Should we trust tech titans to control AI?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:35If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business, remember this number, 10 ,000. That's the number of new businesses that join Odoo per month. Join Odoo today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and in the early hours of Wednesday 16th September, these are our main stories. Two conferences on AI reveal different views on how to control the technology. The US Defense Department confirms it's facing a shortage of precision weapons because of the war with Iran. And the authorities in Norway search the headquarters of the telecom operator Telenor for helping the military government in Myanmar.

1:30Also in this podcast, the tech giant Meta takes action after a BBC investigation found adverts for child abuse material on Instagram. Child rights bodies and government agencies have now been demanding that Meta needs to make its guardrails better and stop the material even before it's published on their platform. And the support acts for pop star Ed Sheeran walk out of his US tour in a row over pro-Palestinian comments. He rightfully said he's appalled by the conflict that's happening in the Middle East. At the same time, he's very apolitical for a reason. We start with a debate that's dominated the headlines over the last week.

2:16How safe is artificial intelligence? Two camps appear to have emerged offering conflicting views on how to deal with the fast developing technology. On one hand, there's a push for more regulations voiced at a conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday by the U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. He accused his congressional colleagues of being too slow to act on the risks posed by AI. Despite living in a so-called democracy, the public has had virtually no input into the AI revolution that is transforming the world in which they live. Congress, under both Democratic and Republican control, have been asleep at the wheel, and we now have a president whose ignorance regarding this issue is truly embarrassing.

3:13Just a few hours after that gathering, tech leaders and bosses were speaking at another AI conference in San Francisco. Some executives have themselves called for tougher regulations, including the boss of Anthropic, But others are hoping their businesses can carry on with few constraints. One of those is Yensen Huang, the chief executive of chipmaker NVIDIA. He told the conference that the market can regulate itself. If you build a product or a service and you're not confident in its functionality, capability or safety, then don't release it. And so that's a very obvious thing to do. You pace yourself until you are confident you're releasing something that the market would appreciate.

3:55The market forces are already there. We don't need any new laws. We don't need new regulations. Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, has also been speaking, admitting that the speed at which AI is developing is scary, but also urging the world to trust the AI industry to do the right thing. But can we? Our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali, told me what vision both camps have been laying out. They're pretty much staking the same positions that they already have. You have the very strange bedfellows in a progressive senator, an independent, but a very liberal Senator Bernie Sanders, coupled with the man who helped get Donald Trump elected in 2016, Steve Bannon, who is very conservative, joining forces in D.C.

4:43at that one conference saying we need regulation. These billionaires can't be trusted. And then on the other hand, here in California, I'm in Los Angeles, but up in San Francisco, the Dreamforce conference held by the company Salesforce, you heard AI leaders, people with the most skin in the game, pretty much singing from the same songbook, saying, we've got this, you can trust us. It was a shock earlier in the week to hear these predictions from senior people in the industry that there is a good chance, they say, of AI agents killing all humans within 10 years. How have people inside and outside the industry been digesting that news over the last week?

5:27Well, Jacob Coxon, the AI safety researcher who abruptly resigned from Anthropic, one of the leaders in the AI space right now, his resignation, I think, was really galvanizing in terms of starting a public dialogue that really has not existed in this way. Yes, we talk about AI, we talk about data centers, but I think the concept of human extinction at the hands of this technology is one that is only now starting to trickle into the more mainstream culture. And, you know, I was talking to a CEO at a different conference last week who told me that is very much the culture at that company, at Anthropic.

6:09There is, at least from where others sit, a doomer culture. They have marketed themselves as being safety first. And so the cynics will say, well, that's because that's a way of selling their product. But I will say, you know, Dario Amode, who started that company, he left OpenAI because he also felt that safety wasn't being centered in the development of the technology there, the maker of ChatGPT. So he goes off and co-founds this other company. And so I think that that view is maybe a little more common in Silicon Valley than the outside world might have known. And you've got the White House weighing in as well with President Trump calling warnings over AI a hoax.

6:52He's not looking to regulate the market at all. No, he's not. And that is because, you know, he's thinking about how do I bolster an economy that's not going his way right now for a multitude of reasons. But AI is one of the parts of the sunshine in that economic story. The one thing that may be propping this economy up more than anything else. So he has been very hands off. I think it's fair to say he's calling for basically an unfettered approach by these companies. And he's reiterated that view a number of times in the last couple of days since this debate really entered the mainstream. Because presumably he thinks that if he did regulate it, all that would happen is that the experts would just move to countries where they could continue being paid a fortune to do their work.

