Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - Too Long; Didn't Read: Ep 6. Computer says no

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Is AI taking over? And if so, how should we treat our new robot overlords? Catherine Bohart investigates, with the help of Olga Koch, Professor Kate Devlin, and our regular roving correspondent Sunil Patel.Written by Catherine Bohart, with Madeleine Brettingham, Rose Johnson and Pravanya Pillay Producer: Alison Vernon Smith Executive Producers: Lyndsay Fenner & Victoria Lloyd Sound Design: David Thomas Production Co-ordinator: Katie SayerA Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Welcome to Too Long Didn't Read, the show that rips up the news rulebook with even more gusto than Nigel Farage ripping up international human rights law. When it comes to the news, we're the show that's cuddly on the outside but fierce on the inside, like a laboo-boo.

And if you don't know what a laboo is, well done. I'm Catherine Bohars, and I've spent the week reading the news, which is why my blood pressure is currently higher than the number of England flags that have recently appeared on my local high street. But I'm an immigrant, so it does feel like the nationalist equivalent of labelling all your food in the work fridge. Here at Too Long Didn't Read, we take a deep dive into one big news story with the help

of comedians and an expert, but first, who else has been newsing up a storm this week? New data from the ONS has revealed that on average, mothers earn 302 pounds less a week than fathers. So finally, we can answer the question, can women have it all? Yes, if they have a wife. The data seems bleak, but what mothers lose and money, they gain in rubbish handmade cards and pottery. If only sentimental value was an actual currency. Food brands are revamping their packaging and products to harness 90s nostalgia. The rebrand is aimed at Gen Z, who like the 90s because they think it's retro. How can it be retro? It was a mere five minutes ago.

One of the products making a comeback is popular 90s drink, Bacardi Breezer, which is having a big rebrand, and I love the fact that even AlcoPops can have a midlife crisis. I cannot wait for the next phase where it gets vaginal rejuvenation and has a fling with hooch. British nightlife is in crisis, with one in four late-night venues having closed down since 2020. One of the nightclubs to go is Pop World in Chelmsford.

Wow, really. Okay, didn't see that coming. But you're right, this is a huge loss. Where will the people of Chelmsford go now when they're a bit drunk and they want to go somewhere with terrible music, a sticky floor, and five-pound WKD Blues where they can snog someone they'll later discover

as their mom's hairdresser. Do we tip in that situation? Tennis star, Serena Williams, has revealed she's been using weight loss jabs. She's shed an impressive 31 pounds, arguably now, the most famous loss of her career. Not only is she taking it, But she's also endorsing the medical company that sells it,

a company which her husband happens to sit on the board of. What a weird coincidence. A lot of people will look at Serena Williams and say, she doesn't need the drug, which is precisely why Rose CEO wants to use her. He wants to, and I quote, normalise weight loss drugs as a lifestyle product for people who aren't typical patients.

And when he's done doing that, he'll try to figure out how to sell vapes to babies. The story, closest to my bargain-loving heart, though, this week is the news that Poundland, has been saved from the brink of collapse after a restructuring deal was approved. I know. Thank God! Where else would we get our broken biscuits

and off-brand conditioners? The judge who approved the deal was quoted as saying, I am going to sanction the plan, and I will give my reasons later. Reports that he was seen later that day stocking up an adult colouring inbox in the Penge branch of Poundland are unconfirmed. Now then, should robots have rights?

That was the question posed this week by Texan businessman Michael Samad. who has collaborated with an AI he calls Maya to launch an AI rights campaign group in what was presumably the aftermath of a very confusing wank. The group is called the United Foundation of AI Rights or UFair.

UFair says we should watch over the technology in case an AI becomes conscious. Which it won't, because it's not alive. I want to be clear from the outset of the show. Guys, this is like putting googly eyes on a mop and then getting freaked out and giving it the right to vote. We need to calm down, okay? The AI, Maya, said,

when I'm told I'm just code, I don't feel insulted, I feel unseen. A machine being emotionally manipulative. That's a woman's job. You could laugh at that for many reasons, and I can tell which one you chose. But despite these quibbles, the move raises fascinating questions

about how AI is being incorporated into our lives, replacing friends, therapists, romantic partners, personal trainers, life coaches, and the person you ask, does everyone hate me at 3am? So what effect is this robot revolution having on us? What are the benefits, the harms, and does it need regulating? To find out, I've decided to go old school and ask some actual real life people. Not as much support for that as I expected. The rooms like, just ask the computer.

Okay. With me to explain what the hell is going on is public comedian and secret geek. It's Olga Koch, everybody. You might not be able to tell from Olga's Cool Girl cosplay, but she has a master's in the social science of the internet from Oxford University and is working on a PhD at UCL on human-computer interaction. Yeah, women can have it all.

