Hello. Im Lewis Vaughan jones. You are watching the context on bbc news. Pres. Biden Companies Must prioritize systems by safeguarding against threats. We will work with both parties to develop appropriate legislation and regulation. Im pleased that leader schumer and jeffries and others in the congress are making this a top but is in priority. Bipartisan priority. The group will be critical for the responsibility and safety by designed to earn the trust of americans. Lewis predent biden trying to get ahead of the threats of Artificial Intelligence, working with Tech Companies to try to protect consumers, but full International Regulation is the big challenge still had. Also on the program, in the u. K. , new figures show rising rents help the kings personal finances. Amsterdam fans cruise ships in the city, trying to cut pollution. Andy barbenheimer phenomenon the barbie and oppenheimer films finally released. How has their pr work so well . Welcome to the program. We will start with the comments from u. S. President joe biden in the last 90 minutes or so trying to get ahead of the threats posed by ai. He has been working with seven big tech companys including the Parent Companies of google and facebook to try to work out guidelines, frameworks, things they can do to protect people. That includes things like making it transparent, clear, when content is aigenerated, a digital watermark, and also things like protecting children. It is a big challenge. He says the u. S. Will play a leading role when it comes to attempt to secure International Regulation when it comes to ai, Artificial Intelligence. Lets take a listen. Pres. Biden we will see more Technology Change in the next 10 years than in the last 50 years. Has been an astounding revelation to me, quite frankly. Artificial intelligence is going to transform the lives of people around the world. The group here will be critical in shepherding that innovation with personality with responsibility and safety by designed to earn the trust of americans, and quite frankly, as i met with world leaders, all the g7 folks said the same thing. Social media has shown us the harm that powerful technology can do without the right safeguards in place. And i said at the state of union, Congress Needs to pass Bipartisan Legislation and post strict limits on personal data collection, ban targeted advertisements to kids, require committees to but health and safety first. But we must be clear eyed and vigilant about the threats emerging from emerging technologies that can pose to our democracy and our values. Lewis lets go live to new york. Michelle fleury is there. Great to see you. This is such a huge issue, isnt it, President Biden trying to get out in front of it. What do you make of what he had to say . Michelle i think at the moment we are seeing Big Technology companies not just in america, around the world, and kind of arms race to develop ai tools. This is an attempt to set up some guardrails. It is very first baby step, and that is the way to look at this. After all, is our voluntary. They dont carry that weight of law. That would require congress to act. And so this is just an agrment between the white house and the companies involved, seven Major Companies from a metta to google to microsoft to amazon to the makers of chatgpt and others. They are saying, look, we are happy to have our technology looked at for secury reasons, we are happy to introduce some kind of tool that would show that something is aigenerated, like a watermark system, which might help avoid problems with misinformation in the future so you know when something is real, when something was made by ai tools. This is hugely important. But again, i think most experts would say this is only a first step, and that more needs to come not just from the u. S. , but at a global level. Lewis lets look at the second kind of issue that you touched on there, is regulation. How difficult is that step fm Companies Getting together and having a voluntary code to international, worldwide regulation . Michelle i think we are at the beginning of that. Earlier this week you had the unc critic counsel un security council, a few miles from where im sitting right now, hold their first meeting on the risks of ai. There are some states who say what is needed is a body like the internationaatomic Energy Agency to oversee a global set of rules that would apply to ai companies around the world. But if you look at the history of agencies like that, they have taken a very long time to develop. We dont fully know the capabilities of this technology. Its just what we anticipate. The idea tha you can come up with rules, and might be years before we see them. We might need to see some sort of disaster happened before you get the urgency, the catalyst to develop and put rules in place for some this is the first step, and the u. S. Is raising the issue and trying to lead on it. But again, it is just the white house with a biden saying he is ready to take executive action because it might be some time before Congress Gets to it in terms of creative legislation, in part because it is pretty divided and we only have one year dylan election. Till an election. The commodore makes that tricky. Lewis michelle, thanks for that. We will speak to the executive director of a center for technology and democracy at the university of cambridge. Thank you for coming on the program. Thank you for having me. Lewis biden gives these comments are talks about these guidelines for these seven Tech Companies. What do you make of them . Wel it is a great step for the biden administration. They have