AI vs The Knowledge

18:13Sean Farrington:Ali, alongside that bit of chat about the economy and there's plenty about immigration, geopolitical issues as well as we heard in that minute and a half there was also Donald Trump very much responding to the decision by the US Supreme Court last week to say that all those tariffs that were announced last year or many of them were illegal and how Donald Trump has responded What have you learned from the response, your former UK government trade advisor yourself, when you see how Donald Trump and his administration are approaching tariffs now in the last few days? What do you make for that?

18:52Trump:Well, there's a couple of interesting points. I mean, some of the things in the clip that you aired are actually certainly correct in the sense that Donald Trump does not think that Congress needs to get involved. The irony of that in terms of codifying the tariffs that were sort of being set by the White House. Now, technically, that's what the Supreme Court actually found is that it is the preserve of Congress. But he's also right in saying that there are other sort of statutes that he can use that are sort of tried and tested. So, for example, there's been a lot of sectoral tariffs. So if you think of some of the tariffs on steel, on aluminium, on cars and the sort of the planned sort of action on things like pharmaceuticals, those weren't actually touched by the Supreme Court.

19:33Trump:And so he intends to use a lot more of that going forward. On the other hand, he's also very correct to say that it's messy. And I think just to sort of the points being made earlier, it's really uncertain. And if you talk to a lot of importing businesses, they can weather the storm for the next couple of months in terms of the temporary framework that's being put in place, this universal 10 percent baseline. But it's what happens thereafter, the constant chopping and changing. I mean, that's what sort of stymies everything from investment decisions to hiring decisions when you don't know if you're going to have to sort of suddenly shunt a whole bunch of stocks sort of sent early, let's say, over to the US to sort of get brought in from abroad to get ahead of sort of any potential tariff changes.

20:12Trump:It's just constant uncertainty for business.

20:15Sean Farrington:And let's have a look at how that might be having a ripple effect into businesses right around the UK who've had 24 hours or so to digest the latest moves in tariffs from Donald Trump, which were that there would be a 10 % tax on imports when they arrive into the United States. It wasn't the 15 just yet, at least. That's the threat that he was talking about over the weekend. But yesterday morning, it ended up being 10%. We've had the British Trade Minister, Peter Kyle, telling a parliamentary committee that he was confident a trade deal struck last year with the US would still stand. William Boehm with us now who is from the British Chamber of Commerce, that one, Head of Trade Policy there.

20:55Sean Farrington:Morning, William. Good morning. Now, what has been the reaction of British businesses in the last 24 hours to the tariffs developments? In fact, can we nudge it even more than 24 hours? It might be the last 48 hours where there might have been some thinking that there was a 15 % tariff coming in and then it ended up being a 10 % tariff.

21:17Trump:well i think there's a certain amount of dismay um exasperation in some quarters about uh just the lack of any certainty at all i mean we've become used in the last year to seeing fluctuation in tariff policy but you know what we've seen over the last week even by those standards has been particularly strong fluctuation so um look companies will you know look to the long-term arrangements that they've made with clients and customers in the US. They want to sustain those. But what we have now is much more uncertainty than we had a week ago. And the risk in terms of much greater use of sectoral tariffs, but even potentially in-country tariffs, varying by country, Section 301 tariffs, that's going to make the climate for business even worse in terms of exports of goods.

22:09Sean Farrington:Now, we've been hearing that word section and followed by a number quite a bit. in in recent days i mean in in recent years as well with all the the tariff chat picking up can you just explain when when you hear when those that aren't running a business that necessarily makes a product that might be classified under something like this what is that really all about the different sections when we talk about tariffs well it's maybe a bit easier for those of us who

22:34Trump:have got a legal legal background and and in trade but for for businesses you know that are just trying to maximise their orders, grow their order base, you know, this is all very, very difficult. So, you know, what we've got in place at the moment for the next 150 days are new tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act, 1974. And this is the 10 % rate that is on top of the most favoured nation tariffs. So, for example, if you're exporting woolen jumpers to the United States, Your tariffs, 22 percent, not 10 percent, whereas for things like scotch whiskey, it is 10 percent. And the risk is there, very real risk still.