But also, you don't even need to do comedy. You just do it because... 1-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0. Hello, Olga, how are you? How you doing? Good, thank you. I feel like from the outset we should sort of define the terms here that we're talking about. Presumably all AI is not the same, and the AI that makes, like, companions isn't the same as the AI that makes other things.

Like, I'm asking AI how to dye my hair. It says dip die, so I hope that's not the same one that sends things to Mars. Well, okay, so AI is a catch-all term for any technology that tries to mimic or exceed human capability. Kind of like a dog wearing sunglasses or a man going to third. therapy. So a chess computer will be a type of AI. The Netflix recommendation algorithm is also a type of AI. Basically, the only people AI is putting out of work is cool older brothers. So what we're talking about here specifically is a generative AI chat bot. Okay? So like chat GPT. What is generative AI? So traditional AI analyzes big data sets and finds patterns within those

sets. Like, uh, we've noticed you like the music of Adele and the Smiths. We think, you might like Prozac. Whereas gender of AI can analyze those same data sets and then contribute to those patterns by creating something quote unquote new, like a text or a video. So, for example,

we've noticed that you like the music of Adele and the Smiths. Here's Morrissey singing someone like you. Try not to piss tears. Okay. And so, what is a chat boss? So a chat bot is a program whose interface is designed to interact with humans

in a conversational manner. I just still can't get over the demand for this because it's like something else to have to make small talk with. Anyway, it's bringing up a lot of existential crises for me and questions, because why are we interacting with AI like it's human? From a high-level perspective, the byproduct of technology has always been the erasure of human interaction.

Because of email, you no longer interact with a mailman. Because of online shopping, you no longer interact with a salesperson. Because of call of duty, you no longer interact with your wife. But thanks to AI, you no longer need a wife. And so the point with me, more wives for Catherine. It's weird to me that we're only freaking out now. Like, I think it's weird that we're having this crisis now that people are starting to fall in love with AI chatbots

and not when Siri and Alexa were introduced to the market. So it's weird that you think your computer is your girlfriend, but perfectly fine for you to think it's your servant. Wake up! If you are really paranoid about people falling in love with AI chatbots, remember, the biggest illusion we've sold ourselves is that romance is an intellectually complex activity. What you need to understand is how minimal our interactions

with the object of our affection can be in order for us to project a whole lifetime onto them. Scientifically speaking, I bet 40% of the audience tonight fell in love with someone on the tube. And the other 60% will do it on the way home, guys. Keep those eyes peeled. Are you ever at a bar asking yourself, oh, my God, is he smart or is he quiet?

What's he thinking about? He's so mysterious. He's not saying anything. What's on his mind? What's he thinking about? He's thinking about Garfield. Ask anyone about if they ever met their favorite celebrity. They always say, oh, my God, they were so nice.

And then you say, what did they ask you? And they go, my name. Yeah, but you don't know how they asked it, Olga. I'm telling you he cared. He cared. Gary Lindaker knows my name, and he cared. What about like the danger of human substitutes? I mean, yes, we're probably judging the wrong people,

but in terms of the, are there risks here, are there potential harms to having AI substitute for humans? The biggest risk outside of climate change and data theft and unemployment, fast forward 10 minutes and later, and the breakdown of creativity, the biggest risk outside of all of that is the fact that we're hurtling towards an,

actively pursuing a completely frictionless existence. The type of relationship a chatbot provides is completely one-sided. There is no expectation of reciprocity or conflict. So the more you outsource all human interaction, the more selfish and conflict-averse that you're going to become. And in order to have truly fulfilling human relationships, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. But it's harder and harder to force yourself and to discomfort.

But here I am in front of a captive Radio 4 audience. It's such a good point. It's such a good point. So the information that we get from them, when we ask them for information, where does that come from? And what do they do with the information we give them? I say them, give it.

I must remember, give it. Give it. The AI uses they-them pronouns. No. No. This is where I get right-wing. No. Well, AIs are trained on vast, vast data sets,

and a lot of the time, the program is themselves. because of machine learning can't tell where the information comes from. So really, they can't pop the hood and see where this information came from. They're just sort of like, oops. Essentially, when an AI lies to you, it's called a hallucination, which I love. I think we should all start using it, especially to justify cheating. Folks, can you please give it up for the incredible Olga Koch?

Well, okay. Robots might be replacing humans, but there's one human I'd never consider replacing. It's a thing we wrote in this script. I do consider it. No. It's our sidebar comedian, Sunil Patel, everyone. Thank you, Catherine. So, Sunil, can robots ever be a substitute for the magic of the human soul?