7:42Presumably. And I think there's also, you know, there are cynics who say, here's a president, he's 80 years old, who maybe doesn't understand the stakes of this technology all that well. I have heard that view from a number of sources. He also is framing this a very particular way to think about the US-China race, to position this as a race where the US must win at any cost. Lily Jamali. President Trump is prone to boasting about the US military of which he is commander in chief. The war with Iran has, according to him, shown it to be the greatest in the world. But a report by the Pentagon has revealed that rather than the US possessing almost unlimited munitions, as Mr Trump has insisted, the war has not only led to shortfalls but problems in resupplying arms.

8:33I heard more from our North America correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue. Well, the shortfall isn't really enumerated, but they do use the word strategic shortfall. Now, that is another military word for serious and long term and structural. And that suggests to me that there is more than a kind of temporary problem here. It's exacerbated also by these questions of resupply issues, these bottlenecks. We'd heard lots about that in various forums about the defence industrial base here not being able to keep up with producing enough missiles, rocket motors, those kinds of things. This had all, of course, been sort of denied and pushed back on by the White House, largely.

9:12The president himself said, you know, that they had more than enough at various points. But this gives a sort of an official stamp to those problems. And while, you know, most analysts here think, you know, they're not going to run out of material to fight Iran at any one time. The issue is, if something else happened, if another big front opened, another war started, you know, a war in the Indo-Pacific, for example, there'll be serious problems to the Americans being able to defend themselves. And we've seen other reports about how short they are on interceptors and things like that. How much of a problem is this for President Trump, particularly with the midterms coming up?

9:48I think it is a bit of an issue. I mean, it's worth saying that the White House has taken about 24 hours to respond to this Inspector General's report. And we've just had a line from them where there's some stuff you'd expect. And then the nub of it says the United States military has more than enough munitions, ammo and stockpiles to serve all of the commander in chief's strategic goals and beyond. Just pushing back directly against what is obviously an official report from the people who have access to the Pentagon inventories and files. So that doesn't really get us any further. But it does raise some serious questions about, you know, America's capacities.

10:29And, you know, the cost is continuing to rise. The last time we had a figure, this war was costing$37 billion. You know, these sorts of reports are not that easy to bat away because they're based on internal numbers, internal processes. They have the stamp of official, you know, they are a report from the administration. That is the issue. The watchdog for the Pentagon says there are these problems, that's very difficult to gainsay. Gary, the president always talks about the US military as the greatest in the world. This must be embarrassing. I think to some degree. I mean, you know, this is a war and you lose stuff in wars and you use stuff.

11:12The big challenge for the US military and other militaries like it is the sort of asymmetric nature of warfare now. So Iran can cause havoc and has caused a lot of havoc at various diplomatic facilities around the region, military bases too, with drones, for example, that don't cost all that much relatively in military terms. But the interceptors that bring them down and stop them doing more damage cost lots and lots more. And that is something that's developed in the last few years. We've seen that in Ukraine and Russia, for example, and that's something that big militaries like the US are having to come to terms with, that smaller states can make these larger militaries like the US spend a lot of money trying to contain any conflict.

11:59Gary O'Donoghue in Washington. In July, a BBCI investigation found that Instagram was running paid adverts promoting child sexual abuse material in India. The Indian government summoned representatives from the platform's owner, Meta, to explain themselves. Now, Meta has announced that it will report child safety cases directly to the Indian authorities instead of via the US, as it does now. Divya Arya carried out the original investigation. She told Oliver Conway what they found on Instagram. We saw ads that had clear messaging. They used terms like rape video, child video. Some ads featured very distressing content.

12:43We saw a young girl in distress. There was wording associated with the video that said that she had been assaulted. We saw teenagers in a sexual act together. So we saw a range of material that was being put out as paid ads on Instagram. And almost all of the ads we saw had links to the social media app Telegram, where this material could be purchased. That's what the ad was promising. And when we went on to those channels and Telegram, they were indeed saying that this kind of material, longer videos can be purchased for a very, very small price. We tried to report some of these ads. When we reported them as a user, they did not get taken down.

13:26But when we reached out to both Meta and Telegram as the BBC, they did admit that these were violating their policies and they took them down. Though they also said that they're doing a lot else to combat child sexual abuse material on their platforms and that criminals are responsible for abusing the platform. So what difference will it make now that Meta is going to report child safety issues directly to India? A lot, because time here is of essence. So the current practice that Meta is obliged, it talks about it quite prominently when it talks about its efforts to combat child sexual abuse material online, is that whenever it becomes aware of such material, it reports it to the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is a global hub, which then escalates relevant reports to national investigating authorities.