23:18Trump:And the noises coming from the administration yesterday don't think we're not doing the 15 percent. So we could see that at some point in the next few weeks come in. And then, you know, when we roll over to kind of the end of July, those tariffs could expire unless they are renewed by Congress. and then potentially by that point the president could have these other tools at his disposal you know section 301 tariffs looking at the overall trade policy of individual countries and tariffing all goods from those countries in accordance with the judgment that he's made so in terms of the UK things like digital services tax or viewing food regulation product standards all of those could be used to look at what the tariff on UK goods should be.

24:05Trump:So that is the huge uncertainty here. Congress involved potentially in the renewal, many more moving parts, and for both government and business and business organisations, much more complexity in how to navigate this.

24:18Sean Farrington:William, when there's a certain amount of uncertainty, well not a certain amount, an amount of uncertainty that we've had with a specific issue like this and what the US is doing with tariffs now for so long businesses and people running them will will start to make decisions to try and get around that won't they have you seen is it a diversification are they looking to trade elsewhere in the world change the products what what's actually happening so i mean you've had

24:47Trump:two things really happen one is um you have these roller coaster effects where one month our exports are quite strong to the US, double-digit growth, and in the next month you're seeing double-digit decline. So people are looking at getting stock in and out of the United States to try and get ahead of some of these tariff waves. But if things change so quickly, you've got much less scope to do that. We are seeing companies say that they're looking to diversify, they're looking more to European markets and also to the Indo-Pacific market, the fastest-growing area in the world right now, economically, but also where there are new UK trade deals.

25:27Trump:Remember, we could be seeing that UK-India trade deal coming on stream by mid-summer, potentially a deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council that's worth quite a bit to the UK economy. China, of course, in terms of both goods and increasingly services. So there is very much a sense that the prudent thing for companies to do in this climate is to diversify and hedge their export risk across a range of global regions

25:56Sean Farrington:now william ali just before i say farewell to you this morning i'm just going to go through a few of the messages that we've had about the world of driverless taxes in particular on autonomous vehicles big story this morning that uh uk tech startup already a very fast growing one uh wave self-driving software is what it uh is what it makes has had a big amount Big amount of investment it's announcing this morning, making it worth more than many of the companies on our FTSE 100 share index that we talk about every day. But these developments about what they want to do with this software on the roads of the UK in particular.

26:32Sean Farrington:Pat in Gloucester said, how are the elderly supposed to put their rollators and bags in and out of the boot of a driverless taxi? Another Wendy getting in touch. The problem with any self-driving vehicle is someone has to program its moral compass so it knows what it's doing in an emergency, in unexpected situations. It's the decision of who what to potentially crash into what it is faced with in that scenario. Love the technology and I use lane assist and previously used adaptive cruise control, which is a form of self-driving. The technology I have no problem with. It's the programming and moral compass that's the issue, says Wendy.

27:10Sean Farrington:And others getting in touch as well. Mark from the Fens, big question that I'm keen to ask as well, Mark. Will autonomous cars be programmed to avoid potholes? Fen roads are in an awful state following years of underinvestment. That does seem, as some of the coverage reflects this morning, that that is a difference between the UK and perhaps San Francisco, Los Angeles, where there's been big moves to use some of these robo-taxis. Ali, have you had any experience of getting in one, or do you follow this particular innovation and advancement with interest?

27:43Trump:I've not done it myself, but I think that there are, you know, for all the sort of similarities that people like to talk about between the US and the UK and as a dual national of both myself, I think there's cultural appetites for risk that are different in both jurisdictions. So I'm not surprised that there's a little bit more headway being made towards it, not just in terms of business innovation, but in terms of sort of consumer appetite for this in the States.

