Live: Who rules the robots?
Politics Unpacked
Anna Covell
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2018
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Recorded live at a Times+ event for Times subscribers, Matt Chorley and a stellar panel grapple with the ethical questions of the tech takeover.
He was joined by:
Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the first minister to set up an app about themselves.
Timandra Harkness is presenter of the BBC Radio 4 series, FutureProofing, a science comedian and author of Big Data: Size Does Matter.
Dame Wendy Hall is Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and last year carried out an independent review for the government on the artificial intelligence industry.
And Tom Whipple, The Times science editor, whose job it is to try to separate fact from science fiction, and try not to scare us all every morning.
To attend future events subscribe to The Times.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and this is a special edition recorded with a live Times plus audience |
| 0:09.6 | audience at the news building. Terrific round of applause with some sarcasm. |
| 0:24.0 | Now normally we might grapple with straightforward questions when we do these debates. |
| 0:28.0 | Straightforward questions like how to solve Brexit. |
| 0:31.0 | Why is Theresa May so bad? How does Jeremy Corbyn still cling on? But tonight |
| 0:36.0 | we're going to ask one of the big ethical questions of our time, which I don't |
| 0:39.5 | think is discussed enough in Westminster moment. Who rules the robots? |
| 0:44.2 | We hear so much about advances in artificial intelligence, |
| 0:47.1 | but is it all for the good? |
| 0:48.4 | Can global tech firms be controlled |
| 0:50.6 | within national borders? |
| 0:51.8 | How will centuries of laws keep pace with algorithms |
| 0:54.4 | that can be tweaked in seconds? Who decides what we do and don't see online? |
| 0:59.1 | Are there any jobs that robots can't do? Can a driverless car decide to just run someone over? |
| 1:05.0 | And ultimately, if we make a robot more clever than we are, |
| 1:08.0 | do we end up becoming pets? |
| 1:10.0 | We might not be able to answer all of those questions |
| 1:12.0 | in the next hour or so, we've got a cracking panel who are going to give it a damn good go. |
| 1:16.0 | I'm delighted to be joined by Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, |
| 1:21.0 | and the first minister to set up an app about themselves, |
| 1:25.2 | imaginatively, if slightly creepily named the Matt Hancock app. |
| 1:31.3 | Tamanger Hartness is presented with the BBC Radio Force Force Series future proofing, a science comedian, an author of big data, science does matter, |
... |
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