BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

Hello, I'm Tina Dehealy.

Welcome to Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.

A space to ask one big question about one big story every weekday.

Today who's in control of our AI future.

Tech, and the way it's shaping our future is a theme we return to a lot on beyond today.

Yesterday we heard how protesters in Hong Kong are taking on China and the surveillance state.

Scroll back through our timeline and you'll find episodes where we've asked

what do companies do with your face?

Will human contact become a luxury luxury and is there a tech cold war?

Underpinning all these questions are the rapid recent advances in the artificial intelligence that powers new tech.

Things like facial recognition, smart speakers or driverless cars.

As we heard yesterday, these are changing the power dynamics between states and citizens,

companies and consumers. Well earlier this week we recorded a special live podcast episode that digs deep on all this. We brought together a

panel at the Media Tech and Society Conference here at the BBC. There were three

experts on the panel. Stephanie Hare, an independent researcher and broadcaster focused on

technology politics and history. Jimmy Bartlett, a technology writer who we've

had on Beyond Today recently talking about his BBC Sounds podcast, The Missing Cryptoquine.

And Natalie Cargill is founder and CEO of Effective Giving, which advises philanthropists on funding

solutions to the world's most pressing problems.

It was a really big picture discussion.

I personally found it fascinating and I hope you do too.

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