BBC’s Question Time is set to feature an imagined AI panel made up of Mahatma Gandhi, Frida Kahlo, Che Guevara and Emmeline Pankhurst as part of a special programme exploring artificial intelligence.
The episode, which will be available on BBC iPlayer from 9pm tonight and air on BBC One at 10:45pm, will examine the opportunities, risks and moral questions posed by the rapidly advancing technology.
However, the programme will begin with a twist, featuring an AI-generated panel of historical figures who helped shape the modern world.
According to the BBC, the imagined line-up is intended to help audiences understand how “hyper-real and persuasive” AI-created images can be, and how they can blur the line between reality and fakery.
The special episode will be fronted by Fiona Bruce, with the real panel bringing together leading voices from across politics and the technology sector.
“AI has the power to change all our lives – for good and bad,” Bruce said. “Are we ready for it? Will we be able to control it? How will we know what’s real and what’s not? Just some of the questions we aim to explore in tonight’s special programme.”
The live panel will include Mo Gawdat, author and former Chief Business Officer at Google X, who appears in the new film Chasing Utopia and has warned that AI could pose an existential threat to humanity.
He will be joined by Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, who has said that using AI can help the government “move fast and fix things” following years of low productivity in the public sector.
Also appearing are Julia Lopez, the Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and Laura Gilbert, Senior Director of AI & Innovation at the Tony Blair Institute.
Lopez has warned that the advance of AI raises questions about power in the digital age and the influence of “big tech titans”, while Gilbert – who has worked in Downing Street under both Conservative and Labour governments – has concerns about the impact of AI on the jobs market and democracy.
Completing the line-up is Victor Riparbelli, founder and CEO of Synthesia, the London-based company that creates AI-generated video for corporations around the world. The company was founded nine years ago and is now said to be worth $2bn.
The special will ask what increasingly powerful AI means for how we see ourselves, whether it can help us better understand what it means to be human – or diminish it – and whether the technology can always be trusted to act in our best interests.
The BBC has said the use of AI in the programme is in line with its editorial guidelines.
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Question Time: AI Special is available on BBC iPlayer from 9pm and on BBC One at 10:45pm.
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