BBC tapped to stop Britain being baffled by AI The UK government wants the BBC to help Brits understand AI and develop basic technology skills as part of the public broadcaster's next charter period. In its charter review published on December 16, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) says it wants the Beeb to become a "trusted guide" in navigating …
For cancelling your TV License and ridding your home of their insanity! They've as much chance of unbaffling folks as hell not being on fire!
Perhaps they can get Nandy to mandate all benefits claimants must attend all the courses for a free license then!??!
Barely Believable Cretins are so desperate to waste our money it is a final attempt to justify their existance and a100% #EpicFail on their part..
That reminds me, I have a letter from TV licencing again.
The dunderheads keep pestering me even though I've not watched TV at home or accessed iPlayer content for a couple of decades. I did watch some TV not long ago whilst staying with a relative, but glad I gave it up - only things of interest were old programmes, which I can get on DVD if I really wanted.
People, add up the amount of time of non-programme content per hour. That's a significant chunk of time you're never going to get back.
Up to 15 mins of commercials, and in between those, the intrusive slot from the "sponsor" just drives me nuts (see handle).
The dead time on the BBC maybe less, but just as annoying
To be honest, most of the BBC's content always starts from a line like "The UK government wants the BBC to..."
Do we need to be reminded of COVID when BBC Breakfast had MP after MP regurgitating the same tired bullshit and the presenters didn't pull them up on it? They left it to Piers fucking Morgan to do the proper work of a journalist, to the point the Government refused to send their MPs on to Good Morning Britain because it didn't like the proper questions and the proper accountability being asked/sought.
The BBC I am sure does some good, but to think the BBC is autonomous and free of Government interference is a fallacy.
>If you saw the start of the first paragraph you would have read "The UK government wants
Not necessarily. The BBC Charter Review is led by the DCMS but the BBC is consulted and makes suggestions so it's entirely possible this AI idea is the BBC trying to make itself relevant and receive some more govt money (our money). If that is the case I can imagine the DCMS & Labour both welcoming the idea as they're both keen to prop up the BBC, and also they know any mention of AI will earn them kudos from an AI obsessed Prime Minister.
Both forms are ok for Brits. It's a long running argument although the tide in recent decades does seem to be more towards -ise for British publications.
More worryingly (for me), that page also tells me I've been incorrectly spelling routeing without an e! Oh well. Back to shouting at youngsters who say they are off to the ATM, getting a take out and then going home to binge watch a season of some tv show..
I've been incorrectly spelling
You haven't, you've been spelling it differently.
At the end of the day there's no up front specification, it's all specified retrospectively by consensus.
The meaning of words can literally change almost in front of your eyes.
My current one is 'doubt'. I work with a lot of Indian colleagues (I'm a Brit), they will often say 'i have a doubt' rather than 'I have a question'. Contextually correct, but not a way I would have used that word before.
> My current one is 'doubt'. I work with a lot of Indian colleagues (I'm a Brit), they will often say 'i have a doubt' rather than 'I have a question'. Contextually correct, but not a way I would have used that word before.
That puzzled me too when I first came across it. Turns out the use of "doubt" to express a query is standard Indian English, but still pretty much unknown in British or American English.
standard Indian English, but still pretty much unknown in British or American English.
Yes, it seems to be a widely held misconception that Indian English is the same as British or American English, see "upgradation" in Indian English versus 'upgrade' in British English. Another would be an Indian colleague asking me to 'revert back' - to me that's a request to regress a change I've just made, but to them it means to reply to someone.
Yes, but with rather different connotations.
My first encounter with the Indian English usage, many years back, was an email from an Indian grad student expressing "doubts" about one of my papers (I'm a UK-based research scientist). My first thoughts were along the lines of "How dare this young whippersnapper question my Great Wisdom, and in a peer-reviewed and much-cited publication, at that!" Reading on, they were in fact politely asking for clarification on a couple of technical points in the paper, which I was more than happy to respond to.
> They may catch on that it's not normal usage here.
Yes, but they weren't "here" – they were in India. If I'm interacting with an Indian, American, Australian, South African, Caribbean, ... English speaker and I'm on home turf I use UK English1. (If I'm in one of those countries I might well make some attempt to learn local usages.)
1You might well ask which UK English.
As someone who doesn't live in the UK I have to ask why continue a "TV Licence Fee" in a world where most "TV" is now available via other means?
It seems that this "TV Licence Fee" (BBC Tax?) adversely affects those that cannot afford an internet connection ...
£174.50 a year [around AUD$353 at time of post] ( See https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9k27yy839o ) is, IMHO, unjustifiable in this day and age...
Surely the BBC makes enough from licensing its products that the "TV Licence Fee" become a "money grab" by the UK government?
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Yeah, for me when it goes it'll be the Radio 4 stuff I'll miss.
The BBC is tax funded and has a charter to educate and inform. This means there's quite a lot of niché programming, especially on Radio that wouldn't make commercial sense.
It's that kind of stuff, and the news gathering arm, that will be a loss when it's gone.
I personally think the output of the BBC is great value for the license fee I pay for it. However when my friend, who doesn't watch or listen to any of it, goes 'Why should I have to pay?' I don't really have a good argument. My cultural enrichment is of no consequence to him.
The problem is, as the Simpsons have taught us, once you race to the lowest common denominator the quality can suffer.
So I'll raise a glass to the beeb this Christmas, and thank it for the entertainment and education I've had so far. I'll miss it when it's gone.
> My cultural enrichment is of no consequence to him
Sigh.
Unless someone is quite staggeringly dull, tedious, boring and stultifying, we *all* benefit from being within a culture that is, well, cultured. Even if it is second or third hand experience.
Heck[1], even people watching Gogglebox are unwittingly exposed to the occasional bit of culture, which they've got to remember so they can talk about it later!