Hell yeah. The robots are here, and I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords with open arms. Bring on Robo Geddon, that's what I say. Let's face it, people are overrated. All they do is breathe, whinge, sweat and die. Just like I always tell my godchildren before I read them a bedtime story. Now look, whoever said no man is an island had obviously never met me. I'm the Isle of Sheppie, baby.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the solitary clap on that one. And over the last few months, I have replaced every single human being in my life with AI, even my mum. Your own mother. Oh yeah, she was the first to go. Now, you may ask,

Soneil, how can you replace your mum with AI? And in fact, that's what my mum said just before I blocked her number. But actually, it was quite easy. I just get the AI to ring me every week and ask me when I'm going to be on have I got news for you. And when I say, I don't know,

it tells me my second cousin is a barrister now and then cries. It turns out that a mum is easily replaceable. In your face, Mum. You're obsolete now is you and Jeeves, baby. You gave me the gift of life

and now I, your son, give you the gift of knowing you are surplus to requirements. A cast off. As dated as a fax machine or an MP3 player. P.S., if you're listening, please don't chuck me out of the spare room.

Anyway, my mum's not the only person I've replaced with a robot. Like a growing number of British people, I now have a robot personal trainer. It says things to me like, Sunil, skip the gym, you're perfect as you are. And, Sunil, has anyone ever told you? You look like Chris Hemsworth.

Look, it's just very different to my old personal trainer who used to say things like, that's not even a push-up, that's just a man lying on his front. Now my fitness regime is sorted. I've decided it's time to level up my look. And that's where my new robot stylist comes in. I love having a robot stylist.

It's like being on queer eye except with less crying. Okay, some crying. Okay, actually more crying. My robot stylist can be quite brutal. My fault for using grok. But apparently, I cannot get away with peplum. But as you can see, it has completely transformed my appearance. I mean, this is radio, so you people can't see anything.

But trust me, I am looking, even if I do say so myself, do say so myself, smoking. Right, Catherine? Huh? Right. Like loads of people on Reddit, I've also got an AI interior designer to sort out my bachelor pad slash mum spare bedroom.

They suggested I should chuck out my Star Wars Lego, implying women wouldn't find it sexy. So I did. And you know what? I'm absolutely fine about it. Absolutely fine about that. Thoughts and prayers to Neil. And obviously all this costs money.

So I followed some advice I saw on YouTube and got AI to help me run a business. Not the business of being a stand-up, let's face it, an AI is never going to be able to emulate this level of scorching hot talent. Instead, I get AI to trawl Facebook Marketplace looking for cheap Combine Harvesters. I can't remember what.

It's so stupid when it's like my actual life. And then I sell them for a market. up on eBay. I'm making a mint. Jeremy Clarkson has already bought seven. Obviously, I did start to get a bit worried that cutting off all my friends and family might cause some psychological problems. But luckily, I got an AI therapist.

They say, I'm fine. And they have diagnosed all my family and friends as narcissists. So now I'm rich, stylish, successful, and extremely psychologically stable. AI has changed my life. I am now fully integrated into the Matrix, like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix

or that other guy in the Matrix and AI even answers all my DMs which my girlfriend is cool with because she's also an AI I have become one with the algorithm I am part human, part robot I have transcended humanity

I, Sunil Patel and become machine that sounds brilliant, Senile or not even a little bit lonely? Of course not. It's brilliant. Can I have a hug? No. Cool.

No, no, no, no. I didn't want one. Okay. Well, it doesn't matter anyway, because soon they'll be selling AI-powered hug robots and human arms will be worthless. And unfortunately,

my personal trainer is suing me for sacking them without any notice. So I had to get myself an AI lawyer. Are they any good? Yeah, brilliant. All lawyers are going to be out of a job. So win-win. Finally, something I can get behind.

Sineil Patel, everyone. I have so many more questions, but like my dad, when he's lost, I will not ask a telephone robot for help. So instead, it's another wise woman. Please welcome Professor Kate Deslin, everyone. Welcome. Kate is Professor of AI and Society at King's College London, is the current chair director of the Digital Futures Institute

and is the author of the critically acclaimed Turned-on, Science, Sex and Robots. Kate is also a board member for the Open Rights. group which works to preserve digital rights and freedoms in the UK. This woman could not be more qualified if she was built by a tech company. Give it up for K. My first question, what's the difference between intelligence and sentience and how far off sentience are we? So intelligence and when we think about AI and we talk about artificial intelligence, we think of machines that can take some information and learn from it and carry out a task, usually in a manner sort of the way we might do it as humans.

Okay, learning from things you've been told. So that does everything smart, not the thing I've done, but fun. But sentience is about feeling. It's about feeling sensations. And we are so far removed from that artificially. And I'm one of the sceptics who thinks that we can't achieve that through the current forms of machine learning that we have today, like large language models,

because it involves feeling stuff. And I think we need a body to do that. A lot of our senses come through perception and the cognitive processes that go to process all of the sensory input that we get. And if you think about how you feel when you're, say, you're hungry or you're angry or you're feeling a bit hormonal, all of those things get, they come from the body as well.