been on the front foot in terms of releasing an ai bill of rights. They are trying to do something, as the correspondent said, by executive action, and very poibly voluntary commitments are the best they will be able to do in this political environment. But it doesnt go far enough for what we need. Lewis so what do we need, then . Here in the u. K. We have a sets of legislation inlace, we have a growing responsible ai ecosystem. The u. K. Is positioning itself to be the place for responsible ai, design, develop and, research. Those pieces can be in place if we have the right tools, we have the right commitment to policy change, and we have Public Engagement and involvement around these questions. Right now what we see out of the white house is a set of commitments of companies is saying they are willing to mark their own exam papers and they are willing to set the exam themselves and they will decide the morning of the exam if they want to show up for it. Lewis right. Gina its a plea doesnt go far enough in terms of giving public assurance it simply doesnt go far enough in terms of giving public assurance for the things we need to have in place for the kinds of ai we are using today that is powering our banking systems, health care systems, our smartphones, and yes, our bbc player. Lewis ok, lets talk about specifics here. This idea of a digital watermark basically telling people this content is made by ai, its aigenerated, how in practice does that work . Is it effective . Na well, we will see a lot of synthetic media circulating in our information environments. That will be really telling during Upcoming Elections in the u. K. , the u. S. , and the ee, where certain cash in the eu u. K. , u. S. , and the eu, where certain comments can circulate by candidates there are orderly generated. We need to make sure we are not devolving public trust in information from trusted sources because we have this in our system. That watermarking step is one way we can start the process. Lewis that would mean if we see a clip online of a politician saying something, we should look somewhere on the screen for some kind of identification to tell us whether it is real or not. Gina or that the companies who have agreed to voluntarily follow these principles are being willing to mark and denote media that is circulating that doesnt meet those verifiable standards. We have all seen the pope and the pop. If all a lot of people and we will have that kind of information that will circulate. It is when we have a gap between needing to know good, reliable information very quickly and needing to separate out entertainment or humorous things from fact that we will have a real challenge. Utter marking watermarking is one step, but it will not solve all of these problems. Lewis fascinating stuff wasnt. Professor gina neff, thank you for coming on the program. If you would like to know how Artificial Intelligence works, there is a new podcast series that takes you back to the basics and demystifies the whole world of ai. Search for unrstand tech and ai on bbc sounds. We will stay in the u. S. There is a date for Donald Trumps trial of alleged mishandling of classified documents. The trial will start in may of next year. Lets go live to washington. Our north american correspondent is there. What do we know . Reporter so the date is set for, may 20 next year, slap bang in the middle of the Election Campaign season. The day puts the trial of the tail end of the republican partys primary process. It isuaranteed right now that donald trump is probably going to be the nominee. Hes the clear frontrunner for the nomination. Just to remind people what this trial is about, you mentioned the classified documents. He faces 37 counts of allegedly withholding classified documents relating to national security. He is charged alongside his aid with making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Just to give you his reaction, he says that the schedule is a setback for the department of justice, and of course they are the ones who brought the case forward, and he say the delay gives extensive time to fight what he describes as an empty hoax. Because donald trump once the delay until after the president ial election, so this trial would happen six months before americans start voting. He wanted to happen after that, because the department of justice basically cant prosecute a sitting president. His legal advisors have been blunt about that fact, that they want to kick this into the long grass and hope that it happens afterwards. As you know, there are lots of cases flying around donald trump. There is potentially an imminent indictment coming, a third one related to january 6. It is shaping to be pretty much a busy legal calendar for donald trump next year. Lewis you brought us some of the response there, but i wonder what kind of political commentators are saying about how this plays into the election cycle, what impact if any it will have, is it baked into the candidates sides . Nomia constitutionally, what is extraordinary is this doesnt stop donald trump from running for the presidency. Not at all. There is very few qualifications you need to be president , or to run to be president. In terms of his chances, as far as donald trump is concerned, these sorts othings boost support for him, and we have seen evidence for that. What he tends to do, certainly with indictments, he gets ahead of the narrative financing that they are coming, uses them in his favor, and there is evidence that it works if you look at the polls of republican voters. They believe in his narrative that all of these cases