28:07Sean Farrington:Interesting. And William, from your perspective, you know, others, many are getting in touch saying driverless taxis, maybe I'm the wrong demographic, but I hate the idea of destroying someone else's livelihood. And for what? Is that question filtered through at all in British business? You know, there's innovation versus actually what are the consequences of it?

28:27Trump:I mean, it's incredible to think we're still less than 20 years since the invention of the iPhone, in which we now do all of our banking. How many of us go into our local bank branch these days? So technology has transformed our lives in terms of that respect. And this is likely to come as well. I mean, working from home, doing online meetings. I mean, even 10, 12 years ago, this is something that would never have happened. So I think once the technology is there, the key thing is about getting the right regulatory structures in place. But, you know, clearly there's going to be a push towards this.

29:04Trump:We're hearing about, you know, driverless tube trains as well. Where it's safe to do so and the consumer can be adequately protected, you can see that this is going to be something that is going to grow in the very near future. And this is what governments are going to get right. the regulatory structures that allow innovation and growth. The UK is very strong in this sector, a real global leader in this, but ensuring that there's enough protection for the public.

29:33Sean Farrington:And what about Ford workers as well, William? Is that anything that is under consideration by you guys at the British Chambers of Commerce, given that clearly it's going to disrupt industries are there any concerns that it is removing certain type of jobs and not necessarily creating the ones that would enable a smooth path for those that are having to think about

29:59Trump:career changes because of it yeah well look i mean our key view is that you know ai is a massive benefit to the economy um and the potential that we're encouraging we have an ai academy where we're encouraging SMEs to get trained up, get workers properly skilled on how to use this. And what we're finding is when they are undergoing that training, it's producing actually massive benefits in terms of productivity, being able to grow their business. So I think really the sweep of human history tells us trying to stand in the way of new technology is not the answer. It's about mastering those trends, learning, getting the skills, and seizing the opportunities.

30:43Sean Farrington:William Bain from the British Chamber of Commerce. Thank you, Ali. Good to talk to you, Ali Renison, consultant at SEC Newgate. More to come from Catherine as well as we delve into the world of driverless taxis, driverless cars, autonomous vehicles, the software needed behind it as well. We've got one of those leading investors in this story that we're talking about this morning on the show. What is it that they're interested in? Where's the world headed? We've got cabbie drivers as well joining us. We're going to hear from them. We're going to speak to people running a fleet of them as well. The consequences for that industry.

31:20Sean Farrington:Answering some of the questions that you have as well. I see another one's just come in about potholes. There's a lot of love for the concept of the idea, but maybe not so much love for how it might actually be used and carried out and its success. So that's the upsum so far. Do let me know what you're thinking. 85058. Are you up for driverless taxis, robo-taxis, autonomous vehicles, potentially everywhere on our roads in the not-so-distance?

31:52Trump:This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

32:08Sean Farrington:It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.

32:15Trump:And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

32:25Future.

32:54Sean Farrington:Wake Up To Money with Sean Farrington. plenty getting in touch about this. We've had another about potholes. Every road out of the small Devon town I live in has potholes. Would love to see a robo-taxi navigate in and out. These AI companies should go and do something useful to mankind. It's interesting as I read around this wave technology that they're using, this company wave. The reason we're talking about this this morning is because this British startup out of Cambridge has raised a lot of money, more than a billion pounds. This time, a lot of it from car makers for the first time as well, backing its innovations in the software behind driverless vehicles.

33:35Sean Farrington:And as you have a deeper dive into this, when we've talked about Wave and heard from Wave on Wake Up To Money in the past before, their technology is very much driven around learning in the moment. So if there is a pothole that it comes across, it attempts using artificial intelligence to learn in that moment about what it needed to do. So the idea being, and it does seem like it can be a bit of an issue, that every car isn't just bounding through every single pothole that it comes across. But potentially an issue more here in the UK than it has been in the likes of San Francisco, where we've talked about driverless taxis being on their roads already there.

