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tv   Click  BBC News  March 25, 2018 12:30pm-1:01pm BST

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isa is a this is bbc news with me, ben brown. the headlines: the australian cricket captain steve smith and his vice captain david warner have stood down for the rest of the current test match against south africa as the ball tampering scandal deepens. the australian prime minister malcolm turnbull has expressed his anger at the news. this is a shocking disappointment, and it's wrong, and... i look forward to cricket australia taking decisive action soon. catalonia's former president has been arrested in germany after crossing the border from denmark. it is said that his arrest was based on a european warrant. he is wanted in spain for sedition. 3000 extra midwives are to be trained over the next format years in the largest ever increase in maternity staff in england. the plans will also see expectant mothers treated by the same midwives
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throughout pregnancy. borisjohnson has described claims that vote leaves broke electoral spending rules during the eu referendum as utterly ludicrous. in a tweet, he said that vote leave won ferran square. now on bbc news, click. the people versus the machines. from the dockers to the deskjockeys. is no—one safe? not everyone is happy about the rise of the robots. this week, we will meet the people whose livelihoods are under threat. the robots, they go for ourjobs.
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and those who are doing something about it. including people who might have thought that their jobs were safe. and we start with those who deal with the biggest things on water. this is how stuff moves around the world. your car, your tv, your phone — they all arrived in a shipping container, one of millions each year stacked on gargantuan ships and sailed from where they are made to where they are sold. offloading these containers at ports across the globe is a complicated task as they are lifted from the ships, moved to the land and then, when the right ride arrives, they are loaded onto lorries to be driven across the mainland. but at europe's busiest port, rotterdam, and its third busiest,
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hamburg, something new is happening. some of the cranes here don't have drivers. and some of the lorries don't have cabs. these are europe's first robotic ports. so what we've got here is a mixture of remote control and completely autonomous machinery and basically, there are no humans in that middle bit at all. there is a very strict rule here. human dock workers do their work outside the red line and inside, everything is completely autonomous. ports across the world perform this graceful ballet of stacking and unstacking but at two terminals — at rotterdam and this one at hamburg — it's a dance that
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humans aren't allowed take part in. so what happens is there is a human controlling the crane that pulls the containers off the ship and then loads them onto this central platform and then the human—controlled crane goes and gets another container from the ship, another crane comes along and pulls the container off that platform and loads it onto these trucks. that crane is autonomous. and so are the lorries. while the world is still waiting for the mythical self—driving car, these trucks are already making their way around the ports, transporting containers from crane to crane. buried in the tarmac are thousands of little tiny transponders bleeping away, broadcasting special id numbers. and that's how these trucks know where they are, to within a few centimetres. and, of course, that makes this
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a very simple environment to drive around, with a guide track taking them from a to b to c and no unpredictable human hazards. they don't even need sensors to see what's around. the only reason that they need humans in charge of the cranes on this side is because there are humans on the ship and so, the law says you can't let computers swing containers around when there are humans. so if there weren't people on the ship, the computers could control this crane as well. it's the same story at the other side of the port. the only thing the autonomous cranes aren't allowed to do is lower the containers onto the lorries because there are human drivers nearby, so that part is done by a human crane operator, but from an office nearby. i mean, it's all very impressive.
