the future — it's already here, but is it coming for yourjob? i did laugh off the idea of ai replacing writers or affecting myjob. until it did. i realised by myself that i had lost my job, you know, because i saw this video uploaded without my voice. it's been predicted that i will change the world of work, trashing millions ofjobs while creating new ones. well, today that change is already happening. these two have already felt it. dean meadowcroft lost his work as a copywriter after his company started using chat gpt and alejandro , a voice artist whose voice was replaced by a computer. plus jessica apatite at the boston consulting group has been taking the temperature of the global workforce, interviewing thousands of workers and bosses about how artificial intelligence is changing work right now. also on the show, our big

boss has been working with al for years. he runs bosch. yeah, the european tech and engineering company, which says within the next two years, all of its products will either contain ai or have been developed using it. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world. once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. you know, for decades, science fiction has been imagining what will happen when the computers take over. it's been the stuff of horror since stanley kubrick's film 2001, a space odyssey showed us the fear of an astronaut whose spaceship had a mind of its own. today, we're long past 2001, and the computers aren'tjust learning — they're also now so smart they're starting to take jobs. the change ai promises is massive. while both the industrial revolution and the digital revolution change the world of work. this could be a transformation which is even greater. that's certainly what us

president biden thinks. i don't think ever in the history of human endeavour has there been as fundamental potential technological change as is presented by artificial intelligence. according to goldman sachs, the equivalent of 300 million jobs could be automated by ai. it says two thirds of all occupations in the united states could be exposed to some degree of artificial intelligence. and of thosejobs, a quarter to a half of the workload could be automated. but the report also points out that historically, jobs that are lost to technology are replaced by others. just very recently, the scandinavian furniture giant ikea said it's trained more than 8,000 call centre staff as interior design advisers, while its ai chat bot will deal with the customer complaints that those humans used to manage. so how does ai take yourjob? well, according to my first guest, you might not know it's happening until it happens. dean meadowcroft, a real pleasure having you on the show.

and dean, let's start with this, because you were working as a copywriterfor a marketing company. what happened when they introduced artificial intelligence? essentially, aaron, i was working for a company where they started toying with al, implementing it in some of their posts and looking at it. the stance they said at the time was that it would be for idea generation. that could be anything from a standard blog post on lawn care to shapewear to, you know, the best toys to give you a nephew on his eighth birthday, anything and everything. so it was generating all of these subjects. it just felt very run of the mill. you could have seen it on any single blog, nothing really stood out for it. i'm certainly not naive enough to not see the benefits of ai. i mean, companies who don't embrace it in some way will inevitably fall behind in the future. unfortunately, what we found ai does it, just kind of makes everybody sound middle of the road on the

fence and exactly the same, and therefore nobody really stands out. and how many of you were in the team you were in the team? when it was introduced there were four members of the content team and a manager that oversaw the content. so we worked alongside it for about three and a half to four months and then early this year there were redundancies in the company. people were let go. from an individual perspective that was something i was worried on happening anyway. now, after a few months in their freelance wilderness, if you like, i'm working for a company called health assured. they're an employee assistance programme. so, dean, al was well, it was quicker and cheaper than you. is that why you think you lost yourjob? i believe it played a part in it. i'm obviously never going to fully know for sure, but i believe that an entire content team

being let go when there's so much content to put out, there's so many demands. it's odd that it came about around those initial months where al was being introduced. you know, dean, i'm just wondering, did you everfathom, did you ever think with the introduction of ai that you would be one of those people that it's always been touted, you know, "al's coming for yourjob". did you ever think it was going to be you? oddly enough, in a dark irony, i didn't quite at first i thought there was a lot of doomsday prophesies going online, and i thought i, like everybody else, i'd seen everything from al generated novels and poems to ai generated content, and i looked at it and i was like, yeah, i understand that you can generate a few ideas from it, but in terms of the actual meat of content and trying to accomplish things, it just wasn't there. so most of the discussions we had were about, yeah, it's not quite there yet. i can't see anybody fully embracing this because it's not quite there. and that is pretty