34:17Sean Farrington:wave then nearly six billion more than six billion pounds it is worth at the moment after this latest set of investment it wants to scale this business it's one of the biggest funding rounds ever for a british tech startup this robo tax is powered by the company's technology set to launch in london this year passengers will be able to buy vehicles using the technology from 2027 when we see the likes of Nissan in particular we've already heard of a commercial partnership that it's got with Nissan but Mercedes Stellantis as well which has Vauxhall, Fiat, Peugeot all under its watch part of the investment team that are contributing towards this round of investment interested in the technology going to be using the technology as well in the future I've got with us this morning One of those investors who were part of this wave growth, Saranga Chandratalaka, is general partner at Balderton Capital, early stage technology venture capital firm, early investor in wave.

35:26Sean Farrington:Saranga, very good morning to you. Thank you so much for joining us.

35:30Trump:Morning. It's great to be here.

35:31Sean Farrington:What is this about for investors like yourself at Balderton Capital when you see what Wave are doing and what you're trying to be a part of?

35:41Trump:Yeah, I mean, look, it's really exciting. It demonstrates that unlike the sort of narrative that people sometimes put out there, the UK is a place where you can build and scale a sort of globally relevant, global scale frontier technology company. Really, really exciting. It's less than 10 years ago that the team started work on this in Cambridge, and now there are 1 ,000 people all over the world, with the majority of the team in the UK changing the world.

36:11Sean Farrington:So, Saranga, thank you very much for joining us this morning. We're also going to introduce somebody who knows about the world of taxis, particularly in London. London Black Cab is famous for undergoing a rigorous training process with the ultimate test known as the knowledge requiring that impressive internal A to Z. something a bit like this.

36:30Trump:Australian High Commission to Paddington. Leave on left Alderwich, right Kingsway, left 5 Holden, Ford Princess Circus, leave by St Giles High Street, right Earnshaw Street, left New Oxford Street, Ford St Giles Circus, Ford Oxford Street, Ford Oxford Circus, Ford Oxford Street, right Orchard Street, left Portman Square, Ford Seymour Street, right Edgewood Road, left Harrow Road, comply Harrow Road Circus, leave by Bishopsbridge Road, left into Paddington Station.

36:50Sean Farrington:No less impressive however much technology might have advanced to be able to do something similar. That is a clip from the popular Instagram account HP Taxi, run by Paul Byron, who is managing director of HP Taxi. He's an electric-only fleet of 140 black cabs in London. Paul, thank you for joining us this morning. Good morning to you.

37:10Trump:Morning, morning. Isn't it nice to hear the human brain do something so spectacular?

37:14Sean Farrington:It is. It is nice. And many have been getting in touch, Paul, this morning, saying they don't want to lose the human brain involvement. But at the same time, when advances can be made, they're interested in the technology. How do you take, you know, these the latest developments that we're talking about with, you know, robo taxis imminently on our roads?

37:36Trump:I just got to correct you because they're not taxis. At the end of the day, we're taxis. They're robo cars. And listen, innovation's welcome in London. But, you know, it's a complex urban environment. It shouldn't be treated like a tech sandbox. We have a brain. We relate to people. We're responsible for our safety. We've had years of training. Nowhere else in the world has our standards. So it's really important that we maintain that.

38:08Sean Farrington:Well, the pair of you teeing us up for a really interesting conversation about what all this is. You know, don't particularly intend it to be one versus the other. It's about lots of people getting in touch this morning, asking questions about what this really is and what's driving this. So Ranga, when you speak with Wave, as you have done, and you look at so closely what their technology is enabling them to do in the future, what is Wave really all about? Yeah.