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it looks really cool. but there is a flip side to this, which is every one of those trucks that's driving around ten years ago would have had a driver and now, it doesn't. and there are no crane operators in the middle section, either. so while we are looking at the future of work here, we really need to think about the future of the workforce too. and the workforce at rotterdam has spoken. in 2016, 3600 workers walked out to protest at increasing automation at the port. niek stam is the union official for ports. he says the dockers know that they can't fight automation but he does warn that as fewer and fewer human workers earn wages, there will be less money paid back to the state through income tax. so who is paying them at the end? if the robots, they go for ourjobs, who is then paying the tax? that's why i said it is time
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to discuss about robot tax. we still need roads, we still need trains, we still need schools, hospitals, so somebody has to pick up the bill. so that if we can have an income, let's say, 20 hours working week, we also have a separate income from the social benefits, paid by robots. i mean, if they don't like human beings anymore, that's fine. then we start fishing. but we want also an income. as a result of the strike in 2016, the port authority agreed not to cut jobs and because the economy is buoyant at the moment, so far, these workers are doing the same work in other terminals at the ports. the port of rotterdam told us that: niek, though, is not convinced everyone that
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will want to retrain. we still need jobs for people who are low educated, that like to work, like to be a comrade on the working place. i mean, nothing wrong with that. and all those bull (bleep) in my eyes about long—lived learning systems, and whatever, it's bull (bleep). it's bull (bleep). i mean, there are still people who didn't make it at school, they still want to work with their hands. what's wrong with that? but this isn't the first time in history that manual labour has been automated. we sat down with leading academics to find out what we can learn from the past and what we can do better in the future. in the agricultural revolution of the 20th century,
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when tractors started to replace a lot of human labour on the farms, we saw the introduction of universal high school education. so really, the impact that technology has on society is not predetermined. it's more or less entirely a function of how we choose to respond to technological change. i think over the next 5—10 years, we are going to see the job of cashiers disappear in increasing numbers, we are going to see more bank tellers disappearing, and we are going to see a lot of clerking and manufacturing jobs go as well. the impact on truck drivers is going to be quite significant. but it's not going to happen overnight. if you look at the mechanisation of agriculture, it took four decades for tractors to displace horses and agricultural workers working in the fields.
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it's going to take at least a decade or two for it to play out but the effects are going to be significant. i would argue that it's impossible to predict. it so much depends on the context in which the technology is used, how people use it, whether it's worth automating or not automating. there's already been extraordinary change in the sort of work that's being done. i mean, we didn't have digital technology several decades ago so we've seen really newjobs. but i think, strangely, these are probably the first jobs that will go. so, it's last in, first out. technology is transforming jobs in healthcare, in law, in finance and it's not necessarily rendering those jobs obsolete but it's changing them to a degree that the skills held by the workforce in those jobs five
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years ago is redundant. many of the newjobs that are being created in the service sector are very insecure and very low paid. there is not enough focus actually on what's happening now with work. most artificial intelligence aren't intending to put humans out of a job. these are tools to help us do things. we need people to be able to work alongside artificially intelligent systems to build a better workplace in the future. if we think about the national health service, the predictions suggest that we will be about 100,000 staff members short by 2027. if we look at the education system, we will be about 50,000 teachers short at about the same time. so we need to think about how we might use artificial intelligence
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— not to replace people but to help people work differently and more effectively and actually probably more enjoyably. so if you take the job of a bank teller, right? what we see is that thatjob still exists. we have more bank tellers today than we did ten years ago but the job is an entirely different one, right? and the job of a bank teller in the 1980s and '70s is long gone but we still kept the occupational title. there used to be amazing stonemasons and that skill kind of got lost because building changed, so we are just going to develop different and new skills. but if you look what's happened to workers who have lost theirjobs to automation, they are often downgraded in the process. they have taken jobs of lower pay in the sector which means that they lose out to the process of automation and a lot of people
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lose out to automation, they are likely to resist it. voiceover: the livelihood of 900 workers has gone. it's the latest outrage by fanatics. the industrial revolution, of course, caused huge political change. we saw marxism, socialism, capitalism exploiting the workers, the unions developing. are we going to see a similar political change with this new revolution? i mean, i wouldn't use the word "revolution" myself. i do think, of course, that the next phase of artificial intelligence will make huge changes. we will reach an age where so much can be done by machines that we won't all need to work. some countries are already beginning to think "what do we do in that situation?
