this is bbc news. the headlines: the ukrainian president, volodymyr zelensky, has told a joint session of the us congress that the war in ukraine is a fight for the freedom of the world. in his speech, he thanked the us for its support, saying it was an investment in the future. earlier, at a white house meeting, joe biden praised the bravery of the ukrainian people. the us president also pledged america's continued support for kyiv. the patriot air—defence missile system will form part of a ms billion aid package. the world health organization has said it's concerned over the worsening covid situation in china. the number of cases has continued to rise after china reversed

its zero—covid policy and stopped most testing and tracing. now on bbc news, click. this week — computer, draw me a picture of a lizard drinking coffee. nice! yes! we're looking at the light and dark side of ai art. oh, dear. oh, that is peculiar. laughs. zoe's finding out why everyone�*s talking to a new ai chatbot. "are you alive?" please say yes. just please say yes! alasdair gets his

ultrasound on. and lara's getting ideas above her station. impressive display, albeit a little intimidating to see myself that size! do you like a bit of art? i do like a bit of art. any idea what is art, and what isn't? that's a big question. i guess for me, it's anything that aims to look good or even make you feel a certain way — and that could be paintings, photography, music, performance, even ribbons. yeah, ribbons is a work at the now gallery in london which invites guests to re—examine their views on textiles. did it work for you? ijust wanted to touch it. lovely. but for me, the most exciting piece of modern art that's been created this year is this. 0h, what's it called? a cute corgi in a house made of sushi. right, and who's it by? now, that is the

million—dollar question. in the last few months, all sorts of weird pictures and videos have been popping up online. some look like clever mash—ups of existing photos, others look like the work of pretty groovy digital artists. but they're not. each of these images has been created from scratch by a computer, based on nothing more than someone typing in a few words to describe what they want. now, i have to say, some of them are stunning. the pace of this has been quite staggering because, you know, a! is fast—moving anyway, but even by those standards, this has been as fast as i've ever seen. dr michael pound is an expert in deep learning, and he spent the last few months exploring how these systems work. what you could do is you could

just come up with any prompt you like and we can just generate an image and see what it looks like. but, as we try and generate completely new images of "cute rabbit wearing a parachute jumping out of a plane," it becomes obvious that these systems don't really understand what they're drawing. oh, dear. ooh, that is peculiar. all right, well, that is very believable. what's happened there? it's kind of like a cloud, but it's also furry like a rabbit. yeah, for every great picture you see online, there may very well be quite a few weird ones that don't get posted. but the good pictures are really good, and the fact that this has all happened so fast has blown my mind. so, what on earth is going on? to put it simply, it's complicated. but if you give me 90

seconds, i will give you my best explanation. foryears, machine—learning systems have been vacuuming up all the images they can find online and their accompanying text descriptions. over time, the systems have learned to associate certain words and phrases with certain types of pictures and now, they seem to know enough to be able to work in reverse — start with a description and get a picture. so, if i type in, "an abandoned futuristic dystopian city "overgrown with plants, bathed in sunlight", it will first come up with this. now, it doesn't look much, but i think there are some clues in here. for example, does it know that the word "plants" means it

needs to put in a lot of green and that green needs to be low down in the picture? do all pictures of sunlight it has ever seen involve a single point of brightness somewhere in the sky? i think this is some kind of average of all plant pictures and all sunlight pictures. next, it uses these broad brushstrokes to guide it, and it slowly adds more and more detail over and over again until, in 100 steps, as if emerging from a fog, you get this — which i think is pretty darn beautiful. and you don't have to start with a blank slate. give it a starting face and you, too, can grow your own mad scientist in a steampunk laboratory. and then, there are the teddy bears. in the same way you can specify a subject, you can also

specify a style. these systems have seen enough monet to know what makes a monet, hence the most beautiful picture of teddies that monet never painted. oh, and here's van gogh�*s bears, picasso's bears, and even one from hp lovecraft. but here's the problem. what if you wanted a painting in the style of a living artist — one who earns money from their commissions? as an artist, my work, what i do, it is a part of me. it's a part of my identity. and these companies have allowed users to generate things that look like i've done it, that look like my peers have done it, and we're going to generate all kinds of things that you never agreed to that could either be against your wishes, that could be against your beliefs. karla ortiz is a concept artist, illustrator and fine artist who has designed for the marvel cinematic universe, amongst others,

and she has discovered ai—generated work in her style and that of her peers online. i would even say that to me it feels almost like some kind of parasitical copying, you know? laughs. it's like, "oh, we're copying from another "artist specifically to look like that artist. "oh, but it's slightly different, but it sure looks like that artist did it, huh?" it's concerning. this is a live issue, but there may be hope for artists whose specific styles have been replicated. an artist wouldn't be able to claim an infringement for a style being copied because copyright doesn't protect a style. but when artificial intelligence has been used to make something in the style of someone else, then their original works would've been copied by that al. so, if an artist did have a problem, they could make