38:43Trump:So, you know, we met Wave very, very early on when actually the team hadn't even started the company and they were still sort of thinking about this area. And what attracted us to it was, I mean, not unrelated to what Paul just said about the human brain, because what they said was that, look, everybody else out there in California in particular is trying to build a robo taxi, something that sort of mimics or copies what a car should do when it drives around the road. Whereas actually what we want to do is observe how human drivers drive and learn from that. So much more like an actual human does really by mimicking existing behavior, which means that you end up building something which is much more resilient, something which can learn, something which can adapt to changing conditions and therefore can drive in much more complex situations.

39:34Trump:And it was that very, very different approach to solving the problem that we got very excited about. And that's why we backed them originally. And that's what sort of makes this really exciting because they've got to this point today and they've built, you know, a intelligence that can drive a car. It's already on the roads in London with safety drivers. And, you know, it's able to navigate a city which, I mean, exactly as Paula said, is famously complex, famously difficult to drive through. And, you know, it's one of the biggest taxi challenges that exists on the planet. One of the reasons we picked that city is because we wanted it to really have to meet a standard that's extremely high.

40:15Sean Farrington:At the same time, there may be a great concept and you might like the idea of backing it. At some point, are you backing it because you're expecting to get a return on this? They're not making a profit yet. I don't know if they have plans in the near future to be making a profit. This is one of those tech companies that we're talking about people investing for benefits much further down the line, is it?

40:42Trump:Yes, absolutely. It's a commercial investment. There's absolutely no doubt about that. You know, neither we nor the other investors would have invested just because we like the technology. But no, there's obviously a lot of huge potential in building a very large business around this. One of the exciting things about building the technology this way is that it can work on any brand, on any vehicle, anywhere in the world. And so that makes it an absolutely massive market. And that means that hopefully in time, we'll see this technology used in a variety of ways. Sometimes it's a sort of full on automation.

41:12Trump:Sometimes it's really a tool that helps the driver when he or she wants it to. But it will be, you know, on a very large scale. And that will generate in time, obviously, very large revenue and profits.

41:23Sean Farrington:And do you detect that there is a demand to use this as well? You know, getting on to that point that as many listeners have messaged and continue to do so right now on 85058 about the actual desire to use one of these. Is that there?

41:40Trump:Yeah. So, again, the early data would suggest yes. So Google has a company called Waymo. Waymo has been running these taxis, a similar sort of taxi service, although using a different technology approach in a few cities in the US. in particular in San Francisco. And the usage has steadily grown over the last couple of years while it's been live. And now there are hundreds, if not thousands of people who use it on a daily basis. So the demand is certainly there from an end passenger point of view. And we think there'll also be demand for people to have it in their cars, in their own cars that they own and drive themselves in the same way that other features that we've all become used to over time have become the case in our cars.

42:28Trump:Everything from lights, which weren't there in the very first automobiles, right through to things like parking aids and cameras and so on.

42:37Sean Farrington:We'll return back to, very shortly, the consequences of this on our roads and how it might work. Just before we move on to that, I wanted to ask you, Sir Anger, about the prospects of growing Wave and it being a British business with investment from right around the world in these early days. It's a fast-growing tech startup. Are there barriers to WAVE, even though we're saying this morning it's worth more than£6 billion or$8 billion, it's a tenth the size of Google's Waymo, never mind the backing of the wider alphabet at Google. Are there barriers to WAVE being able to kick on the way you all might expect it to be?

43:18Trump:I think what this shows hopefully more than ever before is that a lot of those barriers are in our heads. You know, for a long time we've said that the UK is brilliant at early innovation, at coming up with science, coming up with new ideas, but that we inevitably sell out at some point to somebody else before it gets really big. The team at Wave are really keen for that not to be the case. They're very ambitious. They want to build a great company that is relevant all over the world and they want to do it from here. And that for me is actually really exciting. I mean, as a Brit, regardless of our investment in the company, I think it's really important that we're part of all of that and that this sort of technology, if it does come to our roads, is going to come, you know, hopefully from a company that's right here rather than from somewhere over in the US.

44:03Sean Farrington:Paul, Paul Byron, who's the managing director of HP Taxis do you already see the impact of the advancing technology and the way we've seen this advance around the world on how many drivers are out there how people feel about the prospects for their future driving a black cab around London for example

44:24Trump:I think the impact could be felt but I think what we all need to remember is that small businesses matter in a huge way. I mean, you've got 15 ,000 small businesses who have invested up to£100 ,000. That's a big investment. And they've trained for years to be the eyes and ears of London. And, you know, you can't just discount that because a big investment has come in and thinks they can copy us and copy our brains. The brain is a lot more important than, you know, I don't think it's an algorithm versus a brain. I think it's more important than that, you know, and we're iconic. We're a heritage of London.

45:07Trump:We've been around for 300 years. You know, we've had many challenges. You know, Uber's come along. You know, we've seen off that challenge. We're still here. But they're going to have to look at this as well, you know, because there's 100 ,000 of them in London. So, you know, there's loads of things to talk about here. And, you know, we believe we're very important.

45:29Sean Farrington:And when you say, you know, we're still here and Uber came around, because it does remind me of similar conversations as that app was launched and there was concerns that it would be a threat. But is it fair to say that the world of black cabs is a much smaller one than it was before Uber?

45:49Trump:It is smaller. It has declined. But we're seeing a new dawn. We're getting quite a lot of younger people interested in this trade now because it did stay. And it is important. And, you know, not every not every, you know, teenager wants to go to university and they're seeing this is like a working man's degree. You know, and when you when you get in a black cab in London, it's an experience. And we want to keep that experience. If you get in a car that's got no driver, that's not regulated as part of London's infrastructure, it's completely different. And, you know, our customers, they're important business people, a lot of them.

46:26Trump:And, you know, a lot of them don't want to put themselves in a position where they're, you know, a trial. You see what I mean? It's like, yeah, I know that they're driving around. They're learning the roads. I understand that. And there's lots of obstacles, you know, all the time, all day long when I'm driving my cab, people are stepping out in the road. And these roads are not, it's not a grid system. You know, it's, they're old roads. They're complicated. They're very, very diverse. You know, it's it's what a lot of people are worried about it. You know, a lot of people, you know, especially small business owners, they're they're they're terrified of it.

47:00Trump:You know, and it's it's not just about an investor coming along with with billions of pounds and it's going to make money just like that. We're here. We've been doing this for 300 years. You can't just walk into this with all our laws that we have. And, you know, that's not to mention wheelchair accessibility, accountability for collisions. where are all those questions being answered

47:24Sean Farrington:Saranga just on a few of those because you know many people get in touch about exactly those points and just firstly the the complexity of of London's roads is that a blocker to this kind of technology being used at the the scale that we hear about it being used in parts of America it would be for many other people who've tried to build something

47:48Trump:like this. And this is where, going back to what I said right at the beginning, WAVE's specific approach to solving the problem is completely different. So they use an approach called end-to-end machine learning, which basically, as I say, sort of mimics really the way the humans do this, which is that it watches a human driver drive around the road and starts to understand the sort of behavior that's required to be able to adapt itself. And we see this all the time in the tests that we've already been running now for a number of years in London, where the car is able to navigate situations it's never seen before, and it's able to navigate, yeah, really, really complex roads, which London is full of.

48:27Trump:So, you know, we specifically did it in a city like London because we wanted the bar to be really, really high, partly to really ensure the technology works, but also from the point of view of making it as safe as possible and as reliable as possible. That is very different to, for example, driving around in Phoenix, Arizona, which, as Paul says, is a bunch of grids with perfect weather every day and everything else. So, you know, it can absolutely do that. And it's been doing that now for thousands and thousands and thousands of miles already in London. So from that, you know, that doesn't concern us.