14:18I was speaking to the local cyber police in India today, and they said that central agency has tie-ups across the globe with different countries, but the amount of time it takes for a complaint to reach them and from them to the investigating authority can range from eight months to a year. And they've worked hard to bring that down to three months. But a direct reporting to a local investigative authority will really help in pushing things forward. However, Meta hasn't shared the details of when it's going to start doing that and what would be its process in reporting directly to Indian authorities.

14:52But at the same time, I want to point out that these are paid ads that we're talking about, unlike what you and I post as users. ads are approved by Meta's own moderation technology. So it becomes aware of what is being published as an advertisement on its platform much before somebody can flag it to them. And that is what a lot of child rights bodies and government agencies have now been demanding that Meta needs to make its guardrails better and stop the material even before it's published on their platform. Divya Arya in Delhi. The British singer Ed Sheeran is currently playing a number of venues in the United States, but the tour has hit controversy after one of his support acts, the rapper Macklemore, made pro-Palestinian comments at one of the shows in New Jersey.

15:43This is what he said. I wanted to stand up here on stages and stadiums across America and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart. Free Palestine.

16:02The remarks led to criticism from several Jewish groups and venue owners, leading to Macklemore being dropped from the tour. But his removal has led to its own backlash, with all Ed Sheeran's support artists on his US tour quitting. Among those who have dropped out in support of Macklemore are Phineas, singer, songwriter and brother of Billie Eilish. In a statement, Ed Sheeran said he wouldn't be drawn into a public debate over Israel's war in Gaza and stressed that he was not responsible for Macklemore being removed from the tour. Macklemore himself said he understood the difficult position Sheeran had been put in but criticised the English singer for not taking a stance.

16:45Shirley Halperin, the co-editor-in-chief at Rolling Stone magazine, told us more about the controversy. Macklemore defended his position and also he has been very outspoken about his advocacy for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. At the same time, he's also known for having made some anti-Semitic comments and he wore a prosthetic that people said was anti-Semitic. This was granted a long time ago. So, but yeah, what happened was that the backlash to his being on the tour was so loud that it apparently impacted the owners of these venues who, you know, got together and basically said, if Macklemore continues on this tour, the concerts cannot happen in these stadiums and we will be forced to cancel the tour, which kind of put Ed Sheeran in the untenable position of having to continue his tour.

17:46tour, knowing that the removal of Macklemore will gain as much backlash as his appearance there. So Ed Sheeran today posted like a six slide caption of his many feelings about the conflict, about what's happened. He rightfully said he's appalled by, you know, the conflict that's happening in the Middle East. At the same time, he's very apolitical for a reason. These are supposed to be shows about uniting and loving each other. And, you know, once you present one side of something that is very, very dramatic and triggering and emotional for people, you've kind of lost sight of the purpose of the concert.

18:30I think he tried to toe the line, but I think he's going to get just as much backlash for these comments as he did for the decision, which he says wasn't his, was purely the promoter's call. But where it doesn't really track is that some of these venues, and one in particular in Texas is hosting Kanye West, who has made incredibly offensive comments that are, you know, really like not, there's not even an argument they are anti-Semitic. He's being allowed to play these venues. So the inconsistency of the message is really, I think, confusing to people on both sides. Shirley Halperin from Rolling Stone magazine.

19:14Still to come in this podcast. I think it's an exercise that sends out a powerful message. We understand it has no legal binding. The village that wants to secede from the UK over plans to locate asylum seekers near their homes. and the US mother with a criminal conviction for letting her five-year-old son go for an unsupervised walk.

20:05www.feyyaz.tv Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more.

20:36And how to make smarter ones? Introducing Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join Wharton Professor Katie Milkman, an award-winning behavioral scientist and author of the best-selling book How to Change, as she shares true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes and everyday people about why we do the things we do and how to make better choices to help avoid costly mistakes. Each episode covers the latest research in behavioural science and dives into themes like the power of self-control, shaping your mindset for success, navigating new beginnings and why starting over can feel so hard.

21:19Listen to choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen.

21:28This is the Global News Podcast. Telecom firms usually like to prevent the private details of their users from being passed to the authorities. But earlier this year, Telenor Myanmar, a Norwegian company operating in Myanmar, was accused of sharing sensitive personal data with the Burmese military that had taken over the country. Now, the authorities in Norway have searched Telenor's headquarters as part of an investigation into the release of this personal data. Our global affairs reporter, Anbarasan Etirajan, told me more. Telenor is a very major Norwegian telecom company. They have operations across the world in many countries, and one of them was in Myanmar, where in 2013 they started Telenor Myanmar.

