government to, it doesn't really surprise me. it seems to match the rhetoric we hear from politicians in those countries. i would be much more interested and frankly impressed if you told me about the russians, the chinese, the north koreans and indeed donald trump and the americans were signing up to what you have at some points called the geneva convention that's needed to control technology across the world. these countries are the problem. and they're not interested in your solution. i think one should consider it from a different perspective. we need to build coalitions of the willing, especially among the world's democracies. there are roughly 75 democratic nations in the world, roughly half the world's population live in them. so, for example, under the leadership of a number of western countries,

including the uk, france, germany, people came together in paris last year to sign a new cyber security agreement. all 28 members of the european union, 25 of 27 nato members, the us was missing, but progress is advancing. but address my wider point about other people missing. in 2017, if i had been in a british hospital and had computer systems wiped out by a malware attack that came from north korea, it would be no great consolation to know that the scandinavians have signed up to a geneva convention for internet safety. what you're not telling me is, while we can continue to have any confidence in the security of our data, of our information flows, when we know there are people in north korea, russia, china, and a host of other countries committed to developing ever more sophisticated cyber warfare. but that is exactly the point. if you're going to defend the world's democracies from the world's authoritarian regimes, you start by building an alliance of the

world's democracies. it's the basic principle that led to the creation of nato. it's the basic principle that won world war ii and it's the basic principle we need on the 21st century to defend the world's democracies from these authoritarian attacks. interesting point, but maybe you are being a bit naive, because i'm also remembering that in 2013, you and many others from big tech were called into crisis meetings in the white house under the obama administration because you discovered, thanks to the leaks of edward snowden, that the us state, the government of america, your government, its national security agency were illicitly tapping into electronic communications for their own national security purposes, unknown to the millions of people whose data was accessed. why should we trust america? when did any government in the west? one should have some facing

democracy and be to protect it. i actually think, as we described in our book, that the snowden disclosures in 2013 were one of the great inflection points for technology of the past decade and it did awaken us all to things we did not know. it led us, as a company, to file not one, but four lawsuits against the obama administration. we went to the united states supreme court, we took steps that led to greater legal protections and that's the other side of the point. —— coin. if we protect our rights and democracies and protect ourselves from authoritarian cyber attacks, that's not going to solve the problems of the world, but it's fundamental to the progress we need to make. i am really sensing your passion for this, but i'm also wondering whether you are not being deeply naive and perhaps some people watching this will say a bit misleading. because we've established that state actors across the world, frankly, on their record, can't be

trusted to follow your principles, but also on the private sector has repeatedly failed to follow your principles. we only have to think about facebook and the data released at cambridge analytica and the fact that millions of facebook users weren't to know their data was being accessed for political purposes and we can, frankly, look at microsoft and even the recent past, you've been reprimanded in ireland, there was a published report showing that linkedin, one of your companies, was applying algorithms to personal data to suggest network connections, addressing email addresses, accessing email addresses of millions of people who had no idea that they had been accessed, and that was a linkedin responsibility. dutch officials pointing to microsoft collecting personal data without informing users. why should we trust any of the actors in this set? —— sector? i don't think that this is about sitting back and just hoping that people do the right thing. i think it is about engaging people, perhaps most especially

the public at large, so that we all take the steps to ensure that the right thing is done. i think that the fundamental point that you are making actually is a valid one. one of the stories we share in the book was that meeting with president obama in the white house in 2013. i was there and as we in the tech sector were pushing the white house to put in place more checks and balances on the nsa, there came a moment in that meeting when president obama looked at us and said, "i have a suspicion the guns will turn." "you all in the tech sector have as much or more data "in the government, there will be a day when the demands "that you are trying to place on the government will be "placed on you." he was right. it was a prescient observation. so, if you're accepting the premise that, frankly, we should be sceptical about the state actors in the big tech companies, let me bring it back to the individual and all the people watching and listening to this interview. we all generate enormous — most of us now — enormous amounts of data.

why can't we have ownership of that data and at least have a transparency as to what our data is being used for and by whom? well, i actually think that is something that is an important goal and it needs to be a reality around the world. so when? well, interestingly, for any country that is today in the european union, that is the law of the land. it became the law of the land in may of 2018. people in the eu have the right to go to a digital service and find out what information the company has about them. they have the right to correct and if it's wrong, to delete it, to move it to another provider and i will say, we need to bring those rights to the rest of the world and i will also say, microsoft today is the only company in the tech sector that said last may that we would take the rights that european law gave to european customers and we would extend that