flying around him are just part of this political witchhunt. I think the big question is will it matter to American Voters generally speaking, because whilst he might have Many Republican voters on his side, heoes need other americans, independent voters, suburban women, for example, black americans, these really important voting blocs to get on board for him to win the presidency. Whether they will look at this and think that this candidate is too much, there are too many indictments, too many legal problems around him, he is not someone we would want to vote for, we dont know that yet. Lewis nomia, thanks so much for that. Around the world and across the u. K. , this is bbc news. We are going to take a quick look now at some headlines in the u. K. Transport unions have called off next week and strikes on the London Underground after lastminute talks. Members from rmt and united were set to walk out for several days, june 23 and 28 of july, but Union Leaders said the transport for london made significant concessions on job cuts and pensions. Government borrowed less than expected in june, helped by high tax receipts and a big drop in debt interest payments. That is 400 Million Pounds lower than last june, below productions by the governments independent forecaster. The office for National Statistics says that borrowing is still the thirdhighest for june on record. And members of a Head Teachers Union and england have accepted a 6. 5 pay rise for the Teachers Association of school and college leaders, ascl. It was one of four teaching unions considering strike action. You are live with bbc news. Next, u. K. Politics in the next on the inquiry into covid19. Technical experts have uncovered all relevant messages from Boris Johnsons old phone that he had been advised not to use on security grounds. And he will hand them over unredacted to the coronavirus inquiry. That is according to a spokesperson for the exPrime Minister. The spokesperson said that Boris Johnson is pleased that technical experts have successfully recovered all relevant messages from the device. As repeatedly stated, he will deliver this material in un redacted form into the inquiry. The process requires that a Security Check is made by the Cabinet Office and the timing of any other progress is under the Cabinet Offices control, and it will alws be the case that Boris Johnson would pass the material to the inquiry and do Anything Possible to help the process approved by the inquiry followed to ensure that this was successful. Lets go live to our Political Correspondent damian grammaticas. I read the statement in full. Or almost in full. Can you tell us what it all means . Damian the importance oall this is this was the phone that Boris Johnson had and was using from the very start of the pandemic, early 2020 all the way through the first roughly year and a half, may 2021. It was a period where the government was grappling with the origins of the pandemic, what to do at the start of it, and the first wave, then the second wave, and even the third. Three lockdowns this period covers. What the inquiry wants to see on that are the whatsapp messages sent between two dozen senior government figures. It was a group that could Exchange Messages and message each other individually. Mr. Johnson was Prime Minister and that included him, his chancellor, finance minister rishi sunak the Health Secretary at the time, Senior Health advisors, senior civil servants, and all of those messages will give insight into what was going on at the heart of government. This phone number, but johnson had it for years. When the fact came out and it was realized that the number had been public, the Security Advisors said to him in 2021 you have to put the phone aside, you cant use it. Now they have been able to recover it and he says he will hand it over. There had been a separate legal challenge from the government but that got defeated. The importance is that this is going to be passed over an insight into the crucial moments in the pandemic. Lewis damian, stay right there. I want to get your thoughts on a different u. K. Politics story. Conservative Prime Minister rishi sunak has had two big losses in three by elections in england. There were celebrations for labor in the North Yorkshire seat, with the party overturning the majority by 20,000 votes. There was a bigger percentage swing for the liberal democrats in the southwest, overturning a 19,000 majority there. But the conservatives held onto Boris Johnsons rmer constituency in west london, winning by just 495 votes. Damian, lets come back to you. Your reaction to those results . Where do you think it leaves the parties . Damian well, lets start with the liberal democrats. What it is for them, they of course, traditionally the third party, this cements their position. They have now won 4 of these by elections bielections, four of them in the last couple of years. And that has included, like this one, very big swings to them. For them, this is a sign that they are back in business after having taking part in the Coalition Government with the conservatives back in 2010 and then really suffering from that at the polls. They see this is a big step forward. And they manage to do it in areas where they used to be strong a1 is in the southwest. Its a strong sign for them. The question is can they translate that into a general election in a year or so. For labor, a very good result similarly in North Yorkshire. A big swing to them in a seat that they have never controlled. They see that as a big sign that they can draw voters, too, but the question mark was on the edge of