22:15At that time, the country was in transition to democracy, and soon they emerged as one of the biggest players. At one point, they had nearly 18 million customers in Myanmar. Now, in 21 February, a military coup happened. And according to some of the activists from Myanmar, they were accusing this company of handing over data, users' data, particularly information about pro-democracy activists. They were being hunted by the military junta. Their addresses, their call locations, last seen where, and call logs as well. and many of the datas were handed over to the Myanmar authorities. It was about 1 ,200 people whom the military junta was focusing on.

23:03And the activists say one of the main government opponent and lawmaker, Fio Zeya Tha, he was arrested and executed. A class action suit was filed by a Swedish non-profit called the Justice and Accountability Initiative. Based on that, the Norwegian authorities today raided the headquarters of Teleno. And also they've launched an investigation into suspected complicity of crimes against humanity by helping the Myanmar authorities. These are incredibly serious allegations. Surely this company knows what's expected of it as an international player. Why would, if they did, why would its employees have even considered doing this.

23:47Now, that was the time of big upheaval in Myanmar. And whenever a military takes over in a country like Myanmar, it was very tough for the local people. And that's what the was saying in a statement, that they risked death penalty or imprisonment and also death threats the local employees were facing for not handing over this data. And they had no other alternative than giving such data whenever the authorities were asking because it was compromising the security of the staff. Anbarasan Etterrajan. Trains have been severely disrupted in the Netherlands after suspected sabotage to the tracks. Police said metal pipes and other objects had been found attached to tracks in more than 30 locations, triggering warning signals.

24:36The disruptions were allegedly caused by farmers who oppose government plans to enforce reduced nitrogen emissions. A farmers' group denied responsibility but said it could not rule out individuals acting on their own. Our Europe correspondent Nick Beek has more details. Early services were cancelled as the Dutch Rail Network detected unexpected weight on the tracks in dozens of locations in mostly central and eastern parts of the Netherlands. These were not trains but metal pipes, some two metres long, that had been attached to the rails, triggering red lights. International services to Germany were among those disrupted.

25:17The acts of sabotage came hours before the opening of Parliament, which often attracts some form of protest. A group representing Dutch farmers said its members had started fires near roads and railway lines, but denied they had carried out sabotage on the tracks. The government's budget plans have sparked widespread protest in recent months, including from farmers who argue they are being unfairly blamed for nitrogen pollution. The Dutch intelligence agency, AIVD, said it was now investigating alongside police and prosecutors. Nick Beak. How much immigration is acceptable is an issue that many countries around the world are grappling with at the moment, including Britain.

26:02And in Piddington, a village in the English county of Oxfordshire, residents have come up with a novel way to show their displeasure at a plan to house asylum seekers in a disused military base nearby. They've held a referendum to secede from the UK. This independence vote has no basis in law, but it does show the anti-immigration feeling among some British people. Our correspondent Duncan Kennedy spent the day there. Piddington is now at the centre of a very modern chapter of British life. People have been voting all day in their own referendum. They want independence from the UK so they can block plans to house asylum seekers nearby.

26:47Probably good. I'm just going to go in now. Voting by post and in person at the village hall has been brisk all day. Done. You don't think it's a futile exercise because it has no legal binding? I think it's an exercise that sends out a powerful message. We understand it has no legal binding. The village, with a population of around 350 people, is just half a mile from this disused military base where the Home Office want to house 1 ,250 asylum seekers. The camp was used for storage. The only people here today were the security guards filming us. The referendum voting slip asks if people want to succeed from the UK.

27:31It has no legal basis, but villagers say it is symbolic. It's just really hard to see that many people that are unvetted and you just don't know who they are. It's just the sheer scale of it. They're putting these people everywhere. They shouldn't do it. It's disgraceful. They've got to wake up and smell the coffee and not kick a can down the road, which everyone's been doing. We are the women of Piddington. The villagers have even made their own campaign videos to get their message across. In a statement, the Home Office said, we are working fairly to house asylum seekers across the country, including former military sites, which are designed to be self-contained.

28:14We did try to find somebody in the village not voting for independence, but there weren't any. It may only be a paper exercise, but it reflects the views of this community and many others around the country, even if it is unlikely that anyone will ever need a passport to Piddington. Duncan Kennedy. Finally, how far would you let children take a walk alone? Some parents wouldn't let them out of their sight, but Carrie-Anne Parkinson felt certain that her five-year-old son, Sam, would be safe taking a walk by himself along a paved trail they knew well in the gated community where they live in the US state of Virginia.