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do we create a universal income that everyone will have, so they won't have to work, so that it will be a choice to work? a universal basic income is not going to address huge social support and companionship that is still central to people's identity by going to a workplace. i am much more concerned about creating decent jobs. people that work are much happier than those who don't. work is virtuous. we are very happy to work longer or extra hours to be able to buy new things. for many people, they are defined by their work. if you ask at a party, "so, what you do?" they are immediately asking you "what's yourjob?" so i think it's going to have a big psychological effect, this change, and i think it's going be very fast. and next week, we will carry
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on with the debate, and this time, we will question how we adapt to the new world order. do we rethink how we learn, work and live life? hello and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that a woman in arizona died after being hit by an uber self—driving car. uber has suspended trials in north america as a result. the facebook data saga rumbled on with the social network's founder mark zuckerberg eventually speaking up on wednesday. he admitted it had made mistakes that led to millions of facebook users having their data exploited by cambridge analytica. and the 5g auctions have kicked off. the big four phone networks as well as another new player are bidding for their places within the 5g spectrum to give us that connection we
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have been dreaming of. although most of us would be happy with our 4g working properly. although there are serious questions over the safety of self driving cars, mit have announced it may have overcome the substantial issue of fog. it's system can apparently see through it better than the human eye, while also being able to gauge distance. and finally, israeli researchers have been busy working on this robot arm. it should be able to pick apples, do a spot of diy in outer space, play a pointless game, and more. the catchily named minimally actuated serial robot developed at ben—gurion university aims to be compact and cost—effective. it uses just two motors, one moving in a straight line and one rotating to achieve a full range of movement. like china, india is a country with a huge population,
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and a relatively low—cost workforce of hundreds of millions. the country's education system produces millions of workers for india's it industry, which provides the engine room for the world's software and computing needs. but now there's a problem. it turns out that a good deal of the work done by india's it workers is surprisingly routine. and that is sucking in awful lot ofjobs into the tractor beam of artificial intelligence. david reid travelled to pune in the central western state of maharashtra to meet some of the workers who have been losing out. the it human resource in india, it is not a human any more. it is just a plug and play. you plug, you use it, and you throw it. you have set up this
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organisation, fite — a union, shall we call it, what is it you are most angry about? corporates were saying that automation and artificial intelligence, because of that the jobs will lose, but a lot of illegal activities done by the corporates, where employees were forced to resign, they are saying we will blacklist you if you are not resigning the job. if you can put your name on the paper... last year an audio recording emerged on social media in which a tech employee was given until 10am the next day to put in his papers or be fired without benefits. the company, tech mahindra, immediately apologised, saying the incident ran counter to its core values. do you think tech mahindra is treating people fairly? absolutely. i think there will always be sometimes were we may go wrong. it is about recognising that if there is something that is wrong, to raise your hand and say yes, i got it wrong, and i am sorry for it. we invest significantly in training,
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in giving an opportunity, and most importantly raising awareness, that guys, the world is changing. automation is kind of un—indian — because labour is so cheap here, people often end up doing what elsewhere a machine like a printing press would do. but we are creative and imaginative, maybe we are meant to more than this. we should be doing this greater work which will be much better. that will eventually help us to reach to the max level of evolution of human being which we are missing. it will be something very exciting for sure. battersea power station. one of the uk's most ambitious restoration projects. at 42 acres, it's the largest construction site i have ever visited, and the race is on to complete refurb of this grade two—listed landmark by 2020.
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there are 2,000 skilled contractors here working around the clock. since work began five years ago, over 30 kilometres of scaffolding has gone in to rebuild the station's chimneys and painstakingly restore its 7.5 million bricks. when you think about it, the construction industry is ripe for automation. it is dirty, it is dangerous, it is physical, a lot of it is quite repetitive. but on the other side, can you imagine a robot navigating its way around the site like this? if it didn't fall over in the first 30 seconds, it would not be able to pick any of these things up unless they were perfectly positioned in the first place. it is a robot nightmare. but one american company is trying to do just that. meet sam, or semi—automatic mason 100. he can lay 3000 bricks per day.
