Transcript: US and UK team up to study AI

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘US and UK team up to study AI’

Sonja Hutson
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, April 2nd, and this is your FT News Briefing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Tensions between Iran and Israel have escalated. And the US and UK are teaming up on AI safety research. Plus, Robinhood doesn’t want to be known just for meme stocks anymore. So it’s launching a credit card.

Jennifer Hughes
True to form being Robinhood, they’ve come out with a solid gold credit card version, actual solid gold.

Sonja Hutson
I’m Sonja Hutson, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Three senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were killed yesterday in an air strike that targeted the country’s embassy in Syria. Iran has said Israel is responsible for the attack. The strike marks a significant escalation in hostilities in the region. Since October, Iran’s proxies have co-ordinated attacks on US military forces across the Middle East. In January, one strike on an American base on the Syrian border killed three US service members. Since then, Iran has shown signs of de-escalation. But this latest attack could put the country back on the defensive. Israel has not commented on the air strike.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The US and the UK signed a major agreement on artificial intelligence yesterday. It’s focused on how to assess risks from future AI models. The deal comes as governments around the world are trying to figure out just how to regulate this rapidly evolving technology. I’m joined now by the FT’s artificial intelligence editor, Madhumita Murgia. Hi, Madhu.

Madhumita Murgia
Hi there.

Sonja Hutson
So what are some of the details of this agreement?

Madhumita Murgia
What’s kind of unique about this is it’s the first time that any countries globally have signed any contract to kind of work together on AI safety. Each of them had previously announced in November that they would be setting up an AI safety institute, which would essentially be kind of a research institute staffed by scientists to assess and understand the risks of AI, to evaluate systems being built by companies. And they will pool talent, technology and other resources to kind of jointly approach the problem.

Sonja Hutson
And when we say they’re looking at the safety of some of these AI models, what does that mean? What are they looking for?

Madhumita Murgia
In practice really what that means is that all of the real cutting edge commercial models available today have been built by private companies. The science of kind of evaluating these models is very much still emerging and evolving. So the point of these institutes is to get researchers to be able to, from the outside, test how the models work, how good they are, you know, where they fail, and if there are any risks, including bias or cyber security risks. So this is what they’ll be testing jointly as well as individually in the two countries.

Sonja Hutson
Got it. So this isn’t so much about regulation right now but more about information gathering?

Madhumita Murgia
Exactly. So the UK for example, has no regulation in place currently for AI technologies, for emerging AI really. And neither does the US have any sort of federal AI legislation or regulation, although they have issued a White House executive order that addresses some of the sort of impacts and risks of AI. So it is a distinct approach because we have seen other countries that have moved faster to actually regulate these models more actively. The EU, for example, has passed the EU AI Act, which looks more broadly at AI across the board. Similarly, China has put out also its own kind of views and policy around how they hope to curb and curtail any sort of challenge to their censorship regime, which AI might pose. So you are seeing other countries quite actively regulating, whereas the UK and the US are approaching it from more kind of we’ll evaluate the risks and understand them better before we put any sort of clear regulation in place.

Sonja Hutson
Madhu, why do you think the UK and the US are taking this different kind of approach?

Madhumita Murgia
So I think the reason they’re doing that is because both governments are trying not to hamper innovation in a really fast moving space. You know, in the US’s case, a lot of the companies that are building the most cutting edge models are based there, and many of them are establishing their international headquarters here in the UK. So in both cases, you know, it’s a matter of staying competitive, attracting talent to build more of these systems and not sort of cut off this innovation at an early stage while things are still so fluid and rapidly evolving.

Sonja Hutson
How much impact, then, do you think this agreement will really have on making AI safe?

Madhumita Murgia
I think it’s really interesting. I was told by the UK’s minister of science, Michelle Donelan, that they were modelling this collaboration on how the US NSA and the UK’s GCHQ, which are the two intelligence agencies, on how they work together. So I think the fact that, you know, working with the US government, which kind of can hold these companies to account more than anyone else, I think it will have a positive impact and we will understand more, I think broadly about the risks of emerging AI systems.

Sonja Hutson
Madhumita Murgia is the FT’s artificial intelligence editor. Thanks, Madhu.

Madhumita Murgia
Thank you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Sonja Hutson
The trading app Robinhood launched its first credit card last week. It seems like kind of a weird move for a company that’s mostly known for letting first time investors bet on meme stocks. Remember the GameStop saga? Well, this new credit card is a sign that Robinhood wants to be known for more than just that. Here to talk to me about the opportunity and potential pitfalls is the FT’s Jen Hughes. Hey, Jen.

Jennifer Hughes
Hey there.

Sonja Hutson
OK, so tell me a little bit about this credit card. What are the details and how’d the launch go?

Jennifer Hughes
So they launched it last week and true to form being Robinhood, they’ve come out with a solid gold credit card version, actual solid gold.

Sonja Hutson
Oh, wow. Very flashy.

Jennifer Hughes
Yes, it weighs a lot more than your average credit card. And following the launch, the share prices rose. So it suggests that investors did like the idea.

Sonja Hutson
And what’s the larger goal behind this card? I mean, what is Robinhood looking to become?

Jennifer Hughes
It wants to be more than a trading app. That’s basically its starting point. The strategy is more about becoming a financial services player generally. So the credit card is key to that. I mean, some people suggest they want to be a super app. I think that’s kind of too strong a description, but they certainly want to have more things. So you’re going to go to Robinhood for your savings, for your investment, to manage your credit card. That’s a good starting point.

Sonja Hutson
OK. So not a Robinhood super app, but just a bigger financial player. What are some of the obstacles that Robinhood faces in getting there?

Jennifer Hughes
Well, it’s got to convince people that it can be that when you’re known for one thing in particular, it can be difficult to broaden that appeal. I mean, we know it is a trading app. We’ve all got credit cards already. So they’re going to have to convince people to switch over. So it’s got to bring enough people in and then start to probably broaden out to other products as well.

Sonja Hutson
What other moves besides launching this credit card has Robinhood made to reach this goal of being a larger financial services company?

Jennifer Hughes
So they’ve already got this gold subscription service. It’s $5 a month, and for that it gets things like better data, you get 5 per cent on any deposit you’re holding there. This is sort of a good match if you move over retirement money. They’ve been building up their assets under custody pretty quickly. So people are going for this sort of thing. They’re also building out their main Robinhood operations. They launched their first overseas operation in the UK quite recently. And they’ve got cryptocurrency trading in Europe as well now. So they’re sort of working on all fronts, their traditional trading front plus this other stuff.

Sonja Hutson
And Jen, what do you think that it would mean for Robinhood to actually successfully make this pivot?

Jennifer Hughes
It would be a real sign that the initial mission of democratising finance, that’s their words not mine, is going somewhere. It shows that they can get beyond trading. At the launch, Vlad Tenev, the founder of Robinhood said that this was only the beginning of the products they want to offer. So I guess we’ll see more to come.

Sonja Hutson
Jen Hughes is the FT’s US markets editor. Thanks, Jen.

Jennifer Hughes
Thank you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Sonja Hutson
Before we go, we have an announcement for all of our listeners in the New York area. The FT’s Alphaville and Unhedged teams are hosting a pub quiz next week. If you feel like testing your knowledge, join them on April 9. You can check out the link in our show notes for more info on how to sign up.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.