[1] warning: incoming middle class snobbery alert! Awooga!
So I just VPN'd over there and took a look at iPlayer. (Don't need no stinkin loicense, I'm not British.)
I could have sworn the BBC used to have stuff I'd want to watch.
There's Doctor Who....
And then there's a bunch of christmas shit, and a bunch of copaganda. I definitely would be upset if I was paying to watch shows pretending the pigs were good, and not the worthless scum dregs of humanity they actually are.
-- I personally think the output of the BBC is great value for the license fee I pay for it --
Once upon a decade I would have agreed with you. These days I'm not so sure. Anachronisms have crept into the period dramas, the BBC news has quite a few spelling errors and poor punctuation. As for the warnings at the top of articles eg
This article contains distressing details and references to suicide. Some of the names have been changed to protect identities.
I dread to think what the author's/Editor's opinion of their readers is..
It's very hard not to consume BBC content. Old stuff (from the glory years) turns up on endless non-BBC channels and Youtube. You are also contributing to underpinning British culture - music, the arts, production, writing and most other creative arts.
The BBC also has created markets like televisng live football (MOTD) and other sports that the richer (higher sub) companies bought out when the TV licence was not allowed to grow with costs.
There is also the moral argument that because one doesn't consume it - you break a system for the benefit of most of the rest of society. It's an argument similar to - why should I pay for healthcare for others if I'm healthy?
When the majority turn their backs on the BBC and its works - well the licence fee should be an issue. But, for value, the fee for at least 7 TV channels and dozens of radio channels without ads is stupendous value against what the streamers can offer in original content. Perhaps that's why they lobby against it. And without the competition their standards would inevitably decline damaging everyone.
.As an IT add-on. I, like many in the 90s learnt how to build websites from looking at the BBC source listing. I remember their first use of Tables. Mindbending at the time.
Earlier the BBC micro didn't play an unsubstantial role in creating a whole generation of IT nerds both in hardware and software - although I was a Tandy man!
The children getting Micro:bit? Revision aids? Anything school may decide to use (But I don't have kids! Ok, so long as you never will and none of your family - or friends - ever do)
Ok, yes, you can scrape away and find people who *really* do not ever use anything from the BBC, who don't know anybody who does (don't know anybody they care about whose use of any BBC material is, to them, worth supporting). And yet who still watches live broadcasts and is therefore "snared" by the licence fee. Just be *absolutely* scrupulous in verifying they don't (no listening to BBC radio in the works canteen, no reading the news snippets offered in a web search page, no overhearing anyone who is talking about what they heard on R4 the day before, no second-hand enjoying of any popular culture that came from the Beeb...).
They are, as is everyone who *does* admit to consuming BBC material, then just left with "the common good" (like the submarine captain waiting for the Today programme before letting off his nukes!). Yeah, yeah, damn commies.
When both sides of the political spectrum routinely argue that the BBC is biased in favour of the other lot, then they probably are broadly shooting down the middle. The real issue the BBC has is like any publicly funded institution - what they can pay people. The fact of the matter is the private companies pay more, so the best talent the BBC has gets drawn away by money. That applies to everyone from tech staff to journalists to writers and so on.
The fact of the matter is the private companies pay more, so the best talent the BBC has gets drawn away by money. That applies to everyone from tech staff to journalists to writers and so on.
So I'm sure you have the facts to support this allegation.
One the one hand, there's the £5bn+ gorilla that can overpay a Lineker or RTD, on the other, the rest of the UK TV industry that doesn't get free money and has to earn it instead. Plus 'best talent' is subjective, ie RTD, even though he doesn't really work for the Bbc. Or, that thanks to the Bbc's uniquely excessive funding, it can afford to develop new talent rather than recycling the faded talents it typically overuses in its shows.
True. So if you decide to subscribe to HBO to watch the next Commonwealth games from live Glasgow, you will also need a TV licence and have to pay twice for the same show!!
Yes, HBO, a US company currently for sale likely to another US company now has the right to broadcast the Commonwealth games in the UK.
"There is no moral argument around the BBC TV Licence."
Technically, it's not a BBC licence, it's simply a "TV Licence".
But yes, it does part fund the BBC (other funding comes from selling content and license deals around the world) and for me, the moral argument is that it's chipping in to fund a high quality broadcaster that is independent from commercial pressures or political loyalty.
Also, it's not mandatory, it's easy to not pay it.
In theory:
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/televisions/article/tv-licence-explained-a4ROt3S92d24
The reality:
It's a protection racket - Aunty Beeb sends around her licence fee enforcers to intimidate people to pay up...
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1165753/BBC-TV-licence-news-pensioners-over-75s
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/veteran-raf-pensioner-89-wrongly-5549801
And what about the huge amount of people criminalised by the BBC (as well as DVLA etc) for their prosecutions under the single Justice procedure where the sick, disabled and elderly are hit with charges that the Justice system is failing.
One reason why my application for a magistrate has stalled, just can't see myself on a conveyor belt of cases taking less than a minute to decide
I agree that those "enforcers" are heavy handed.But, take that up with Crapita and tell the government to keep them under control.
That work is not undertaken by the BBC.
The Bbc really isn't very good at fiction, whether that's RTD's 'Twatblast', creating fake Trump speeches in an edit, or just your claim. The Bbc is the only entity responsible for collecting the licence fee, so the Bbc is solely responsible and should be accountable for any heavy handedness or harrassment. Other aspects are also the Bbc's fault. If it produced content people wanted to watch, licence fee revenues wouldn't be falling as people turn off. If it really was the best content on the square waves, it would have no problem transforming into a proper subscription service, rather than a blanket TV tax. But it knows this is not the case, which is why it's been desperate to avoid being turned into a voluntary subscription service. Have an FTA news service, encrypt the rest and call it good.