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with no need for breaks and the ability to work through the night, could this be the future of construction? with only a few machines in existence and costing $100,000 each, probably not any time soon. it is no surprise that some of the more interesting work to automate the construction industry is happening in san francisco, where dave lee has been to find out more. don't tell anyone, but i have been trying to earn a few extra dollars — which is why some days you can find me here, on this construction site. there is a ton of work to be done, but you know what? i don't care, because it is the end of my shift. i am really not cut out for the construction industry,
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but that's ok, because thanks to companies like built robotics, maybe i don't have to be. their autonomous system allows this hulking great thing to get to work without a human driver. it can be left alone to get on with the task at hand, which in this case is flattening out the land. it is fully autonomous. what that means is basically, you load in plans for what you want your finished product to look like, and the machine looks at the plans, figures out how to navigate around the site in order to accomplish the work, and then sends commands to the on—board electronics on each machine, so they can go out there and do the work. noah is a former google engineer and he uses much of the same technology that can be found in that company's self driving car. but he says his vehicle has to consider many more factors when going about its work. so it is a lot of nuance around how different types of soils interact
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with the blade, how the tracks spin and slip as you move around a rough jobsite, that is really the hard part and that is what we focus on. it is notjust here on the ground at construction sites where autonomy is changing how things work. for a fuller picture, you need to look to the skies. one of the biggest challenges with construction, particularly big projects, is knowing what is going on and where. skycatch, also based in san francisco, has created what is essentially a foreman in the sky, a drone system that can analyse sites with incredible detail and share its findings almost immediately. it would normally take weeks to survey an area as big as this, costing money and of course time. now a detailed scan can be captured in just 15 minutes. these are becoming real tools now. before we had cameras,
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we took video, photos, now we can do real work with them. the technology we put inside these machines can give you data that can be immediately used on the field. at any given point construction sites are changing all the time. you may know what is going on five minutes ago, five minutes later it is completely different. the success of this company is of course good news for companies that are trying to cash in on the increase organisation of construction sites. but for the millions who make their living — a good living — getting stuck in on sites around the world, life is going to change. so yes, thejobs will be reallocated. i think we will be spending more time planning, on making sure that things are done on time, but it will also have other really awesome effects. buildings will be built in days. it will be a lot more affordable to build a highway, a lot more afordable to build a home. so we believe that this
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will also help equalise how quickly people have access to homes. that was dave in san francisco. that's it from us here at battersea power station. you can see more behind—the—scenes shots from this place and the rest of the show on twitter, and we are on facebook too. thanks for watching is and we will see you soon. the clocks have gone forward and we are in british summertime. i can't offer much in the way of some weather, but for spring, offer much in the way of some weather, but forspring, it's offer much in the way of some weather, but for spring, it's not too bad. there will be sunshine. we
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had a cracking start to the day, and that will continue into the afternoon. further south and east, more cloud across the far south—east of england, but even here, that will thin and break up through the afternoon. one or two showers across the far north of england perhaps, into northern ireland and across scotland, but they would be few and far between. for many, good spells of sunshine, maximum temperatures in double figures, 10—12dc. with light winds, that will feel pleasant. this evening tonight, with clear spells, it will turn fairly chilly fairly quickly, frost developing across scotland, northern ireland, northern and western areas. temperatures below freezing. further south and east, more in the way of cloud and temperatures staying up at 1—4dc. next week, a battle going on. across the north, the air coming in from
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scandinavia, and across the south, milderaircoming infrom scandinavia, and across the south, milder air coming in from the atlantic. as those two meet, that is where we could see a bit of snow. on monday, a bit chilly first thing in the morning but lots of sunshine. gradually, that sunshine will be eroded by cloud moving in from the west, eventually rain pushing into northern ireland, west wales and the far south—west of inward. temperatures still in double figures, 10—13dc. that will change on tuesday. this low—pressure moves m, on tuesday. this low—pressure moves in, and that will be the dividing line between the colder air to the north and the less cold air to the south. we will see snow falling across the far north—east of scotla nd across the far north—east of scotland on tuesday. temperatures taking a real drop — 5—8dc. further south, sunny spells after the morning rain clears, temperatures still just about in morning rain clears, temperatures stilljust about in double figures. wednesday, an increasing risk of snow moving its way in across
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scotland, maybe some down to low levels, and snow on the pennines. with a north—westerly wind, it will start to feel a bit chilly, even in the south. temperatures around 10 celsius in london, but for the north, more like 4—7dc. the run—up to easter looks cold. more on the website. goodbye. this is bbc news. i'm ben brown. the headlines at1 pm. the australia cricket captain steve smith and vice captain david warner are to stand down over the ball—tampering scandal. the australian prime minister expressed his anger. this is a shocking disappointment, and it's wrong, and i look forward to cricket australia taking decisive action. an extra 3,000 midwives are to be trained in england to ease staff shortages and improve care. catalonia's former president carles puigdemont is arrested
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in germany after crossing the borderfrom denmark. also coming up this hour, france remembers the police officer and three other people killed in the terror attack on friday
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