El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment
Tech Life
BBC
4.3 • 227 Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2021
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
El Salvador becomes the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Cryptocurrency fans celebrate, but will Salvadorans benefit? Rory Cellan-Jones speaks to Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation, who says Bitcoin can help give citizens of poorer countries more economic freedom. Also on the programme, Facebook's algorithm is accused of perpetuating gender stereotypes in the way it shows job adverts to men and women. Naomi Hirst from the campaign group Global Witness explains. And what will a world powered by artificial intelligence look like in 20 years' time? AI pioneer Kai-Fu Lee paints a picture of life in 2041.
(Photo: A woman buys in a store that accepts bitcoins in El Zonte, La Libertad, El Salvador. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:38.9 | Hello and welcome to TechTent, your weekly guide to all the hottest news and trends from the technology world. |
| 0:44.6 | I'm Rory Kathleen Jones, and this week El Salvador becomes a Bitcoin nation, the first to make the cryptocurrency legal tender. |
| 0:53.2 | Joy unconfined for crypto fanatics, but most Salvadorans |
| 0:57.4 | aren't so sure. An investigation sees Facebook accused of sexism in the way it handles job adverts, |
| 1:04.2 | but is it just targeting adverts at people who want to see them? And AI pioneer Kai Fu Lee takes us 20 years into the future, showing us what our |
| 1:14.2 | robot masters may look like in 2041. Joining me this week is BBC's senior tech reporter Jane Wakefield. |
| 1:21.2 | How's your week been, Jane? Today I've mainly been listening to British MPs, try and work out what |
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