Listen here on the podcast platform of your choice.
There is less than a day until the King’s speech at the opening of parliament, with the new Labour government expected to introduce an artificial intelligence bill as part of its legislative agenda.
Tech & Science Daily will provide an insight into the subject ahead of the event with Eleanor Shearer, senior researcher at the think tank Common Wealth.
We also discuss the direction Sir Keir Starmer’s government has taken on technology and the economy following its landslide victory.
Plus, it’s Amazon Prime Day, the day the online giant tries to drive us crazy with seemingly cheap deals.
But what’s the reason behind this consumer bonanza? It’s all to beat that summer sales lull.
Research has revealed that thieves are stealing smartphones en masse and are even making ‘up to £15,000 a month’ from them, while police across London struggle to identify suspects.
Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered criminals are selling devices to dodgy companies who take the devices apart, remove parts or unlock them to resell them.
Scotland Yard told the programme they are stepping up patrols and encouraging victims of theft and robbery to report crimes.
Also in this episode: ADHD online test, increase in delays in cancer care in the NHS, malaria vaccination breakthrough praised and discovery in a moon cave.
Listen via the player above, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you stream.
Here’s a fully automated transcript of today’s episode:
Hi, I’m Mark Blunden and this is The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily.
Coming soon: London’s iPhone theft epidemic.
But first, in less than a day, the Speech from the Throne will take place at the opening of Parliament. The new Labour government will then present its legislative agenda, which will include many technological aspects.
We expect that the AI Act will focus on regulating the most powerful generative AI model.
Things like GPT-4, which is behind ChatGPT, that people may have experimented with.
The previous government also focused on the safety of AI models, but we expect this legislation to be somewhat more binding on technology companies.
That’s Eleanor Shearer, Senior Research Fellow at the Commonwealth Think Tank.
The emphasis is mainly on the models themselves, you know, what can they do?
How can they be compromised by bad actors?
There is a little bit of thought about humanity, about the bad social consequences they can cause, such as the spread of misinformation.
But what is really missing are the more structural aspects, such as how can employers use these technologies to exploit their workers?
And the Trades Union Congress has done some really interesting work on a kind of AI Bill of Rights for workers. It would be great if the government would take that on, but I don’t think we’re going to see that this time.
And we wondered whether the legislature can rein in the multinational technology companies.
I think we really need to look at the lessons of social media.
I mean, they’re both technologies that certainly have their benefits, but they can also cause enormous damage.
And what we saw 10, 20 years ago with social media is we had a few companies say, don’t worry, we can regulate ourselves, we can offer this service as a monopoly, and it’s not going to cause any problems.
I think everyone can say what that ultimately turned out to be.
What I would actually like to see is a different kind of economic landscape.
I think we really need to think about how much power big tech companies have to force us to integrate AI and shape our vision of the future. If we had a fairer and more equal landscape, maybe we could all co-create that future and say, these are the areas where AI can really help us and benefit us, but these are the areas where we don’t want it to put us out of work or cause massive societal harm.
Also about the course that Sir Kier Starmer’s government will take after succeeding the Conservative government of Rishi Sunak.
Yeah, I think that remains to be seen.
The previous government also focused on these kinds of AI security frameworks, and it’s something that tech companies themselves are paying a lot of attention to as well.
It’s in their interest to create panic and say that these are such powerful systems, that they’re going to cause so much destruction, that people are going to think about apocalyptic future scenarios, instead of thinking about the here and now, about the fact that people are already being discriminated against, that people are already losing their jobs.
So what I really want to see is that – not that AI safety isn’t important, it absolutely is – Labour and the Conservatives can go one step further and think about inequality and about protecting jobs.
They have a new deal for working people. How can you use that framework to think more about technology?
The Speech from the Throne is also likely to include a revised cybersecurity bill to protect UK infrastructure from foreign attacks.
Next one,
It’s Amazon Prime Day, the day when the online giant tries to whip us up again with seemingly cheap offers.
But at a time when prices are already sky-high, are we really getting such good prices for our products?
And what is the reason behind this huge consumer boom?
Well, that’s all to counter the summer sales.
Research by Corsite Research shows that these types of promotional summer days help retailers entice customers to buy their products at a time when they might be thinking about it, rather than spending a lot of money on a holiday or an ice cream dinner away from home.
Research has now revealed that thieves are stealing smartphones en masse, making as much as £15,000 a month from them, while police across London struggle to identify suspects.
An investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches has revealed that criminals are selling devices to companies who strip them for parts or unlock them to resell.
The data was collected by Crest Advisory, a consultancy firm specializing in police data analysis.
A victim of a crime in London told Dispatches that police had told him there were no leads, but that two weeks after the robbery his phone was ringing in Shenzhen, China. It was suspected that the phone had been stripped there.
Scotland Yard told the programme they are stepping up patrols and encouraging victims of theft and robbery to report crimes.
Research by Cancer Research UK and the National Disease Registration Service has found that the number of patients waiting for oncology treatment on the NHS has increased significantly.
According to NHS Target, around 85% of patients should start their first treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral from their GP for suspected cancer.
However, experts found that the number of cancer patients having to wait at least 104 days to start their treatment after a suspected emergency referral in England has almost tripled in just five years.
Research has shown that a significant proportion of delays are caused by delays caused by the healthcare provider itself, for example due to defective equipment, capacity problems and administrative delays.
Let’s move on to the ads.
Stay tuned for more news from the world of technology and science.
And could a moon cave become a moon base for astronauts?
In the meantime, why not follow us and give us a rating?
Welcome back.
There is hope that hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved this decade thanks to a new malaria vaccine.
The head of the team developing the vaccine, Sir Adrian Hill, professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he hoped the vaccine would pave the way for a serious effort to eradicate the disease.
The R21 Matrix M vaccine is seen as a scientific breakthrough and is the first malaria shot to meet the World Health Organization’s target of 75% effective prevention of the disease.
The first doses were rolled out in Ivory Coast on Monday and were developed under the leadership of Sir Adrian of the university’s Jenner Institute.
Research by Cancer Research UK and the National Disease Registration Service has found that the number of patients waiting for oncology treatment on the NHS has increased significantly.
According to NHS targets, around 85% of patients should start their first treatment within 62 days of an emergency referral from their GP for suspected cancer.
However, experts found that the number of cancer patients in England having to wait at least 104 days to start their treatment after a suspected emergency referral has almost tripled in just five years.
Research has shown that a significant proportion of delays are caused by delays caused by healthcare providers themselves, such as equipment failure, capacity problems and administrative delays.
And finally, scientists from the University of Trento in Italy have discovered an underground lunar cave that extends tens of meters under an open pit. This cave could become a potential lunar base for future astronauts.
Researchers studied radar data to make the discovery, saying it is the first lunar tunnel discovered that could be accessible to humans.
The hollow passage lies beneath the well and is about 100 meters wide in the Sea of Tranquility, a dark area on the near side of the moon that is visible to the naked eye.
Scientists have long suspected that there might be tunnels beneath the Sea of Tranquility canyon and 200 other holes on the moon.
The milestone discovery, as it has been described, comes as NASA prepares for the first manned mission to the moon in more than 50 years.
Come back at 4pm for the latest news, interviews and analysis from The Standard podcast here in London. We’ll be back tomorrow at 1pm.