much egg on my face for that because within a matter of a few months it was obviously something that people had fully taken hold of and embraced across the board in marketing as well. notjust my experience. a lot of freelancers i know have mentioned losing some really key contacts they've developed over the years because a lot of people can look at al andjust go, "well, it's simpler and it's quicker." and obviously in terms of quality, i'd like to think people do care about that. i certainly take great pride in everything i write. i'd like to think my colleagues do the same, and i hope companies don't sacrifice that quality for the expense of that speed. well, on that point, dean meadowcroft, a real pleasure having you on the show. good luck with everything, my friend, and i'll check in with you soon. thank you for your time, aaron. i really appreciate it. you may not recognise my next guest, but if you watch spanish films, his voice may be strangely familiar. he's a voice artist from argentina, best known for acting on animated films, as well as being the spanish voice of actors like jake gyllenhaal and james franco when they dub their films into spanish. but it was while doing

a voiceover for some youtube videos that he realised that al was taking work away. alejandro, really good to have you with us. and alejandro, let's start with this because you were doing voiceover for a youtube video and then you went on holiday. you went on vacation. what happened then? well, what happened is that the youtube channel that i was recording for uploaded a new video in spanish and it was like, this is weird. i haven't recorded something new in the last couple of weeks, and when i clicked on it, what i heard was not my voice, but an ai generated voice, a very badly synched voiceover. it was terrible, it was terrible. and it was like, what is this? so i texted my employer and it was like, what's going on? and he confirmed the worst. he told me, well, yeah, the client

is going to try with a couple of videos, this new software ai dubbing voiceover. and if the...if it has mild success, they're going to stay with it because it's cheaper and faster. but before that, the company didn't tell you at all? no, no. my employer is a studio here. so we started working. we had lots of videos and we stopped because of the holidays. and there was the promise that we were going to continue to carry on with this with this job during this year. so, you know, i saved the time. also to you know to live with. i have two daughters, so i needed the money. after a couple of months of uploading videos with this, ai voiceover they ended up taking them down, all of them,

because it didn't go well. we're still waiting if maybe i could get myjob back. we do not sign contracts, binding contracts that say, ok you will work for us a year or even for three months. no. no this is come and go and come and go hey there is new material. a great let's work together. everything is legal. there is nothing illegal there. but they replacing is not something i could say, hey, they interrupted my contract. but you know, alejandro, i mean, some critics will say companies are benefiting because, well, they're saving money in profits, bigger profits, and and maybe they're a public company. so it's returning more money to the shareholders. i'm not saying any of that's right, but that's the argument,

isn't it? voiceover by a nay would be beneficial for humanity, of course, for companies. that's there's no argument there. but in that case, we should try and regulate it so that it's notjust me. i mean, all around the world. this is happening all around the world with voice artists. do you know other people, whether it's in your industry or not, that this has happened to? yes. well, in in my industry, the first people to lose theirjobs were translators. and we could tell, because when you receive a script that is not adapted, it's only translated like, you know, literally translated jokes are not adapted to to the other language, localism. and you're like, who translated this? mrai.com, oh yeah, i can see that. so eventually because of mainly because of our complaints, the people who are recording and receive the script and couldn't work with it because it was

a piece of, you know, we started raising our voices. so they rehired those translators now to adapt or correct or do some, you know, quality check on those translations made by ai. so you could say that that is a good combination. you know, you still have people working, earning a living with what they studied for. but at the same time, you use alto make things go quick. it was a good balance. well, on that point, alejandro grau, a real pleasure. good luck with everything. and thanks for your time. now, from those very personal stories, we're going to turn to a wider perspective. in workplaces all over the world, ai, it is the hottest topic. and my next guest is behind her report, which interviewed some 12,000 people in different companies all over the world about how employees and managers view ai. are they worried, excited or bemused? jessica apatite, thanks for your time. really good to have you with us. and jessica, let's start with this. i mean, you've recently

just compiled this this global study, this global report. and i want to know just how worried, jessica, are people out there about losing theirjobs to ai? absolutely. yeah. and it's a very big concern of people. we actually surveyed 12,000 workers globally. so a huge number. and when we look at these people, about a third of people state that they are very concerned that they will actually replace theirjob or make them to actually lose theirjob. so it's a huge concern. i would say, though, from my perspective, the glass is half full. when you actually look at the numbers and it's also because we have things like chat gpt that is making a much more prevalent in people's day to dayjob. we actually have a rise of optimism in the survey. we have up to 50% of people now who say they are optimistic about al and the level of concern on job loss is actually going down versus 2018 quite radically. and jessica,