That work is not undertaken by the BBC.
The BBC should do their due diligence - and check that their sub-contractors are following the regulations and law. If Capita as flouting the conditions, the BBC can terminate the agreement - the issue with Capita and their tactics is not new - been going on for years.
The BBC can't stand back and say it's nothing to do with them - if Crapita are collecting money on behalf of the BBC, then, the buck stops with the BBC. What happens if during one of the door-steppings by one of these enforcers, an elderly person gets a heart-attack and dies - who's responsible? Of course the Coroner will be involved and will make an appropriate decision - could it be that Capita and BBC are jointly responsible from a corporate point of view?
That was not a purely factual post. It suggests that Capita conducts the work and that the government, not the BBC, chose them. Those are alleged facts, though people are disputing the latter and saying that the BBC chose and can remove Capita. I don't have a clue which one is true (not a UK citizen), but we've already got disagreement on a fact. However, there's also an opinion in there which some are disagreeing with, namely how much each company involved is responsible for the tactics used. Downvotes (I am not among them) could be coming on questioning one of the facts alleged or on the opinion, so your complaint about them isn't valid.
Disclaimer: I have no love for deCapita, and am ambivalent to the pro/con licence convo.
I contracted at TVL (deCapita) for a couple of years, in Finance including fraud detection. I reported to the FD. Fraud detection not only covers "the public" but also the enforcement posse. And I can tell you, when enforcement officers overstepped their given authority, they were dealt with very harshly (they were fucked off out the door, with legal proceedings if required). I can guarantee that, at that time, absolutely no shit was tolerated by enforcement officers, and licence payers were treated fairly on a case-by-case basis. In fact the intimidation you mention was actively sought out and squashed, it _really_ doesn't do the brand any good. So, if you encounter that intimidation, report it. I know things there have changed since, so I can't honestly speak "for now", but I would be surprised if that had.
I upvoted you but they are set using logic.
1. Someone hit by a car going 30mph is more likely to be critically injured than the same person being hit by a car going 20mph.
2. Reducing the speed limit to 20mph on all streets in built up areas will reduce casualties.
Its logical just misses a few points eg most RTA fatalities are caused by drivers going well over the speed limit. Those same drivers don't care that the limit has been reduced to 20mph.
As with many things - pass a law: job done WHAT! do we need to enforce the law as well, surely everyone will obey the law, especially criminals.
That would be fine if you only needed the BBC TV Licence to watch BBC live TV or use the iPlayer, but you also need it for any LIVE TV, and so it is both repressive and regressive. In addition, they have made it a criminal offence where as that is not the case if you do not pay to consume Netflix, for example.
How the BBC brought in the licence fee by stealth ..
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/14/bbc-licence-fee-by-stealth-subscription-original-model/
> So why should such viewers be required to fund the BBC if they are not consuming BBC content?
They aren't. As long as they don't watch *live* TV then they don't need a licence.
All they have to do is disconnect the aerial and then stream away to their heart's content.
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> That is not true. UK citizens who consume LIVE TV are required to have a BBC TV Licence whether they consume BBC products or not.
You seem to be replying to a post that clearly states "As long as they don't watch *live* TV then they don't need a licence." which is in agreement with your position. So why did you start "That is not true"?
> So why should such viewers be required to fund the BBC if they are not consuming BBC content?
A good point. Presumably the corollary is that those people who only watch the BBC, and don't watch commercial telly, should get some sort of refund at the end of the year to compensate them for the extra money they paid for goods bought in the shops which have had the cost of the TV adverts promoting them added into their price?
"but what of those who watch TV but do not consume BBC content? What are they subscribing to?"
I think that is becoming less of probing question as time goes by and pretty much all video services are paid for subscriptions, even some of those supported by adverts. And if you only watch on demand programmes away from the BBC (e.g. Netflix, Amazon etc.) then you don't need a licence.
I'm glad the BBC exists as it is, the license fee is good value and it still somehow retains independence from government. The fact that every UK government at some point claims that the BBC is biased against them is in my opinion, a good sign of media freedom.
It is not a tax because it is not collected by a government agency. It is a licence, such as for fishing or shooting. It is not even a duty.
The BBC TV Licence was specifically set up this way to separate the BBC from any possible claims of direct funding by the government. That has changed over the years, but the principle still stands to ensure that the BBC is independent of government funding and thus interference.
It is not a tax because it is not collected by a government agency. It is a licence, such as for fishing or shooting. It is not even a duty.
That's precisely why it is a tax. See-
https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/charter
The Royal Charter is the constitutional basis for the BBC. It sets out the BBC’s Object, Mission and Public Purposes. The Charter also outlines the Corporation’s governance and regulatory arrangements, including the role and composition of the BBC Board.
And along with the Framework, granted by the DCMS, and exists solely at the whim of the DCMS and whichever government is in charge come Charter renewal time. See also-
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldbbc/128/128i.pdf
Since our last report there has been a significant change in the position of the licence fee. In January 2006 the Office of National Statistics re-classified the licence fee as a tax. Previously, this payment had been classified in the National Accounts as a service charge.
I can't find the original ONS paper, but as essentially due to the licence fee not actually being a service charge because it doesn't actually provide any service, only a permission to access one. But also defined the Bbc as being a central government body.. Which given the control exerted, it very much is. One option for this Charter renewal could just be to not bother and flog the Bbc off. But the reclassification as a tax also meant ONS had to restate the entire UK Plc accounts back to the licence fees inception.