to all of our customers, everywhere in the world. and we've found that customers, people everywhere actually value these rights. in the future, artificial intelligence appears to be the next great step in the sort of tech story. in the west, and particularly the united states, it seems ai and innovation within it is being driven by the big tech companies. in china, for example, it seems the state is committing itself and vast resources to investment in al. which approach do you think is going to win out? i think at the end of the day, you are going to see ongoing competition between both approaches. i don't think this is the kind of thing where one approach is going to win and one approach is going to lose. i actually think the real question shouldn't be who will do better, the us or china? the real question is, how do we ensure that artificial intelligence becomes a little bit more like electricity in the sense that it needs to be a tool

that any company, any government, any nonprofit can use anywhere. we shouldn't want it to be an invention that drives wealth or income or power to just a couple of places on the planet. in the course of your long career and having seen what has happened to the tech sector, what's happened with privacy business, how states abused and misused information technology, are you confident that we human beings, as a species, are going to develop autonomous "thinking machines" in a responsible way? i think you've just asked what may well be one of the single most important questions for our generation of people because think about it in the terms you put it. where the first generation the history of humanity that is giving machines the power to make decisions that historically could only be made by people. if we get it wrong, every generation that follows will likely pay a price

for our mistakes. does that mean that we should be optimistic or pessimistic? i actually think it means we need to be determined. it is of fundamental importance that we get these issues out on the table, we enable people to understand them, we start to bring together notjust technical people from the tech sector, but people from broad communities to really come to terms and enable us, especially among democratic societies, to put laws in place that at least increase the probability that we will get this right. so, optimist or pessimist? i am both, but mostly i say it doesn't matter. it only matters that you're determined. we are determined to do what we can, to not just think about this from a technology perspective. it's why, as we share in the book, if you go to the vatican, we meet with the world's religious leaders, with philosophers. if we are going to ensure that

computers reflect the best of humanity, we need to ensure that all of humanity is reflected in this conversation and we just have to stay on this every day. brad smith, it's a great way to end this interview. thank very much for being on hardtalk. thank you. thank you very much. hello. it was a weekend of two halves. we had plenty of sunshine for most places on saturday followed by more showers on sunday. but on both days, it was warm, with temperatures above 27 celsius. this was the scene as the sun went down sunday night in cornwall, some clear skies but some shower cloud still around too, and really, through the week ahead, we are looking at a pretty unsettled

autumnal feel to the weather, wet and windy at times and it'll feel quite a bit cooler than it has done. monday is, of course, the autumn equinox and right on cue, we are welcoming this area of low pressure from the atlantic. now, some of this rain is much—needed rainfall, particularly across parts of the south—east of england, where we have had less than 20% of the expected rainfall so farfor september. now, during monday morning, most places starting dry. bit cloudy and damp for the north of scotland. this area of rain will work in to the south—west of wales and england and northern ireland, winds picking up through the day, central and eastern parts of england, up to southern scotland, you should stay dry all day. and in the sunshine, temperatures reaching 21 degrees, certainly fresher than it has been. typically, in the high teens when you are under the cloud and the rain in the west. now, moving through into monday night and overnight into tuesday, we see that rain becoming quite heavy for a time, especially across parts of south wales, southern england as well, the winds also picking up with that heavy rainfall.

it will be a mild night, certainly frost—free, as it will be really for much of the week ahead. we're not expecting to see any frost this week, but what we are going to see is some strong winds and heavy rain on tuesday morning, courtesy of a bit of a wave developing on this weather front here moving in from the atlantic. so, with all that rain and also the strong winds to contend with too, we may well have a bit of disruption to travel tuesday morning, especially for parts of southern england, into south wales as well. there'll be a lot of standing water, i think, on the roads. this area of heavy rain works its way gradually eastwards across england and wales. that'll be followed by more heavy showers and thunderstorms packing in from the south—west. i think northern ireland and the north—west of scotland should stay predominantly dry through the day. temperatures only around about 15—19 degrees. much cooler than it has been and plenty of really quite heavy showers around. not only the showers, but let's look at the wind gusts. 30mph gusts inland, a0 or even 45mph gusts along the south coast and through the english channel too. all that wet and windy weather moves eastwards, but we'll still see some rain

in the south—east wednesday morning. it will be a less windy day by the time we get to wednesday with a mix of sunny spells, a few scattered showers but not a particularly wet day on wednesday. temperatures around 16—20 degrees and it stays unsettled through the rest of the week. bye— bye.

welcome to bbc news. i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: one of the world's oldest travel firms, thomas cook, has ceased trading. britain launches its largest—ever peacetime repatriation operation to bring home more than 150,000 stranded customers. as world leaders gather for another climate summit, we ask — can china kick its coal habit? getting electricity from these things is now cheaper per unit than generating it from coal. and a surprise at the emmy‘s as phoebe waller—bridge beats off stiff competion to win for fleabag