was there was there a big difference between what managers said and what employees said? i think that is actually one of the most striking outcomes of this survey. when you look at the data, we actually find a huge gap between frontline staff and managers and leaders. and when we look at frontline staff, they are twice as likely to be pessimistic on the outcomes of ai for them than actual leaders and managers. so that has a number of explanations. of course, the type ofjobs that they do. but there is also another reason that is the familiarity that they have of the technology. when you look at leaders and managers, we have more than 80% of them that use ai, at least on a weekly basis. when you look at frontline staff, that number drops to 20%. so of that lack of familiarity with the tech comes also much more anxiety and concern on the outcomes for them. and jessica, i'm just wondering here, is there a rush here to cut costs that the companies just may end up regretting?

so for sure, new technologies around the ai, notably around generative, ai are not fully mature yet. they're not fully at scale. even if you think of the cost for corporation right now, if you want to use a model like chat gpt for corporations, it's a paper use. so there is very limited scale in corporations in using it today. now, when you see that, you think this cost of this technology, the next cycle will hopefully go down, but you also see that it is not ready for widescale usage. also, we're still figuring out the human elements how to ensure that people are ready to use this in a safe way. think of a marketing corporation — huge opportunities, content creation, copywriting, editing. but i would advise no marketing organisation to place all of their staff by about tomorrow. we're not ready for that. and jessica, as we know, you spoke to people all over the world and i've got to ask, what were some of the geographical

differences? also, that was, i think also a very striking learning of the report is that there are things that are very different from country to country, and there are things that are the same across the world. when you look at the level of optimism on al and its possibilities for the labour market, you have some countries that are super optimistic countries like brazil, india, the middle east. you also have some countries that are super pessimistic, including the us, including countries like the netherlands, japan, france. my home turf. my personal hypothesis is countries that are more on the emerging side of things see this as an opportunity to really leapfrog, to turbo—charge a bit their tech developments and see this as an opportunity for richness. whereas we see a more mature label market they really see this as a threat for them and for theirjob loss.

jessica, did you make any conclusions for for best practice, for working with or alongside ai? i would really encourage corporations to do three things. 0ne, really start experimenting, build up muscles, start making it more prevalent. it helps people see the opportunities here. it helps corporations also size what the opportunity is for them, and it helps actually lower the level of concern around ai. i would say, two, start training and upskilling there's a huge call for it. 80% of workers are calling for upskilling and learning on al. let's say three responsibility programmes. build them, think through how to do this in a very transparent way and also really communicate around these programmes so that you build trust in your organisation in the way you experiment and scale this. ina in a year's time or so what is your prediction on how we will

be working with al. we your prediction on how we will be working with al.— your prediction on how we will be working with al. we will not be working with al. we will not be replaced by _ be working with al. we will not be replaced by robots. - be working with al. we will not be replaced by robots. i'm - be working with al. we will not be replaced by robots. i'mjust| be replaced by robots. i'm just kidding here. it is really hard to tell. the technology is evolving superfast. if you have seen the way ai is not new. if you see the way it has evolved in the past few years everything points towards the fact that maximum income —— impact comes with humans and ai work together when there is that synergy and interaction that synergy and interaction thatis that synergy and interaction that is where there is magic that is where there is magic thatis that is where there is magic that is real outcomes. so i would hope that we focus on the use cases and applications that defends the way that we work rather than replacing the weight that we work and that way will have a great outcome. well, on that point, jessica h patique, a real pleasure having you on the show. i'll check in with you in a year. well, my robot will check in with you in a year's time.