Then there's the claims of independence. The Bbc is the sole body authorised to collect the licence tax, so is responsible and accountable, regardless of who it might choose to enfarce it. TV Licensing is just the brand & trademark the Bbc prefers to hide behind. Much as it likes to pretend it's independent of government, which is another bit of misinformation. The Bbc collects the TV tax, pays it into the Consolidated Fund (ie central government slush pile) and then government gives some, or all of it back to the Bbc. Which lead to oddities like the Licence being increased to pay for Digital Switch Over, then not decreased and for.. reasons, rather than reducing the cost of a licence once DSO was done, letting the Bbc keep the money, supposedly to fund broadband. Even though the Bbc was only briefly an ISP.
But this is also why there's the usual flurry of outstretched palms for the Charter review process, and the Bbc trying to keep the goverment sweet by saying it'll do AI. Starmer loves AI. Bbc loves AI. Please give generously.because the Bbc really wants a larger jacuzzi full of cash, and absolutely doesn't want to have to <eew> work for a living. Hence the turds floating in the jacuzzi, like Dr Who. Thanks to the 'unique way it's funded', the Bbc doesn't actually have to make programmes people want to watch.
But then this is also why people are increasingly unsubscribing and not renewing their licences..
BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, accounts for a little over a third of the BBC's total revenues. There is arguably some scope to improve that, but there is also a long-standing edict that the BBC should allow programmes to be made by independent production companies so they may not have the international rights to as much content as you might imagine.
The argument for a licence fee is that it allows the BBC to provide services that are not otherwise commercial (news, the orchestras/choirs, regional content) but are desirable components of a healthy cultural and information landscape and to provide programmes with a British character (originally the fear was of cheap American content, now it's of American-financed, internationally homogeneous content). There are other public sector broadcasters (who currently get certain privileges in exchange for meeting certain content commitments): one is also publicly-owned (Channel 4) and funded by advertising, Channel 5 is now owned by Paramount and it's possible ITV will also end up in US ownership shortly, so media ownership is currently a live issue.
If you look at the other countries that have replaced licence fees, their public TV service is typically much diminished. The UK is not alone in trying to hold the line - the state-funded TV sector in Germany is in pretty good shape, and the licence fee there will cost you a bit more than it does in the UK and it's a mandatory charge per household, regardless of whether there is a TV or radio on the premises.
No-one wants to pay a licence fee, but if the BBC threatens to cut a service there's an immediate public outcry. Similarly, every proposal for an alternative source of funding is almost instantly unpopular and shot down.
So, basically, there's still a licence fee because no one has yet had a better idea.
Probably not, but standards have been dropping for a long time. When "auntie" was particularly inclined to talk down to viewers I used to think it was being intentionally patronising. However I've come to the conclusion that the producers and presenters just think at that superficial level naturally. I'll never forget the famous interchange between a news reporter and Beeb exec. Accused of dumbing down programme content, the exec responded "on the contrary, we are dumbing up".
As far as I know (please correct me if wrong), that arrangement ended in 2023 and STVR is now funded by a combination of direct contributions from the state and from advertising.
A similar arrangement continues in Portugal - there is a levy on electricity bills which partly funds RTP, the rest of its income coming from advertising.
In both cases, these are relatively small amounts of money and collecting them via utility bills avoids all the overhead cost (and "big brother" vibes) associated with TV LIcensing in the UK.
The commercial broadcasters in the UK have been opposed to the BBC taking advertising that might cannibalise their own revenues and the relatively larger licence fee that results would, I think, raise significant objections if attached to everyone's electricity bill. There would also be complaints about the German model where contributions are required even from households that have no TV.
And that's the nub of the problem - one of the criteria for a "better idea" is that it's acceptable to the public. I'm sure the TV licence would not today be introduced in its current form, but it's familiar and for that reason seems to be less unacceptable than anything else proposed so far.
The BBC is an excellent institution. It does get some things wrong, but overall, it offers quality programming and a reasonable price, for all.
From my experience, Channel 4 is also very good for content and news, followed by ITV, and then Channel 5 (which i rarely watch now).
People here in the UK do like to criticise the BBC, but after seeing the offerings in other countries that speak English, the BBC is vastly superior.
@NewModelArmy
In which case I say you're an ostrich - and I don't mean that nastily.
Many people will never recognise propaganda even if you show them the source, the funding, the inconsistencies, and the historical parallels because it tells them exactly what they want to hear.
But if you're in IT and esp because you read El Reg I suspect you're not one of them and will someday see through it all.
And no, absolutely no, it isn't just BBC news. BBC propaganda and spin pushing their world view is in almost everything they broadcast.
Yes, but that is only according to the BBC themselves. No independent body ever sees the actual complaints received by the BBC so we are all just expected to believe the BBC's own classification of what is left and right.
But in any case, as pointed out in one of the comments above, the charge of bias against the BBC isn't so much about them being biased to left or right, it is that they are biased towards their own agenda and world view they wish to push.
It is my contention that the BBC is in major part responsible for the Brexit referendum vote. By giving Nigel Farage and UKIP proportionally far more airtime on news programmes, Question Time and so on than political figures and parties of equivalent size for years, the BBC is responsible for UK membership of the EU becoming a political issue. No one cared about it until they insisted on plastering NF's ugly mug spouting his nastiness over our screens several times every blasted week. Imagine if they had given the same coverage to the Green Party or the TUSC...
This is one of the main reasons why I no longer own a television, nor use any BBC services. The other reasons include their absolute ruining of the snooker coverage, infesting the airwaves with Bake Off/Sewing Bee/dancing competitions, and the precipitous decline in quality of the programming on Radios 3 and 4. Every year I receive patronising and vaguely threatening emails from Capita, apparently incredulous that I am resistant to paying for this brainless slop. They can go and *ahem* chase themselves.
It's corporate, and corporate tends to favour right wing rich people. Oh you can unfairly whinge about LGBT and BAME and leftie comedians until you're blue in your bigoted face, but that has eff all to do with the news and current affairs.
As for comedians, they need to be aware and clever to be successful, so that's why most lean to the left.
Question Time was basically the farage/brexit propaganda machine, and when Johnson was in, Laura Kuenssberg was his lap dog.
No, i do not agree with them. Earlier this year you could feed back on what was wrong with the BBC, and i fed back the relevant ideas etc.
During Johnsons last tenure, no tory person (MP) was on Newsnight, but then the Labour people got the grilling, and the tories got off scot free by not turning up. Johnson used to hide in fridges etc.
The current crop of political chairs fail to hold the tories to account for the past 14 years, and yet heavily criticise Labour.
Apart from that, the remainder is very good. I don't watch it all, but for £180 per year it is very good value for what it provides. Netflix and other streaming services do not cover the breadth that the BBC covers.
On other forums, mainly the US ones, non-UK people always say that the BBC is vastly superior to their own countries offerings.
Now that's an interesting idea. Capita booted out and replaced by Oracle. None of us would be safe - even those of us without televisions! Oracle would certainly pull in more dosh than Capita do but how much of it would the BBC see? Let's just hope Larry doesn't read this thread.
I'm quite happy to pay the TV licence even though I rarely watch TV.
And that's because it's BBC 6 Music that keeps me sane for 2 hours a day on my commute. Even though it's a pale shadow of the station it was 10-15 years ago, I still prefer it to anything else on the airwaves. Worth the licence fee alone.
In, I think, every European country, you pay for the privilege of owning a device capable of receiving transmissions from the national broadcaster.
It was amazing how fast the Swiss national broadcaster put some content on-line when they realised that people were dumping their televisions and not paying the fee.
Aunty is going to have one hell of a time trying to sell that dead cat.
While still residing in Boondocks, a neighbour volunteered that nothing could beat dropping in a a dead cat to remedy one's sick septic tank. — Indeed.
The cat population, live or dead, in those parts was largely hypothetical owing to the predation of the local feral foxes and dingos. So there might be a market for snap frozen deceased felines in the homestead sanitation market.
How on Earth can anyone, other than those afflicted by terminal daftness, expect a public broadcaster to explain AI etc to an effectively illiterate polloi that are barely able to use their smartphones?
They did it with 8bit computing in the 80s, and we ended up with one of the largest and best regarded gaming sectors in the world; the Grand Theft Auto series started in the UK (with DMA design, now Rockstar) and I don't think I need to explain their success.
The BBC is pretty uniquely placed in that being state funded (not controlled, fuck off conspiracy nuts) it can actually explain that no, an LLM isn't reliable, without risking getting it's funding from OpenAI and Google cut, for example.
This, on the surface, doesn't seem like a bad idea, if the programming is high quality and objective enough - too many normie-esque people still think AI is magical and the AI companies are pumping billions into reinforcing that idea. Perhaps a public broadcaster putting a chill on that might help prevent people from having psychotic breaks because ChatGPT told them that everyone *really is* out to get them, etc.
Steven R
"How on Earth can anyone, other than those afflicted by terminal daftness, expect a public broadcaster to explain AI etc to an effectively illiterate polloi that are barely able to use their smartphones?"
The same way they always do it:
- by getting a couple of the key characters in Eastenders to discuss it "really naturally" </sarcasm> over a cup of coffee.
I think that would work. Not sure of Danny Dyer is still in it, but it could go as follows :
NPC : "What about this AI stuff then Danny "
Danny Dyer : "I would trust that shit for all the tea in China. It is fed shit and outputs a loada shit. Only a mug would finks it's the dogs bollocks"
NPC : "What about crypto, yer can make a lot of cash wiv that"
Danny Dyer : "You absolute caaaahhhhnnt. Crypto is nuffink but a scam. Yer better off spending yer money on a blow job from the Queen Vic cleaner".
NPC : "But she ain't got no teeth".
Danny Dyer : "I know, no way in a mumf of sundays is yer todger getting clipped".
Cards on the table, I have been using and implementing 'AI' for 3 decades now and yes there is some useful stuff that can be done with statistical models - which they all are. My current stuff uses VLLMs for form understanding and it is promising. But what most people mean by 'AI' now is chatbots or slop generators and it is these I have a problem with. LLMs and diffusion models are bullshit machines, literally, and yet are being pushed onto everyone, with *very* mediocre results. There is a reason we refer to LLM users as LLeMings.
> my trust went when they made Pratchett's "The Watch"
That was BBC America, which is (now) an entirely separate entity from BBC Studios (the commercial arm of The BBC, which goes out and sells studio time to anyone, as well as making programmes for The Beeb) in the UK. Even at the time of that program, the BBC Studios held at most 50.1% of BBC America. The goings-on of BBC America are completely divorced from any discussion of the UK licence fee or the content of The Beeb over here, except for the fact it allows Aunty a prepared outlet for flogging into that market, taking some of the strain off the licence fee. Stuff that BBC America makes/has made for it does tend to get shown here, with mixed results (as everything shown anywhere is going to have mixed results).
How and why "The Watch" ended up so - unexpectedly different - well, there has been plenty of discussion on that (the best result of which has been "shame they didn't change the names then it would have been received better", sort of like how Sanford and Son didn't try to convince anyone that it was really Steptoe and Son) but for the purposes here, BBC Studios just made what the script said.
Yeah it might've been better if it hadn't porported to be based on the watch series, but they took that piece of crap knock-off handbag and slapped the Gucci label on all the same so the whole thing still makes me bitter
They can do fantasy, before twitter directed BBC policy Gormenghast was great
...for the BBC to do any sort of nationwide education for something as complex and controversial as AI.
I was in the target audience when they seriously tried teaching about computers in the 80s, and fondly remember the TV programmes that were broadcast. I found the programmes fascinating even at that age, and fantasied about owning a BBC Micro rather than a ZX81, and later, a Spectrum :-)
You have no idea of the hoops you had to jump through to get hold of a program...I have fond memories of hand-typing in BASIC programs from magazines, trying to load programs over the cassette interface based on encoded flashes of light in the broadcast picture with a very simple adapter circuit. The former was slow but reliable, the latter fast but with a frustratingly low success rate:-)
Sounds bizarre? Well, it was! The public had zero knowledge of any sort of electronic information transfer, except possibly Ceefax/Teletext. My first experience of this 'networking' was at high school, using an acoustic coupler to 'dial up' the ICL Mainframe at the local technical college (Anyone else remember logging in as S0231HELLSDN?)[1].
But I digress, sorry :-)
I suppose BBC Education could do the content, and deliver it online, probably via Bitesize[2]. However, the beeb is nowhere near as revered, trusted or as important as it once was.
"In particular, we want the BBC to support basic and universal skills on the one hand, and on the other to help the public understand AI, engage with it constructively and understand its impacts."? Get real! There is no way the BBC can teach AI, as (a) It's not defined enough yet to decide what to put in the syllabus, (b) it's a specialist subject and as such you must present the 'pros' AND the 'cons', and (c) given the beeb's public decision to abandon it's impartiality over climate change, it would be against policy to educate people about something that consumes massive amounts of energy, so much so that 'orribly polluting fuels like coal are being re-considered.
Yes, there does need to be education, but it needs to be of quality, be balanced, and promote the idea of still thinking for yourself. Personally, I'd like to see something on IT related ethics in the syllabus, but that's probably too much to ask for in these rather mercenary times!
"Nobody does serious education via broadcast TV anymore, let alone on a fixed schedule!"
That's no reason for not going back to do it. OTOH I do agree that HMG's idea is junk. It's the consequence of being duped by the idea of yet another magical solution to our ills.
ITV did as much Television for Schools broadcasts as BBC. I do remember the big tellies on a stand which had closable doors on the front that opened up into a glare shroud. And the enormous video players with piano keys.
Mostly I remember the countdown clock where the seconds dots in a circle would disappear.
I think if the BBC stuck to delivery and worked in conjunction with the OU, one of the trade bodies or one of the other universities, they might just be able to deliver something worthwhile, but I am not sure the topic would be delivered as successfully as the 1980s effort.
BBC radio science programming already works heavily in conjunction with the OU. Gone are the days of lectures broadcast at 1am and given by blokes with comb-overs and leather-patched elbows - but there is still a lot of factual BBC programming which provides a gateway to OU online content. Maybe this project could reawaken closer collaboration.
Though if it does, that may just drag the OU into the same firing line as that in which the Beeb is already languishing. The OU is, after all, a woke lefty project founded by a socialist government - so it might be better to keep collaboration with the embattled Beeb low-key, and head firmly below parapet.
Is the government proposing to provide additional funding, or will the BBC be encouraged to seek a partnership with one or more key players in the AI sector to deliver such a programme?
It doesn't need to. One of the great lies is the independence of the Bbc. Reality is it's governed by its Charter and Framework, which the goverment sets, and is why it's in the news again now because those are expiring. So government can simply write those so that Bbc1 becomes a free-to-air information & education channel, and all the entertainment slop becomes susbcription. Given the Bbc claims to be making £7-800m in 'real cash savings' and has been swelling its commercial tentacles, it shouldn't have any funding problems. Well, except for one of it's most expensive drama franchises, DrWho tanking hard.. Not that 'Bad Wolf' probably care too much because they've siphoned the cash out of the licence-payer/PSB funded part of the Bbc to pay for that dross.
Waaay back in the dim, distant and B&W past, the Bbc used to show Open University programmes, which were great, and probably the kind of thing the Bbc could & should be doing again. Make daytime TV great again and educate people instead of atrophying their brains. Just doing let RTD get £250m to write a 'Doctor teaches AI' show..
So, the government claim is that people are "Baffled by AI" - er, no. It' that most people don't need nor want it, thats a very different thing.
Then there is the small cost of living thing - people are putting their hard earned cash into things they actually need and want - little things such as food, constantly rising bills and paying the mortgage or rent. Other things are pushed down the pile.
AI is pointless against all of this, each and every one of us has Real Intelligence - the stuff that is in our brains. Sure there are different levels of Intelligence, but thats the same with AI, except that people tend to hallucinate less and its vitally important that people are taught to think, since that how we evolve knowledge. AI can't do that, it just sucks it all up and regurgitates it - without any quality filter of good information vs poor information.
I'm also left pondering what a 2025 reinvention of the BBC for "technology skills" would actually look like - sticking an AI capable system in everyone's house is a bit different from a single board 6502 based system, plus there is the Elephant in the room - the lack of availability of components, since AI is sucking them all up.
"sticking an AI capable system in everyone's house is a bit different from a single board 6502 based system"
I strongly suspect that HMG don't want us to upskill to the point where we can be AI providers, but rather embrace AI as mere users of the technology.
The average person is no more capable of understanding how to configure/operate an 'AI' than the majority of the population are when it comes to building a computer or understanding how their car's engine or motor controls work., i.e. no chance. It takes in-depth knowledge of some rather abstract and difficult stuff to understand what's going on with something as complex as that (So what is a tensor, and how do you generate one? How much energy does a tensor cost?).
What I suspect is that HMG want us all to be happy to use AI as a tool to work faster, especially when working in an area outside of one's expertise. Another way to put that is that HMG think it would be good if we used 'AI' as a tool/enabler to do become capable of doing a wider range of things well in less time. They want us to be as comfortable using 'AI' as we are using gravity - we know it's there, we know how to use it - but the vast majority of us do NOT know how it works:-)
Full disclosure:I'm an AI skeptic, largely because I believe using it will dumb us down, meaning actual knowledge and the ability to think will be replaced with 'computer says no!'. Don't get me wrong, I'm as amazed by it* as everyone else, but I like my intelligence to be 'actual', not 'artificial'. I also don't want to spend a lot of time having to fact-check and correct what I'm told by the technology (Either as code or written prose)!
