Morning briefing Thursday 24th September

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. This is Times Radio's morning briefing on Thursday 24th September. I'm Daryl Jackson. The Conservatives have promised to prevent long-term jobless benefit claimants from spending their welfare payments on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.

0:48Under the party's plans, claimants who've been unemployed for more than six months would see their universal credit cut by 30 % if they've not previously paid enough into the system despite being able to work. This reduced rate would then be paid onto a back-to-work card. Katie Searle, head of opinion and insight at the iPaper, told Times Radio how the card would work. Instead of receiving the reduced welfare payments, they would be given a card that would be used. You couldn't buy alcohol or cigarettes. And I think it's just one of those stories that is really going to chime with a lot of people.

1:23The US president welcomed China's presidency to America overnight as the pair are expected to discuss trade, geopolitics and AI over the next three days. The state visit kicked off with a red carpet military salute and a flyover. The meeting marks the second time the leaders have talked face to face this year. Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told Times Radio about the relationship. President Trump clearly either very much likes or is doing a good job pretending he very much likes General Secretary Xi. He consistently goes above and beyond in terms of praising him.

1:59The US-China relationship is more fundamentally not going that well. And so we're going to have this divergence between what President Trump says and what reality is. The Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has said AI leaders are warning about the technology's ability to do harm and we cannot ignore them. Anthropics Dario Amodi has said AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole if not managed properly. OpenAI boss Sam Altman says the technology is at the crossroads, as he acknowledged to the UN General Assembly that there is understandable anxiety about the industry. It doesn't matter whether people put their risk of catastrophe at 10 % or 1 % or 12 % or 0.1%.

2:38None of these levels are remotely acceptable. And we should not train models that we cannot make an extremely strong case that we'll be able to keep under human control. In the other direction, these systems could concentrate too much power in too few hands. No one person or company or country should be able to use the most powerful AI models to impose their worldview on everyone else. Three people have been charged with assaulting an emergency worker after a group of protesters gathered in Hampshire. It was ahead of the expected arrival of a boat carrying migrants in Gosport on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Home Secretary has ordered an urgent review after two migrant boats reached Kent in two days without being intercepted.

3:15John Vine, former chief inspector of Borders and Immigration, told Times Radio that the investigation is important. We need to find out what has actually happened in relation to these two boats. I think the juxtaposition of the fact that they're, you know, a couple of days apart makes me wonder whether this is a new tactic by the organised crime groups behind the people smuggling of people across the channel. Is it that? Was it a technical failure? Is it an intelligence failure? And why has it come about? And Andy Burnham will use his first Labour conference as party leader and prime minister to set out a new direction for the country.

3:51The Labour leaders said he will draw a line under the country's turbulent last 10 years since the Brexit vote. The conference begins in Liverpool on Sunday. And you can hear more on all of these stories throughout the day on Times Radio. This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere. In the news, in our hands, but return on investment, not so much. So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business? Strong foundations unlock AI's potential. That's why PwC takes you further with tech, strengthening the data quality, processes and workflows that shape how well AI performs.

4:47Hi, I'm Katie Prescott from the Times Tech Podcast. AI is already changing business and medicine, but could it also change the way we look after our own health? In a special episode in Paid Partnership with Vitality, we look at how AI, wearables and everyday health data could help shift healthcare. from treating illness to preventing it. Listen to the Times Tech podcast wherever you get your podcasts.