PLAY PODCASTS
Can the UK become an AI superpower?

Can the UK become an AI superpower?

Can the UK become an AI superpower as the government hopes?

The Briefing Room · BBC Radio 4

April 24, 202528m 42s

Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (open.live.bbc.co.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.

Show Notes

The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer wants the UK to become “one of the great AI superpowers”. Earlier this year the government published a plan to use artificial intelligence in the private and public sectors to boost growth and deliver services more efficiently. Once mainly the preserve of the tech community, AI really entered public awareness with the release of ChatGPT, a so-called “chatbot” founded by the US company OpenAI at the end of 2022. It can write essays, scripts, poems and even write computer code …and millions of people are using it. David Aaronovitch and guests discuss whether the UK could become a successful AI hub, as the government hopes and asks if we'll be able to compete globally with the US and China, the home of huge tech companies?

Guests: Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton. Eden Zoller, Chief Analyst in Applied AI, Omdia. Professor Neil Lawrence, the DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at University of Cambridge and author of The Atomic Human Jeremy Kahn, AI Editor at Fortune magazine and author of Mastering AI: A survival guide to our superpowered future.

Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight, Nathan Gower Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman Sound Engineer: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon