Pope Leo issues AI warning

This BBC Podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. She was the sister. Who went unnoticed? A daffodil might look plain next to a lily, but on its own there is much to be admired. Now. Now her greatest chapter is yet to come. The most important thing. Just to be yourself. From the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. a new Brit Box original drama. Duel Florence.

Based on the best-selling novel The Other Bennett Sister, now streaming only on Britbox. Watch with a free trial at Britbox.com. You know, every day on Up First NPR's Golden Globe nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story,

Our questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow up first wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at Sixteen Hours GMT on Monday, the twenty fifth of May.

Pope Leo warns that artificial intelligence poses a potentially existential risk to humanity. The World Health Organization chief says a delay in detecting Ebola means responders are now playing catch-up. And Saudi Arabia says Hajj pilgrims will be safe despite the war in Iran. Also in the podcast. The idea here is that you could do one treatment once in your life and then hopefully for the rest of your time you won't have to worry about high cholesterol causing heart disease.

Could a one-off treatment spell the end of high cholesterol?

The Pope has sounded a warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence, saying it could pose a potentially existential risk to humanity, and calling for more to be done to reduce its impact on the environment. In his first encyclical or teaching document entitled Magnifica Humanitas, Leo said that AI shouldn't be allowed to concentrate power in the hands of just a few people, nor used for military purposes. Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know.

But deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward for humanity. The pontiff also said that the idea of a just war, which has recently been used by the Trump administration to justify its attacks on Iran, was outdated. Sitting alongside the Pope was anthropic co founder Chris Ola, who warned against his own industry acting alone in dictating the development of AI.

Some might believe the matters of AI are best handled by computer scientists like myself. They are mistaken. The questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community, not just in their implications. But also in their nature. If it helps, one way I sometimes describe this is that it's a little bit like bringing a fictional character to life. And now we're entering an extraordinary world where those fictional characters speak to us. Have a job.

This clearly raises questions beyond computer science. The machinery that makes this possible is the work of math and programming and science. But what character we choose, how it interacts with the world, how it ought to interact with the world. These are more clearly questions for the humanities, for religion, for philosophy, for society at large.

Elise Anne Allen is Rome correspondent for the Catholic news website Crooks and a biographer of Leo the fourteenth. What does she make of the Pope's warning?

It was quite strong and if you read this document, the language that Pope Leo uses is very forceful, sort of in condemning this culture of power as he described it in this tendency to domination, you know, and then that's the the risk of these technologies now is that they will be used to dominate and ultimately exploit the human person rather than work for their good.

So he was very, very firm in his caution in terms of how these technologies are used. So it was quite a strong message from Pope Leo today in the document and in the speech that we just heard. He didn't hold back in either of those occasions.

Comparing it to the potential ghastliness of slavery and which he said the Catholic Church was all too slow in condemning, but uh suggesting that AI could create new forms of enslavement is a very strong way of of trying to impart that message about the potential peril. I think that this is probably for myself, one of the key aspects of this document is the potential for new forms of slavery in the digital era. This is something that the Catholic Church was talking about.

even before COVID nineteen. And then I think they saw a boom in the ex the online exploitation industry, where it became much easier for exploitation online, cyber bullying. specifically the the online sexual exploitation of children is something that tragically became a a more common phenomenon during that time. And so this is something the church has been concerned about. And I think Leo sees the advent of AI in all of this.

And sort of the limitless potential that it has, and the way that some want to just carry this technology forward without limits, as opening all kinds of concerning doors, you know, and the ease with which People can access content and also the anon anonymity of it all. You know, it's so much easier to create, you know, anonymous profiles and there's no tracking for how these

things are paid for, you know, this content is obtained and paid for. So it opens all kinds of questions, you know, and and condemning, you know, and he apologized very strong and very potent moment. He apologized for the church's past support of slavery and its slow condemnation of it. And he said if we want to avoid having to make a similar apology in the future, we need to get ahead of the curve now. And I think that is one of the most important elements of this document.

Despite the war in nearby Iran, Muslims from around the world are traveling to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage. Officials say that more than one and a half million people will be heading to Mecca, more than last year. So will the pilgrims be safe? I asked our Arab Affairs analyst, Sebastian Usher. The Saudi Defence Ministry has essentially said that they can protect the skies above Mecca and elsewhere where the rituals are going to take place.

They posted a video of an air defence battery just on the outskirts of Mecca. I mean Saudi Arabia was one of the targets for Iran during the height of the war, of course with a ceasefire. There have been no attacks recently, but it could of course erupt again at any moment.

So yeah, there's two different types of heat. There's the customary summer heat. I'm just looking now at my phone. It's around forty two degrees there at the moment. The Saudis, for years now, have introduced all sorts of ways to try to mitigate that with water trucks.

mist of water, umbrellas, all sorts of things. But people will die of heat stroke there. But again, for some of those who come to the pilgrimage, some of those who are older, that isn't something that they particularly mind. You know, this is a summit of their lives. And to die hard.

if you've reached that stage of life isn't actually considered the worst thing to happen. And of course there's the political heat. There's all the talk of the ceasefire, that it may be extended, that there may be a deal finally on the table. But that uncertainty is certainly coloured

the way that the countries from which these people, the pilgrims, have come from, but not so much the pilgrims themselves. I mean this is pretty large number. If you remember back at the time of COVID, it was down to just a few thousand, so it's there's been a resurgence in the past two or three years. And it's continuing.

Very important religious event for those pilgrims, but it's also an important uh well, it's important for Saudi's economy. It's been trying to diversify but run into a bit of trouble recently. It has, I mean massively. You know, there's a thing called Vision twenty thirty, which is where the Crown Prince for de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salmandiz set this up about ten years ago.

with hugely ambitious ideas. One of them was about bringing tourism to Saudi Arabia, which really hadn't had tourism beyond religious tourism ever, and the expats who go and work there. So there have been many, many events, all sorts of things to try and bring

people towards Saudi Arabia and also massive gigaprojects, things like the Line, the Cube, development of a Red Sea. But it hasn't so far resulted in any real influx of tourists. Still the largest number by far are the pilgrims who come for high. Our Arab Affairs analyst Sebastian Usher.

In many countries, convenience stores tend to just sell basic snacks and essentials, but in Japan they're part of the vital social infrastructure, offering all manner of goods and services. The man regarded as the father of the Japanese convenience store industry, Toshifumi Suzuki, has died at the age of ninety three. He opened the first seven hundred eleven in Japan in nineteen seventy four. And turned it into the country's largest chain, as I heard from our global affairs reporter, Paul Moss.

Seven eleven w sort of sounds to many people like the classic American company and it does have its origins in the US. But in fact it's now majority owned by a Japanese company and that is largely down to Toshi Sumi Suzuki. He got the first franchise to open seven eleven in Japan in the nineteen seventies. It was very successful.

So successful that in the nineteen nineties when the American side of seven eleven was having a bit of difficulty, his company bought a majority of the shares and have had them ever since. So seven eleven is majority Japanese owned. But in that way he sort of embodied Japan's post war economic success.

which saw America push Japan to do capitalism the American way and and Japan not only did it, it did it well and did it in some ways better than America. I mean we first of all of course saw Japanese consumer electronics Beating their American competitors, Suzuki took that approach of beating America at its own game and he applied it to retail. Yeah, and why was seven eleven in particular such a success in time?

Well I think you've hit the nail on the head describing it as part of the social infrastructure. I mean it's not just paying bills. Do you know that when they have an earthquake in Japan, seven eleven is very involved in organising the recovery. It's that much part of life. But it's also unusual in that it's a chain, which often means uniformity, you know, you go to a branch of any super most supermarkets anywhere that's got the same stuff. For many people that's the attraction.

What Toshumi uh helped to pioneer was the I Toshifumi was the idea of the hyperlocal, in which any branch knows by its computer records what particular variety of some product is popular locally and they make sure they have lots of it. And they then transferred that model to other branches elsewhere in uh in Asia, for example, in Thailand, Taiwan. They know that

in this particular town, people like this particular flavor of bubble tea. I should say that also if you ask Japanese people about it, they'll also start using some traditional Japanese terms which they say they've applied to business in seven eleven. Words like Kaizen, striving for continuous improvement or I think my favourite Quadwari, which is usually translated as the relentless pursuit of perfection. I mean when you read about seven eleven success in Japan, you might

feel like you're reading a manual for how to be a samurai warrior in the nineteenth century. In fact, this is just how they do retail. Yeah, very briefly he ended up resigning. Why was that? very sad. He was accused in two thousand sixteen of trying to get his son installed as the boss and he resigned, saying, It is my lack of virtue, and I am unbearably ashamed. So ended his career, but he was still a very successful, much loved man in Japan.

Poor Moss on Toshivumi Suzuki, who's died at the age of ninety.

Deep sea scientists have identified a new species of octopus, the size of a golf ball, near the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The tiny creature stands out for its blue colour, one of the rarest shades in nature. It's relatively few arm suckers and lack of an ink sack. Scientists say related species are usually much larger than normally found in the icy waters of Antarctica. We heard more from doctor Thomas Clements, lecturer in invertebrate zoology at the University of Reddit.

These animals are so incredibly rare that even if you send an expedition down into the deep water, the chances of coming across one are so unlikely. And I think One thing that sort of typifies that is the reaction of the researchers when they discovered it. You know, they were very excited when they saw it because it's just such a rare thing.

From this specimen, we know that this type of cephalopod normally sits quite close to the seafloor and sort of bounces along. It doesn't swim too much because it wants to conserve energy. But we know from related animals that when they collected them they dissected them and found that they were full of parasites and those parasites are actually only really found in crustaceans. So we know that they were eating crustaceans.

One thing that I think is such a cool fact, most octopuses can change the colour of their skin. They have these things called chromatophores. These deep water octopuses don't need that because they live in the dark. So they're kind of see-through, but they have really pigmented internal organs.

And the scientists think that they have these organs to stop bioluminescent crustaceans from glowing inside them and making them potentially eaten by other predators. They're found normally in very deep waters. around the Pacific and around the Atlantic, as you said, close to Antarctica. I think a big part of this is just that we haven't done that many expeditions in these areas. And so the geographic range will grow as we get more data. Dr. Thomas Clements Still to come on this podcast?

I don't know if that if that's an honor or not, you know. If I was back on seventh year I'd say, oh well, I might get there, but I never dreamed that I would be doing it. The 98-year-old British man riding on the wing of a biplane. She was the sister. Who went unnoticed? A daffodil might look plain next to a lily, but on its own there is much to be admired. Now. Now her greatest chapter is yet to come. The most important thing. Just to be yourself.

From the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice a new Brit Box original drama. Mary? Duel Florence. Based on the best selling novel The Other Bennett Sister, now streaming only on Britbox. Watch with a free trial at Britbox.com. You know every day on Up First NPR's Golden Globe nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories.

At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR we stand for your right to be curious. Follow up first wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why. She was the sister. Who went unnoticed? A daffodil might look plain next to a lily, but on its own there is much to be admired. Now. Her greatest chapter is yet to come. The most important thing. Just to be yourself.

From the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. a new Brit Box original drama. Do well, Florence. Based on the best selling novel The Other Bennett Sister, now streaming only on Britbox. Watch with a free trial at Britbox.com. Imagine you've been charged with a crime, and the only witness pointing the finger at you isn't even human. I remember thinking Are you s What is this then? Thing. It's something artificial, created by mysterious chemicals. And it's coming.

Okay. Time as we know it will never be the same. I'm like, oh my god, he's lying. From CBC's Uncover, The Expert Witness, available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcast.

The head of the World Health Organisation, Tedra Sadanom Gebriesus, says two hundred and twenty people are now thought to have died of Ebola in the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As two new cases were reported in neighboring Uganda, he said a delay in detecting infections meant responders were now playing catch up. At a meeting in Kampala, health ministers from Congo, Uganda and South Sudan adopted a joint plan to counter the spread of the virus.

The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doctor Jean Cassia, dismissed criticism they had taken too long to coordinate a response. we landed with a joint plan of 319 million dollars. to stop this outbreak. And more importantly, we also agreed on a continental mechanism to coordinate this response led by Africa CDC and WHO supported by all other partners.

Many who'll be listening to you will be wondering how come there wasn't a plan in place already? Because your organization was created in response to that large outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. The world must even congratulate Africa CDC because on the 15th of May, Africa CDC declared this outbreak when we got evidence that more than one country was infected.

Second, we immediately started to interact with authorities who declared this outbreak the same day and started to work on the plan. And in about three days, all countries had a plan. In about four days, I organized a meeting. with all partners and all countries. Now we have the plan ready. We did it quickly as much as possible we could do. So what are the details of the plan? Plan is articulated around eleven pillars.

These 11 pillars will help us to contain the outbreak. As you know, currently, we don't have vaccines, we don't have medicines, and we are mostly relying on a better coordination. how to bring countries and partners together to avoid wasted. Second, we are mostly targeting the risk communication and we are targeting how to test, test and test to isolate cases.

And you say that your budget is three hundred and nineteen million dollars. How much have you raised so far and what are the priorities? Um First, proud of African countries. You know, I'm someone talking every day about the sovereignty of African countries. I request African council to start with the initial contribution. So far a ten percent of

the budget were already secured by African countries. In addition to that, we got 2.5 million from South Africa. It means African countries are coming to support the response. doctor Jean Cassair talking to Anne Sawyer.

Early test results published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest a single infusion of what's been described as a revolutionary gene editing therapy could lower bad cholesterol by almost two thirds and do so permanently. Riaz Patel is a professor of cardiology at University College London who worked with some of the patients on the study. He spoke to Tim for house.

This is essentially as you've described a new gene editing treatment for cholesterol. And the idea is that you give a single treatment, it turns off a very small part of a DNA of a particular protein in the liver. And that essentially translates to hopefully a very long term reduction in your cholesterol levels, which then in turn leads to lower risk of heart disease and stroke.

It sounds fabulous. Presumably you're going to be trialling on a larger scale now. Lots of people at the moment take statins in order to try and reduce the levels of bad cholesterol. Would that obviate the need for that? It's a good question. I think it's a bit early to say, so we've got to remind ourselves this is still interim early stage results. These are thirty five people around the world.

Who have received this therapy. And the exciting thing is that first of all it's safe. It really does work. And the science behind it is truly science fiction like. And i the excitement really c in the field is that this will change the paradigm by which we treat a chronic problem like cholesterol. Because at the moment if someone is at high risk of heart disease or has very high cholesterol, we have to give them a pill or a treatment regularly.

to keep those levels down and when they stop those treatments the levels go up and their heart risk goes up. But the idea here is that you could do one treatment once in your life and then hopefully for the rest of your time you won't have to worry about high cholesterol causing heart.

So in theory there will be those questions asked about whether it will replace tablets. I do think that this is the future and at some point we'll look back and say, did we really need to take pills to suppress cholesterol? What about the issue of high cholesterol in those who don't necessarily have what might be considered to be a bad diet, but just have inherited the predisposition for high cholesterol, is this potentially a therapy that could help them as well?

Yeah, so in the study currently they're looking at people who have very high cholesterol and who need cholesterol lowering long term. So that includes people who have a genetically high cholesterol, who are at risk of future heart disease. There is a number of those patients in the trial at the moment. So this is definitely for those people with a genetic problem. But more importantly, it's also for people who might, for example, have had an early heart attack in life.

And need another thirty, forty years of cholesterol lowering in order to stop a second or third heart attack. And for them this will again be potentially transformative. And it opens up the scope for using gene editing, not just for a rare condition, as we've heard in previous gene editing studies, but now for the first time for a very common problem with potentially many, many thousands of heart attacks that could be saved. Riaz Patel of University College London.

The travel industry has been badly hit by the war on Iran. With the Strait of Hormuz closed, the cost of jet fuel has soared, meaning airlines have cut flights or raised prices. As a result, travel enthusiasts are trying to find different ways of exploring the world. Isabella Jewell took a walk with social media influencer Sama Speaks to see how to experience different cultures without leaving London. The next Yeah. Thank you. I've been promised a Holiday.

But I'm in a rather breezy part of West London next to a main road. But a young British Iranian Londoner called Sama Ansari Poor should be waiting somewhere around here to take me on a journey across the world. I'm a culture content creator. It means that I spend a day experiencing the culture of another country in London. So I'm a tourist. I'll go to the supermarket, I'll do the dances, the clubs, the cultural activities, restaurants.

Anything you do in a foreign country on holiday, I'll do it here. I chose this place because it's got three enclaves. A really big Algerian community, a really big Ethiopian Eritrean community, and a really big Syrian community. So Summer, what's the first stop on our trip? I'll take you to surface. Right now we're walking past a Syrian restaurant. It's tucked right next to a Syrian supermarket. Let's go inside. Lots of fresh goods around you can see lots of amazing herbs.

like you've got ryanese, moussaka, mudahmes, garlic sauce, tzatziki Yeah. Oh but this is Persian crew peppers. I would always eat this as a kid and they're very different to like Turkish prickles. I think like a really cool side effect of it is well okay you can go to museums for free or got it for free but oh you can also

go to all of these cultural centres and stuff. Like there's a Somali house right across the road. Even from me, because I can't really go back to Iran. Going to places like Palestine House where the architecture is just mirrored of my country. It's just so comforting. And I feel like for majority of the world that exists here A few minutes away we find one of Sama's favourites, an Ethiopian hardware store.

A lot of Ethiopian stores always smell so good'cause of incense, it's quite big in their culture. But then you have these things over here. So you have these teacups. these really nice, beautiful gold and like sort of small mirror tables. Yeah. And it's used for a traditional coffee ceremony. Back at the tube station, Sama told me why she shares these stories online.

I really want to make other cultures like quite accessible. If we're more exposed to each other and we have more conversations, I really hope that us versus them get smaller and smaller. Summer speaks talking to Isabella Jules.

Finally, a man here in the UK has proved it's never too late to try something new. Just days before his ninety ninth birthday, Harry Heasman took to the skies for a wing walk, becoming the oldest person ever to attempt the daring feat. Helena Burke has the details. A year ago, Harry Heasman couldn't climb the stairs and had to enter an old age home, but then the ninety eight year old decided he'd like to fulfil a childhood dream.

As a teenager during the Second World War, Harry worked in a factory making aircrafts used in the D Day landings. He wondered what it would be like to fly in one of the planes. out there. up on the triumphant but I didn't fly we did everything except take off On Saturday, after more than eight decades, Harry stopped wondering. The ninety eight year old was strapped to the wing of a nineteen forties biplane as it took to the skies.

In doing so he broke the Guinness World record for the oldest person ever to complete a wing walk. I don't know if that if that's an honour or not, you know. If I was if I was back on seventh yeah I'd say, Oh well, I might get there but I never dreamed I would be doing In preparation for the flight, Harry rebuilt his strength with a physiotherapist.

But Harry has insisted that the focus of the stunt shouldn't be on him. Instead he wants to raise awareness about the charity he is fundraising for, the Lennox Children's Cancer Fund. They're a they're a small charity, but they do small movements. Yeah. as a a young lady who was sitting there she had cancer when she was ten. She's fifteen now and they've helped her through it. and she wanted to be a vet that when you hear something like that I better get up and go and do something. Yeah.

Harry has raised nearly seven thousand dollars so far. The ninety eight year old plans to continue to work with his physiotherapist, with his sights now set on completing the London Marathon. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Rosen Winderrell and produced by Richard Hamilton. Our editor's Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. She was the sister. Who went unnoticed?

A daffodil might look plain next to a lily, but on its own there is much to be admired. Now. Now her greatest chapter is yet to come. The most important thing. Just to be yourself. From the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. a new Brit Box original drama. Mary? Duel Florence. Based on the best-selling novel, The Other Bennett Sister, now streaming only on Britbox. Watch with a free trial at Britbox.com.