out of what was going on in East Germany and the stasi. So, these laws are there to protect us, notjust from large companies, but from our own governments, but the situation we have at the moment is that our government, in trying to deliver services in the most difficult areas in society, the areas, so called Wicked Problems, health, education, Social Care, these challenging problems, is somehow stymied in its deployment of these technologies, because they cant bring data together in which, in the same ways that these companies have. Indeed, in the pandemic, we saw situations where these companies had data about movement of people within the wider population, which our governments had to buy back to understand the way in which the lockdowns were affecting the progress of the pandemic and us, economically. Perhaps, to some, counter intuitively, you seem to be saying that some of the clearest benefits that can be gleaned from Artificial Intelligence at the Moment Lie in those countries which, in many ways, are least economically developed, least infrastructure developed, and you look particularly at africa. Why do you believe that in africa there is so much potential for al to make a difference now . Because when we go to africa, and i work with colleagues on the ground, you can engage people instead of corporations. So were working directly with farmers, directly with health centres, Building Systems that go all the way from the Farmers Field to the ministry of agriculture, looking at what peoples problems are and trying to tailor solutions for them. Now, im not saying that all It Work in africa is of that nature. But you have a capable population of people, empowered by a very fast mobile phone network. The availability of smartphones for around 60, which is about the price of a bicycle. So, out of the reach of most people, but within reach of many people, and this is transformational when you think about those Wicked Problems of health, Social Care and education, that africa desperately needs support on. I said at the beginning that, despite all of our excitement about the massive and rapid development of ai, that what matters most isnt the technology, it is still the humans and what sits here, in between our ears. If you think about that, does that make, and with all of your thinking about our Human Intelligence, does that make you optimistic about the way we are going to use ai . I am optimistic because, despite all these problems, despite all the people who are trying to make a buck or getting in the way or dont understand the systems, in this country in particular, there are many good people who have spent decades not trying to earn fortunes at google, but working hard to get the right understanding in place, and that understanding is there with our government. And, overtime, people will notice it. But who has the power them or the people at google . Well, thats the difficulty, isnt it . Government likes to celebrate their relationship with Big Tech. They see it as a way of demonstrating that theyre up with the Cutting Edge. But the people they have around the table, i know full well are totally disempowered in their own companies. These are The Public policy leads from the uk, people who dont even get a look in in the boardrooms in silicon valley, where the real decisions have been made, and ive been in those rooms and ive seen how those decisions are made. These are good companies, in many respects, and they can bring many benefits, but we must not lose control to them about what we would like for our future, and, as the uk, we have the possibility to lead the world in what that future looks like in a way that is not just about Techno Solutionism in silicon valley, but is about a better society for different places all across the world. Neil lawrence, its been fascinating. Thank you forjoining me on hardtalk. Thank you, stephen. Thank you very much. Hello there. Wiggonholt in West Sussex was the countrys hot spot on sunday, with temperatures hitting 30 degrees celsius, making it the hottest day of september so far. Not that were very far into the month, of course. There was plenty of sunshine for East Anglia and south east england, but rather cloudy skies for some turned quite murky here in mousehole in cornwall. Weve also seen showers and thunderstorms break out. This clump of storms that went through the North West midlands earlier brought 14mm of Rain Injust the space of one hour, and over the next few hours, those heavy downpours will continue to drive northwards across Northern England and into scotland as well. Probably another batch of Heavy Rain then developing behind that into parts of wales. All the while it will stay quite warm and muggy. Well, that takes us into monday and monday is dominated by low pressure. Were expecting showers or some longer spells of rain. The heaviest downpours will be across Northern England and scotland. Probably some thunderstorms mixed in so there could be some localised surface water flooding. Bit of Rain Crosses Northern Ireland brighter from western counties later in the afternoon. Probably quite murky around some of our Irish Sea coasts. Maybe staying dry across East Anglia and south east england, where it will continue to feel quite humid and very warm. Now beyond that, as we head into tuesday, eventually were going to start to get northwesterly winds moving back across the country, and they will bring fresher air and some slightly lower temperatures as well. Now, tuesday will probably start off with some bits and pieces of rain, probably murky weather for some across eastern areas to clear out of the way. Then some sunshine. A few showers followed to scotland, Northern Ireland and maybe one or two for the North West of both england and wales. Temperatures 18 to 21. Feeling fresher, pleasant in the sunshine from wednesday onwards, though, theres a lot of uncertainty in the weather forecast. Two scenarios. One is that we continue to see showers work into northwestern areas, with the driest weather across the South And East of the uk, where weve got a ridge of high pressure in this scenario. Wednesday, thursday, Friday Temperatures wouldnt change very much. High teens to low 20s. A pleasant spell of weather for many. However, there is a different scenario where the Weather Patterns get completely flipped on their head in this second scenario. The driest weather would end up being to the North West of the uk, and instead towards the southeast. We could end up seeing low Pressure Form and wet and windy weather moving in. So theres a lot of uncertainty. Dont be surprised if the forecast changes then over the next few days. Welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, im steve lai. The headlines Tens Of Thousands take to the streets across israel, demanding a Hostage Release Deal with hamas. Unions call a general strike for monday. The protests follow the recovery of the bodies of six hostages held by hamas in the gaza strip. They should have come back alive, they could have come back alive. We need a deal now. Germanys far right afd party is on course to win its first regional election since the second world war. Pope francis sets off on a tour of asia beginning with a visit to indonesia, the worlds most populous muslim majority country. And exclusive footage reveals more about the wreck� s slow decay. Welcome to bbc News Broadcasting to viewers in the uk and Around The World. Trade unions in israel have called for a general strike on monday to try to force the government to reach a Hostage Release Deal with hamas. It comes as the Israeli Army says its recovered the bodies of six hostages who were taken during the attacks of 7th october. The families of hostages had pushed for the strike after the Israeli Army found the bodies of six hostages in a tunnel in rafah. The military said they were killed by hamas shortly before troops arrived. A Hamas Official denied this, saying they were killed by israeli fire