49:02Trump:But, you know, going back to the point earlier about small businesses and the displacement of the sort of existing taxi fleets and so on, I actually don't think it will do that. You know, it's interesting, if you look at San Francisco, the addition of Waymo hasn't really impacted the existing taxi market. It's taken really some of the business from the existing, you know, car sharing or Uber and similar sort of services. So it's sort of essentially automated some of those services. And it's also added different kinds of rides that people use those cars for. so i think actually what we'll see you know in 10 20 years time is a is a very varied market where there will be different ways of getting around just as there are today i mean you know today you could take the tube sometimes or the bus sometimes or drive your own car if you really really want to so you know i think we'll see a variety of those things and this will be just another way of getting around uh safely and on time and and so on regardless of the weather and the traffic and everything else so paul i mean it sounds like from from those in the autumn

50:03Sean Farrington:automated industry they don't necessarily think your your industry will be gone because you've stood the test of time and people want to pay a premium for for that yeah i agree with with what

50:14Trump:gentleman saying there at the end i'm i'm um yeah people keep asking me about this over and over and i get comments all the time on our insta that's really popular you know robo taxis are coming you'll be obsolete and i just don't see that i you know there's always room for technology in london i'm not against technology we were the first fleets to adopt tv and it's been nine years now and we're still you know our fleet's growing and growing as ev you know we like i said we're

50:41Sean Farrington:not against it can i just to interrupt you briefly on that can do you think can you imagine a world where you know the the service that your customers are provided are paying for it does actually have a driver sat in the seat but the vehicle itself is completely automated so maybe that knowledge thing the internal a to z i mean i don't know how you know much that needs to be used these days given the technology that is out there that actually the service being provided is that customer service by a human and not actually the driving aspect it's interesting i mean you know

51:16Trump:when i when obviously i've completed the knowledge and when people get in my taxi they ask me about you know things that are happening that evening and you know where they should go and eat fish and chips and what's the best market and things like that i mean that would be completely lost with driverless right you wouldn't get that and i mean could you speak to it would it be like night rider for instance could you say kit can you tell me where what time portobello road market opens i don't know um you know these are these are questions i can't answer but you know technology is moving really fast but the unique thing about the knowledge is that you learn london by by you know by every street and every point of interest and people love that people want that and people adore that kind of scenario and it's that's why we call ourselves iconic um so we just don't want to lose that and i and i don't even believe the gentleman um you know that's that's on the show could hand on heart want to lose the london cab and i think he's been quite clear and said that he thinks that there's room for all of us um but what i might what i've what i foresee is that private hire might suffer because there's lots of them and they're doing a very basic job in trying to copy us.

52:28Trump:And, you know, people are kind of fed up with it, really. Poor service. And we give a great service.

52:33Sean Farrington:Paul, thank you so much for your time this morning. Paul Ryron, Managing Director of HP Taxis. Saranga, thank you as well for your time here. Given the amount of response we've had, definitely one we should continue talking about. Saranga Chandratilika from Baldurton Capital, one of those investors. I think Kev sums it up pretty well. Surely one of the big issues for these big tech giants to be thinking about. Kevin Newcastle says, Morning driverless taxis. What happens in the taxi queue on a Saturday night in the big market? How will the patrons work out? Which cab is theirs? It could be Kebab Armageddon.

53:05Sean Farrington:Well, I guess the apps will do their job. Kev, that would be part of the thinking. Nancy saying, Remember when London removed the iconic red phone booths. We don't want to lose black cab from the streets as well. Does sound like those private hire taxis. That is one that we need to focus on in Wake Up To Money another time as well. Thank you so much for all your messages. Catherine, thank you as well for being with us. That's it from Wake Up To Money.

53:31Trump:This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show?

53:36Sean Farrington:From the BBC, this is The Interface,

53:39Trump:the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

53:47Sean Farrington:It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.

53:54Trump:And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.