a claim for their original works having been copied in the first place as part of data scraping and data mining. but there is that other issue surrounding ai, too. given that you make your living from your art, are you worried that you might lose income because suddenly it's possible to generate stuff that looks like yours? i'd be lying if i said no. i am worried. i have peers that are also very worried specifically — and this is a concern i share — for those that are entering the industry. and i've heard reports of illustrators whose projects were cancelled or — "oh, hey, these interns "that we were thinking of hiring, maybe not really". and, like, there's whispers of that happening more and more within our industry. and if you've ever taken a photo and sold it to a stock photography website,

you'd better watch out, too. most websites, when they write articles, they put photos on to go with the story and the photos are usually not the actual story, they're sort of stock "people in an office" or something like this. now, we're not quite there. people, hands, faces — they're difficult to do for al. but if that gets better, you could imagine that you mightjust go off to an algorithm and say, "i need people looking really angry �*cause their printer "doesn't work", and there we go, and you have solved that problem. that's the kind of thing i think it could find some use for. over the years, we have asked repeatedly what happens as a! takes over more and more of the repetitive mundane tasks and the answer is always been, "well, at least we'll "still have our creativity! "we can all go off and be artists!" and al's like, "no, i'm coming for that, too". and as a! starts to play a part in pretty much most parts of our lives, it may be about to shape the conversations we're having, as us company openai has released a new type

of chatbot, and it's impressing critics with its writing abilities. zoe kleinman has been giving it a try. you don't always know whether you are talking to a human or a computer. pretty obvious if you're hanging out with tesla's optimus here, but sometimes less so when you are relying on typing and texting. a number of tech firms are working on the future of chatbots — an a! platform trained to engage in conversation — and one in particular has gone viral. it is called chatgpt, from the firm openai, and more than a million people have had a play with it since it launched. it gets its wealth of information and styles of writing from the internet. i'm going to let it show you what it can do all by itself. first question — "explain chatgpt in two sentences". "chatgpt is a chatbot trained using the gpt—3 language model. "it uses natural language

processing to generate "responses to user input in a conversational manner". not so conversational so far. let's try another question — "are you alive?" "no, i'm a virtual assistant "created by a computer programme. "i do not have consciousness or the ability to feel "emotions like a human. "i exist only to provide information and assist "with tasks within the limitations of my programming". right, here we go. i've come to glasgow university to meet drjeff dalton, a senior lecturer in computing science, to see what he makes of it. i think that if i were to ask this on an exam, that is probably a low b. dr dalton spent a lot of time running questions through chatgpt. chatgpt is very good at generating natural language. right now, it can generate a paragraph, it can generate a poem. its limits are it can't generate an article. it can't write a phd thesis.

it can't write a specialised report. it can't do those things because it's fundamentally limited in the fact that it doesn't understand what it's talking about. but is it growing too quickly? practitioners are surprised by how quickly these modern systems are developing, and some of them are starting to think we may have systems as smart as humans in as little as ten years, which is sooner than most people thought previously. as platforms like chatgpt develop, what more could they be capable of? maybe they'll replace internet search engines. maybe they'll generate content for websites. maybe they could even write reports like this — although i'm not quite sure where that leaves me... hmm. that was zoe. now, time for a look at this week's tech news. sam bankman—fried, boss of failed crypto company ftx, has been denied bail in the bahamas after being arrested. us authorities charged

mr bankman—fried with one of the biggest financial frauds in us history. scientists have announced they have overcome a major barrier in nuclearfusion — they can produce more energy from a fusion experiment and they put in. this has taken 60 years and thousands of people to reach this stage — although experts say much more work is needed before fusion is a viable answer to our energy needs. fusion is the energy source that powers the sun and the stars. the reason the sun shines is because of fusion reactions at the core of the star. it is the merging of light elements into heavy elements and releasing energy in the process, taking hydrogen, fusing it together with helium and releasing tremendous amounts of energy. europe's new weather satellite has launched from french guiana. the meteosat 12 uses next—gen technologies to gather data from europe, the middle east and africa to help track violent storms. and iphone 14 users in france,

germany and the uk can now use emergency 505, which lets them contact the emergency services via satellite if they can't connect via cellular or wi—fi. on the edge of glasgow, i am at a company taking tech you probably know from healthcare and finding ways for it to be used in everyday life. ultrasound is the coolest imaging technique. the benefit of ultrasound is it is completely non—invasive. it's just sound waves, like we're talking now, but you can see inside an object without having to open it up. for novosound, the process started out in a very industrial way. traditional ultrasound manufacturers would use machining to build an ultrasound probe by machining or breaking away material to make a probe. we do an additive manufacturing process that we call printing — that's just a layman's explanation of what we actually do — we use a plasma