* ChatGPT just did, IMO, a very good job of responding to 'Write a 1000 word essay explaining the current issues with AI, their likely impact and ways of mitigating errors.'
Agree with all you've said, except for one thing. I'm reluctant to credit HMG (or BBC as suggestion might in fact have originated from them) with such even half-sensible half-reasonable thinking as you're suggesting. My money on how it came about is because ever since the Prime Minister earlier this year got sold on the idea that AI would rescue the economy and thereby his premiership, then message has gone out across all areas of government to use and to push AI. So this is just DCMS (or BBC) offering up a proposal they know will please the PM.
It's my understanding that the Beeb "outsourced"** all its "content generation" years ago, so there's nothing lying around that the thrusting executives in charge might see as educational.
** All the in-house people got pushed out and re-hired as independent production thingummies.
** All the in-house people got pushed out and re-hired as independent production thingummies.
I don't think they were really pushed out. More a case that 'Producers Choice' meant that Bbc staff could become 'independent' producers rather than Bbc staff, and make more money. Plus avoid those embarrassing salary reports because they were no longer employed by the PSB, but their own companies. And being the Bbc, asking questions about that stuff means FOIs get rejected for reasons of commercial confidentiality. It also occasionally came unstuck when HMRC asked about IR35.
But it's one of those areas where perhaps a Panorama investigation might shed some light on potentially dubious dealings at the Bbc, ie socialising costs and privatising profits. A case study about how money flows for say, this lot-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Wolf_(production_company)
works wrt 'Bbc' IP like the Dr Who franchise really works. The Bbc claims that their commercial activities contributes £<lots> to the PSB, but.. the accounts don't seem to show this, and instead seem to be a way to suck money out of the PSB into private hands. In theory, if the Bbc's people were the best & brightest, Worldwide and it's mass of for-profit entities should be making billions, feeding that back to the PSB and the cost of the licence should be falling, not rising. Objectively, this isn't true because the Bbc constantly demanding ever more cash to fill its jacuzzi, despite being a >£5bn blob. Supposed revenue from commercial activity + £800m in 'real cash savings' should meant the Bbc doesn't need to screw households ever harder.
But there's a big problem wrt Bbc executives competence, ie Gardner & Trayner pretty much destroyed Saturday night viewing, jumped ship to Worldwide and America, failed to grow those, then somehow ended up with Bad Wolf and the Dr Who IP, which they managed to destroy and torched a lot of good will.. Which is also a credibility problem because someone at the Bbc presumably thinks RTDs garbage is actually quality entertainment. Neither viewers, nor Disney would seem to agree.
Alternatively, it could do an autopsy on this show instead-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva_Laughlin
The opening line of The New York Times review said, "Viva Laughlin on CBS may well be the worst new show of the season, but is it the worst show in the history of television?"
A Bbc Worldwide show apparenlty so bad that most of it has never been broadcast..
Doctor Who is an absolute mess of complex liscencing from it's own short sightedness back in the 60s and 70s
Back in the day writers were paid for their TIME to write say 6 episodes but as the BBC believed the show was ephemeral and didn't understand merchandise the rights to story, characters etc are retained by the authors (or their estates)
So if I want to have daleks fighting cyber men as in the battle around canary Wharf I need to obtain rights from Terry Nation's estate AND Kit Pedlers, it's an utter mess and I suspect that making it now costs way more just getting the relevant rights
Blakes 7 was only commissioned as it was payment for Day Of The Daleks and they STILL allowed Terry Nation to hold rights even though George Lucas showed how lucrative merchandise was and holding onto your rights.
In particular, we want the BBC to support basic and universal skills on the one hand, and on the other to help the public understand AI, engage with it constructively and understand its impacts
I'm not seeing the world "critically" appearing there, as these arguments seem to be predicated on the [not so] charmingly jejune notion that these technologies are essentially benign. I don't really believe that at all, especially not in the end user, consumer space, from the evidence presented to me so far from any number of different sources.
What I do see is some extremely large companies in search of RoI on scarcely credible amounts of money shovelled into projects, desperately trying to crowbar "features" into products where they are neither needed, nor desirable, and where they stretch the definition of the word "tool" to breaking point. Utility is supposed to be positive: a tool is supposed to deliver benefits of speed, efficiency or accuracy when used to perform a task. In far too many cases, this appears not to be true.
There are technologies that do provide benefits, and we should be considering them for adoption. But an onrushing torrent of probabilistic slop sophistry is something that perhaps should not be embraced so enthusiastically. If someone said that the BBC should, like the CLP of the 80s, try to look at the developments with an enquiring, but sceptical mindset, I'd be rather more reassured. But given who's at the helm of DCMS, and the glassy-eyed manic stares of people in government who think that there's a magic "AI" growth tree that will magically solve all their problems, I'm feeling distinctly less than comfortable.
We really could do with an Ian McNaught-Davis now though.
Those moaning about the licence fee: What you're saying is you don't want to pay a small subscription that allows poor people to get decent quality TV and radio at under fifteen quid a month. You don't want niche subjects to be covered that wouldn't be financially viable on other platforms. You don't want higher quality programmes to be made and, for all the poor quality shows that are shown on the BBC, there are extremely good ones. You don't want mostly impartial news - and don't tell me they are majorly biased. I've been on Facebook pages and literally seen both sides of an argument claim the BBC is biased in favour of the other.
Why should someone pay, if they don't use BBC services? Well, when I lived in the centre of England, I didn't whine that I would never need their services. They are a common good. So are the BBC.