thanks for your time and we'll talk to you soon. looking forward to that. earlier we spoke to people who lost their work to artificial intelligence, but how do people driving the technology see the future? the german engineering and text giant bosch has been running a centre for al as part of its research for the past six years and the company says that by 2025 all of its products will either contain ai products will either contain al or will have been developed using it. so i sat down with its big boss. 0n using it. so i sat down with its big boss. on this would show we have been asking whether artificial intelligence can transform the workplace. it's a big part of your business, how do you work with your ai? we business, how do you work with our ai? ~ your ai? we were quite intensely. _ your ai? we were quite intensely. we - your ai? we were quite intensely. we have - your ai? we were quite l intensely. we have found your ai? we were quite - intensely. we have found it a centre for artificial intelligence years ago with hundreds of specialists to work on the subject and not there is

a new wave coming which is quite amazing because you sound these foundational models and we are amazed by the generate of ai tools like gpt. and we will see a complete new application coming towards us because these tools now work with language and language is something we use all of the time with language and language is something we use all of the time especially with language and language is something we use all of the time especially people with language and language is something we use all of the time especially people like with language and language is something we use all of the time especially people like us here right now on the show and we will see language used by machines in a completely different way than machines have used it so far. i different way than machines have used it so far.- different way than machines have used it so far. i have to ask, have used it so far. i have to ask. what — have used it so far. i have to ask, what kind _ have used it so far. i have to ask, what kind of _ have used it so far. i have to ask, what kind of impact - have used it so far. i have to ask, what kind of impact has have used it so far. i have to i ask, what kind of impact has ai had on your work so far? 50 ask, what kind of impact has ai had on your work so far?- had on your work so far? so far i think it has — had on your work so far? so far i think it has increased - i think it has increased our workforce because all of our products can be generated with consumer impact and also professional products for example for the industry. you see a trend for making cars safer with complex diagnostic and assistance tools this is where we talk about automated driving or assisted driving.

lots of fat is based on al and that has to do with the huge wave of new sensors and computers to be placed into cars. so i would say for bosch is a positive technology because it increases our workforce. because it increases our workforce-— because it increases our workforce. �* ., ., workforce. i'm wondering what kind of skills — workforce. i'm wondering what kind of skills are _ workforce. i'm wondering what kind of skills are people - workforce. i'm wondering what kind of skills are people going| kind of skills are people going to need to work in a world alongside or with al? it is alongside or with al? it is alwa s alongside or with al? it is always good _ alongside or with al? it is always good to _ alongside or with al? it is always good to have - alongside or with al? it is always good to have ai i alongside orwith ai? it 3 always good to have ai experts in these experts are mathematicians, these specialists, scientists working out ai tools. the people applying ai will need a good minds, and spirit and ideas. that is the most important thing. and definitely talking about language application, language is a major tool of ai of the future. therefore a good use of language is definitely helpful. there will be a lot of jobs which are affected which are in the office space and the other hand there is a huge wave coming and bosch is spying

where the interaction space in space of products —— sol where the interaction space in space of products —— so i would not say there is a new wave of qualification necessary. 0n the other hand everyone should know what is possible and that is what is possible and that is what we at bosch should do. spend on treating to become our people so they can become ai fluent and they can use it in thejob and go fluent and they can use it in the job and go forward. has it been difficult _ the job and go forward. has it been difficult to _ the job and go forward. has it been difficult to find - the job and go forward. has it been difficult to find the - been difficult to find the people with the right skill set to drive this growth in al across bosch? if to drive this growth in al across bosch?— to drive this growth in al across bosch? , ., ., ., ., across bosch? if you want to go for al tools _ across bosch? if you want to go for al tools and _ across bosch? if you want to go for al tools and designer - for al tools and designer yourself differently have to friend to experts. these are not the easiest to find there are universities worldwide even we have companies to get those people on board. and that is actually very, attractive. we also bought a company in the uk in universities in the uk we have experts working on a and

collaboratively intensely and thatis collaboratively intensely and that is the way to go forward for the experts here. there is another game that pretty much everyjob has to be fluent in al tools and be able to apply ai tools and be able to apply them and that is more a training and qualification accident because we cannot send anyone back to university, that will not work. a lot of people with years of experience have to bring them into the tool space. to bring them into the tool sace. ~ ~ ., ., ., space. we know that you have been meeting _ space. we know that you have been meeting with _ space. we know that you have been meeting with politiciansl been meeting with politicians about al. i'm wondering what kind of regulations are they talking about because it does seem like everybody is on the same page when it comes to needing to regulate ai? regulation has obviously, i think on the first direction to look at transparency. it is i believe very good if we know when we buy a product or use a product what is in there, is al use, am i talk to a machine or ami use, am i talk to a machine or am i talking to a human being. you will say that is fine but in the future that will be a question which is not so easy to answer. so i would say the