vapour deposition process, a very physics term for atom—by—atom building up an ultrasound sensor, and then we use some other additive manufacturing techniques we have borrowed from the semiconductor industry to build up a sensor, which we then put in an embodiment that's 3d printed, so there's three different steps of printing, as we call it. this is the novosound kelpie. it's a 64—element linear array, and typically, it is used for inspection, corrosion mapping. because it is so flexible, it can be wrapped around pipes and conform to complex geometry, so it can look inside of objects using ultrasound. and what sort of things are you looking for in a pipe? so, typically, we'll be looking for corrosion or cracking, any defects. can i have a shot? yeah, go for it. getting from this very industrial use to something we can interact with every day is a big focus for the company. so, we've already proven the ultrasound technology in the industrial sector — in aviation, oil and gas. but most people know ultrasound from the hospital or medical imaging, so what we really

want to do is be able to take medical imaging out of the hospital and put it into the homes for everyone. so, a lot of the wearables that are on the market at the moment only look at the surface of the skin. they're optical, they're electrical. as soon as you use ultrasound, you can get deep into the body and that opens up a huge amount of different parameters you can measure, such as dehydration, blood pressure, tissue vitality, tissue movement. and what are you seeing on the tablet? so, we take an ultrasound picture, zap it over the wireless, put it onto the computer so that we can extract information to go into machine—learning algorithms. and them, that allows you to measure stuff like — what we're showing here is dehydration, so how hydrated the tissue is — all through a completely wireless platform. novosound aren't the only ones working in this area, with engineers at mit in the us having developed a sticker ultrasound earlier this year. so, the key bit that puts us ahead of our competition in this area is the fact that the ultrasound picture i've got on the screen in front of me, there are no wires

in front of me — it's truly wireless ultrasound we have here. and it could be as soon as in the next year or two that the tech novosound are developing here is available in devices we can buy. now, every year billions of litres of water are lost due to leaky pipes and as the planet heaps up and the risk of drought increases, it's an ever—more troubling problem. yeah, so some companies are starting to turn to ai—powered sensors to help identify holes in their systems, and paul carter has been finding out more. scorched grass, receding water banks, and record—breaking temperatures — a result of this summer's heatwave. some companies even had to bring in a hosepipe ban. thames water, which serves 15 million people across london and the thames valley, was one of those companies. it leaks around 24% of its water supply and,

along with other water boards, it came underfire for restricting water use while its pipes leaked. so, we know it's unacceptable to lose large amounts of water through leaks, so that's why we're determined as a company to drive leakage down. thames water is trying to fix their leaky pipe problem with a new ai—powered sensor. it aims to identify the location and size of a leak, just by analysing noise. i'm in surrey, an area hit badly by this summer's drought, with the founder of fido tech — the company that created the sensor. here today, we're looking for leaks, so we're in a very typical residential area which we know has got some water loss. this is a little acoustic sensor that you fit onto the pipe network. this listens to a leak noise and what we've done is a bit of a! that looks for the noises that leaks make, but also filters out the other noises that leaks don't make.

neil and his team place these sensors under a drain cover overnight. what's the next stage in that process? so, basically, we use the app now. so, this little device is bluetooth, bluetooth talks to the phone, and the phone then talks to the cloud, and all the analysis is done in the cloud. the graph tells you that consistent noise, firstly, and then a! has said "ok, i have taken that noise, "recognised it, and it is a small leak." hisses oh, wow! so, that is the actual sound of a leak? right now on the system. so, it is a live capture, effectively, so you can go "ok, "yeah, i agree with the ai — it is a leak". these are the audio signals we have recorded and it is the status of the leak we have detected. this part of the process is called cloud correlation. it's been developed by professor muhammad zeeshan shakir at the university of the west of scotland. when you have the audio files stored in the cloud, they would extract this features out of it and try

to correlate it. you can say correlation is a process where you try to look at how they look mathematically and try to find similarities in time or efficacy domain, and then the cloud would return you the location of the leak. this system is underpinned by a massive archive of audio files — hundreds of thousands of recordings of leaky pipes from around the world. not only does this inform the cloud correlation, but it should let the ai identify any given leak. but how effective is it? previously, using old techniques, we've had like a 50% success rate. so, out of areas that we go into, 50% of the time we come out with the leak we are looking for. what fido has enabled us is to increase that by 20%, so that's up to 70% now in total and it's just allowing us to be targeted and where we raise a leak, that we know it is a leak there. ai—powered sensors like fido's haven't completely replaced the traditional way of identifying leaks — which is, believe it or not, engineers using listening sticks.