The BBC without adverts has helped keep the general UK tv adverts at a lower threshold than (say) America.
We have a decreased level of tolerance to long and frequent adverts. Youtube should take note.
Also, with those complaining, it reeks of the "why should I pay for schools, when I don't have children" argument
You don't want higher quality programmes to be made and, for all the poor quality shows that are shown on the BBC, there are extremely good ones.
I actually want higher quality programmes, especially for the price. But the Bbc consistently failed to deliver, and so I cancelled my subscription. But perhaps you could cite stuff that you regard as 'quality'?
You don't want mostly impartial news - and don't tell me they are majorly biased
Shouldn't really need me to tell you this, but per the Bbc's Charter, it shouldn't be delivering 'mostly impartial news', but impartial. But the Bbc's been in the news for this, in all the wrong ways after creating fake news and misinformatiion around Trump's Jan 6th speech. Along with the Bbc's response, which was mostly that it didn't think it was doing anything wrong.. Which is the problem, and that was before Trump's $10bn sueball. Or the memo from Prescott asking where the Panorama show on Harris was for balance. But if you only consume news via the Bbc, you probably won't see the problems eg-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cm2ld0e0rzkt?post=asset%3Ad9cbf621-e221-4c80-bedb-337823676127#post
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said a far more ambitious defence spending target would fuel a quantum leap in the alliance's collective defence, citing the threat posed by Russia.
Mark Rutte standing in front of NATO logo, and the Bbc's 'Europe regional editor' can't even get NATO's name right. Despite the Bbc having their own 'fact checking' and misinformation team to help them.. So if the Bbc can't even get a name right, what chance would it have producing anything useful to educate people about 'AI'?
If you're talking about NATO vs Nato, their style guide says acronyms which can be pronounced as a word use an initial capital followed by lower case. So hopefully that's one thing less you can be mad at the BBC about.
If you're talking about NATO vs Nato, their style guide says acronyms which can be pronounced as a word use an initial capital followed by lower case. So hopefully that's one thing less you can be mad at the BBC about.
My style guide says capitalise the first letter, not the rest, so it's Bbc. It doesn't matter what the Bbc's style guide says, it matters what the organisation's name is, which is NATO. It also applies it inconsistently, eg-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cze8n0753zzo
WHO warning over shortage of obesity jabs
...that can help people shift significant weight, says WHO.
The Bbc isn't unique in getting this wrong, but being the state broadcaster for the custodians of the English language, it should be able to get something so basic right. Or should that be BASIC? Or would that still be Bbc Basic when it comes to their programming..
Obviously you don't say BBC or WHO as a word.
Err.. wut? You could say Bbc as a word, kind of a choked 'book'. WHO is obviously very commonly said as a word. But as the word isn't being spoken but written, then the 'style guide' is just broken english. It doesn't alter the fact that NATO is NATO, not Nato, or going the whole hog, nato. So there's no reason not to get the name right, or treat the WHO differently. But maybe I'm just talking about my generation, not the degeneration at the Bbc which means they can't work their auto-correct software.. And anyone who's worked in an acronym heavy industry knows what a PITA (or should that be pita?) auto-correct and spell chuckers can be. It's a small point, but one that demonstrates the kind of sloppy journalism I've come to expect from the Bbc.
Well, as an aside, you've made me rethink a lifetime of pronouncing the acronym NATO as nay-toe. Hence forth I'm saying nat-oh.
I'm just glad I'm a native english speaker so don't have to try learning it, and all its inconsistencies. Especially when it comes to written vs spoken. So NATO has been nay-toe, but WHO has usually been 'World Health Organisation' because otherwise it could end up like the 'WHO's on first?' routine, especially figuring out the speaking order at health conferences. But it's interesting the way language changes, eg I might go buy a laser, which should really be a LASER, but a laser is a thing, whereas NATO is a proper name that the Bbc (and others) shouldn't really be rebranding.
Trust me, as someone that worked in education before moving into IT, people in this country don't want to know. What they want is someone, (or something), to tell them what button to press and preferably to come out and press it for them. Part of what's killing this country is the downer on education we have.
Part of what's killing this country is the downer on education we have.
But also where the Bbc's original Reithian ideals of 'Inform, educate and entertain' could be reapplied. If people really want to watch the exciting, original content that is series 25 of Strictly, let them buy a subscription. Otherwise turn Bbc1 into a news & education channel, keep that free-to-air and people might learn something, if only by osmosis. But then my YT 'year in review' shows I love educational content (thanks YT, I already knew this) and also loved shows like The Great Egg Race and Tomorrow's World. Plus I used to 'get ill' so I could skip school and watch the OU stuff that used to on instead.
Something like Egg Race should be brought back. Learning to 'code' is one thing, but here's a Pi, here's an egg, here's a problem to solve and encourage kids to start making stuff that could become products and exports.
Can't wait for the broadcast explaining how to use a Raspberry Pi 500+ to make AI-generated influencers jump their guardrails ... Whoopty doo!
I like the BBC, I like programmes like QI and Red Dwarf and Monty Python and many others that probably would never have been made on commercial TV. I don't listen to BBC radio much any more but grew up listening to R1 & R2. However, these days they seem to be screening more and more repeats and cheap documentaries full of padding and time wasting drivel. As a consequence I find myself watching less and less TV as I actively HATE most commercial TV with their race to the sewer programming and constant nagging to buy sh!t that nobody wants. Even Discovery seems to be headed to the sewer with it's endless promotion of fantasy crap like "ghost" or "Bigfoot" shows and a seemingly non-stop chain of programmes about Gold obsessives. I am glad I grew up in the 70s and 80s when TV was good. The TV is on most nights, but for most of the evening it is quiet and acting as moving wallpaper.