transparency part. another part is for sure the question of misuse. there is misuse in a technology you have. but in al for sure there will be a discussion where it is misused and what should i be that with that. i would not stress it too much to be honest because it is in development, but definitely will be a question. the biggest fear always comes from an effect which is on jobs. fear always comes from an effect which is onjobs. what fear always comes from an effect which is on jobs. what i normally say, look, all technology waves that have gone through mankind have in the end actually created jobs. there is actually created jobs. there is a fact individually again some jobs but we should look into this area more domestic terms is race. there is this of the wave of fear which is out there that we think old goodness ai will take over the world and we are at risk. we ourselves have given an ai could ask on how we work with al. i think that is one of our questions we have addressed and we have worked

intensely with regulators and the european union to think about what kind of a guidebook on but not to do with al and what to do but we always have to be a bit careful in the suite of development because right now thousands of people are working on this technology independently worldwide so i think we still have to look at what is coming and then regulation will follow. briefly, when do you think regulation could come into force because many believe, you touched on it. regulation has touched on it. regulation has to be global to make this work. i think the first regulations will come up in the next year. it will be relatively fast and first things would, and actually they are quite clear that certain things could be regulated. but there is probably this is a journey. so there is not one ai law to be fastened than it is over and that we will have regulation in the works, because guess what all technology that was a stem engine and relational how to use the steam engines that will

not work like this it will be a journey and regulators from the world will have to cooperate because guess what. regulators will also need to know what they are regulating so this is they are regulating so this is the education question of regulators. that's it for this week showed don't forget you can keep up with the latest on the bbc website or the smartphone app. can also follow me on twitter, to me i will tweet you back. you can get me at. thank you for watching and i was using. bye—bye. hello there. we saw a lot more cloud around on saturday, and it signals a change in the type of weather. we did manage some sunshine, mind you, and temperatures, 27 celsius in the south—east of england, where it is much better weather for a fly—past this time.

but things are really going to kick off on sunday, especially later on in the afternoon, through the evening, a lot of rain developing, could be some large damaging hail. torrential rain likely to bring some flooding, and a lot of thunder and lightning, as well. we start the day with some sunshine, but may well be some sharp showers from overnight in the south—east of england and east anglia. and as temperatures rise, so the cloud builds up, and we'll see more of those downpours developing, particularly across england and wales and into northern ireland. probably not so many showers in scotland. more in the way of sunshine here, and temperatures around 22—24 celsius — and again, it'll be quite muggy. now, we may well have some thunderstorms across northern ireland, but the worst of those will be developing across parts of england and wales. and through the latter part of the afternoon, into the evening, really wet weather will push its way northwards up into northern england, away from southern england and the midlands, and wales, and eventually that wetter weather arrives overnight into scotland. some torrential rain likely to bring some flooding, a lot of thunder and lightning in there, as well.

that wet weather still across northern scotland on monday — it does tend to ease off. following on from that, there'll be some sunny spells, a scattering of showers, 1—2 of them on the heavy side perhaps. many places may well be dry. still quite warm, temperatures again around about in the mid—20s, more likely across the midlands and eastern parts of england. now instead of high pressure that's brought dry weather for some areas of the country for so long, it'll be low pressure that's sitting close by over the week ahead, which will bring the threat of some more heavy and thundery downpours. there'll be some sunshine around as well on tuesday, and it should be quite warm. many eastern areas likely to be dry — it's out towards the west that we've got most of those thunderstorms developing, and again, there could be some localised flooding. so temperatures around about 22—23 celslius on tuesday. and we'll keep temperatures over the weekend around the mid—20s or so. there will be some further heavy, perhaps thundery showers over the weekend. maybe turning a little less humid, a little fresher, and perhaps some southeastern

parts of the uk later in the week will be a bit drier.

live from washington, this is bbc news. us secretary of state antony blinken touches down moments ago in beijing for a high—stakes weekend of talks with his chinese counterparts. dozens of students have been killed at a school in western uganda by rebels linked to an islamic state group.