but their role in global leak detection could come even more important. now, i wonder whether you remember this guy. i came across him in ireland last year, where he was a big thing — well, at least his head was. this was the rather ambitious tourist attraction that its creators hope will one day adorn the skylines of cities around the world — the point being that anyone could be 3d—scanned and then projected onto the giant. it sounded bonkers, didn't it? yes — it certainly felt somewhat of a "big" project. big, indeed. but it turns out it really is moving forward, isn't it? yes, and recently, it moved all the way to a big expo for the attractions industry — which was, quite frankly, the quirkiest place i've been to in a while. wow, it certainly looks it! and you grew up by the funfairs

of the british seaside — i thought you would be right at home there. no, i guess it felt quite odd when the actual sea was missing! but it was here that the giant had started to come to life — well, a 1.5 metre prototype of the head at least, an eighth the size of the finished giant's bonce. the difference between the old head and the new head is that we have got a matrix skin of leds, which is linked to the volumetric scanning machine, which now allows you to not only project an image onto the statue, but also to talk. so now, it's my turn to be scanned by the volumetric capture booth�*s 49 cameras. i'm going to have the head of a giant. the images are then broken down, so the data from them can be used to create a 3d face. that's weird. my face gets flattened, so it can then be wrapped

around the model. and even at that size, it's slightly unnerving to come face—to—face with! i am going to have the head of a giant! impressive display, albeit a little intimidating seeing myself that size. and i seem to have lost my hair. i'm going to have the head of a giant! it needs a wig — a giant wig — and it is a bit odd from the side. it has a nose, but nowhere close to a nose like mine. absolutely no comment whatsoever. but i did always wonder how they cope with different face shapes. yeah, i know. from straight on, i didn't find the generic one that odd, but you do lose the magic from other angles. hmm. now the focus of this project has always been sustainability. and you can see on both the head and the scaled—down version of the whole giant where the solar panels will be embedded, aiming to fully power them with renewable energy. but all that scanning that happened earlier has another purpose, too. really?

it also creates an augmented reality avatar that anyone can use on a smartphone, anywhere. if you don't happen to have your own giant handy. exactly. and you can make yourself whatever size you wish — even bigger than the giant. and back to normal size again, i think? you are, yes. that's it for us from the now gallery in london. thanks for watching and we'll see you soon. bye— bye. hello there. the next few days are looking fairly unsettled through the run—up to christmas. we'll keep low pressure nearby. so, i think large parts of the country will see rain at times, a bit of sunshine here

and there, and it will be mild in the south, but it'll start to turn colder across northern areas. you can see this conveyor system of low pressure pushing up from the southwest, bringing in bands of rain followed by sunshine and showers. and our air mass coming in from the southwest off the atlantic will always be warmer, certainly across the south of the country. colder air, though, will start to tuck in across the north as we move through the next few days. for thursday, looks like it will be colder across northern scotland — breezy with a few showers, but quite a bit of sunshine for scotland, northern ireland, far north of england. england and wales, though, rather cloudy, misty, murky with some patchy rain and drizzle, some heavier rain into the southwest later in the day. here, it will be mild, quite breezy. further north, though, a chillier feel to things, but at least we'll have the sunshine to compensate. as we move through thursday night, it stays blustery, further showers across the north, these wintry over the hills. further south, it'll be quieter — mixture of clear spells, some cloud, but then some heavier rain and stronger winds will start to push into the southwest later on, along with some milder air. but a chillier night to come across the northern half of the country. so, for friday, a chilly start, some sunshine across northern

areas, a few wintry showers over the hills of scotland, then this band of rain starts to push northwards across england and wales. some of this rain could be quite heavy and persistent for a while as it pushes its way northwards. doesn't reach scotland until we move through friday night. however, there'll be a big temperature contrast — some brighter weather in the south with a few showers, very mild, staying quite chilly despite the sunshine across the north. then, as we move into christmas eve, that weather front pushes northwards, some snow on the hill as it does so. then, for christmas eve, christmas day, we're in a run of milder southwesterly winds, sunshine and showers. but then, later on christmas day into boxing day, we start to see some colder air work its way southwards across the country from the northwest, and with the winds coming in from the northwest, this is likely to see most of the snow showers on christmas day across the north and the west of scotland. one or two wintry showers getting into irish sea coasts as well. you can see the trend — it turns colder for all areas as we move through the christmas period, but i think it'll be short—lived, as it will start to turn milder once again in the run—up to new year's eve.

don't forget, you can check out the bbc weather app for where you are or where you're going. take care.

this is bbc news, i'm monika plaha. our top stories: ukraine's president zelensky tells a joint meeting of the us congress in washington that his nation's struggle for freedom is for the future of the whole world. we don't have to know everyone�*s wish, as we know that all of us, millions of ukrainians, wish the same. victory. only victory. applause at the white house, president biden announces almost $2 billion worth of further military aid for ukraine, including patriot missile defence systems. meanwhile, in moscow, president putin tells the military there is no limit to the funds available for the russian offensive.

the world health organization issues a stark warning