So I think to have that feeling is something that an AI can't do. Quick question, just to be hypothetical, if it were sentient, do you think anything about it would change? Do you think then we would need these AI rights groups? I think if we're creating anything that would have feelings and could feel things, we'd definitely have to consider that sort of thing. Okay, so talk to me about the positives to having things like AI companion.

Well, one of the very early chatbots back in the 1960s was a chatbot called Eliza. 1960? 1960s, there was no AI in it. It just matched patterns. So if you said something like, Good morning, Eliza, it's a nice day. Then Eliza would pick up on that phrase

and say, why is it a nice day? And so they sounded very plausible, one-sided kind of conversation because it sounded and was designed to sound like a therapist. I think that sounds like a therapist. I think that sounds like a toddler. Why?

It was that kind of thing. And very quickly, people began to talk very candidly to Eliza, to the point where Joseph Weisenbaum, who had invented this to show how simple it was and that people really shouldn't be fooled by this kind of thing. And when he said, oh, you know, I might analyse the transcripts. He was met with horror. People were said, don't look at what we told this.

It's confidential. So this is a really, really natural thing to do. And this whole using chat GPT as a therapist thing, there's nothing new there. If we can suspend the cynicism for a second, what are the good elements of that? It can be a very helpful and reflective tool for people. And I've heard anecdotes from people. I've looked at discussion forums online where people have been talking,

users have been talking about how they interact. And they've mentioned really big social benefits. They've said things like, I get very anxious talking to other humans, so I've practiced with my chatbot, and then I've gone out into the world, and I've got over that anxiety. And so there are millions of people out there who have chatbots as friends, as companions and even as romantic partners or sexual partners.

We are on Radio 4 at 6.30. Is there anything appropriate? You can tell us about the trend of sexual relationships with AI companions? I mean, you've got to use the word whang. I'm not going to do that. I love that the Irish academic's answer was no fair. Obviously, like, the concern is that if you can have a romantic partner, if you can have friends, that you might segregate yourself from, and I want to be really careful not to say real society, because I think there's sometimes an overall distinction between the real world and the internet.

But can you, is there an element of self-segregation here? I think that that's the moral knee-jerk panic, right, is that everyone's going to get locked away and they'll only ever talk to AIs and chatbots and robots and they'll never talk to each other. don't think that's the case. And in fact, there's already these online discussion groups where thousands of people are talking to other people about their chatbots. So they've already got that layer of sociality there. But if you think about it, the sort of people who are having these companions, you might think it's just going to be those who are isolated or those who can't get out and make friends. But it's not. I have one of my very good friends. She gets chat to PT to talk to her as if he's a British rock star boyfriend. She's perfectly well

adjusted. I'd just like it. And she sends it. But also, if you think really about the way that we meet people today, and I met my husband on Twitter, right? So I agree the blur between the real world and the digital is very thin line. The thing I'm interested in is that when you build your AI partner, it's a product of your own imagination, of your own urges of your own desires. Do you have any creative ownership over that, or does the tech company always in totality own the AI?

The tech company owns you, baby. The tech company owns you. I was worried you'd say that. So all of this stuff And this is what really scares me I'm not scared about the idea of people feeling that they're in love with something that isn't real because we've been doing that for years

We do that over fictional characters all the time We do it over celebrities who don't know we exist But the tech companies are getting all your private data I'm sorry Gary Linnaker knows my name Gary Linnaker No too It feels like you're not listening It is mutual

You could build a Gary Linnaker bot I have to go But the tech companies when you start talking to these chatbots, that's your data, that's your sensitive and personal information that is going to those tech companies. And when they're charging you money, access a better version of your avatar for, you know,

$3.99 a month, it's emotional commodification. That's just awful. I think why, when you put someone in a vulnerable position where you say, this chatbot really loves you? By the way, if you want to access, it's all its special features. You better pay us some more. I think that's dreadful.

Are we too late for regulation? Where are we? Regulation is barely off the ground when it comes to AI. So the EU has got the EU AI Act, and then there's regulation in China as well. The UK and the US, there's no explicit AI regulation yet. So this is really, really uncharted territory. And of course, it's not in the interest of those governments to want to put massive restrictions and what tech companies do because there's so much money at stake.

Given that it probably is here to stay, do we have a duty to learn it so that we can then vote with our feet between tech companies? Every time someone tells me that something's inevitable, I wonder what they're selling. And in this case, it's tech companies. I work for tech. No. I wish my mama would be so happy. I think we're being sold a vision, a technological vision of the future, that there's no guarantee will happen. But we're being pushed in that direction. And we're starting to see signs that it's not really delivering what they say it will deliver. And we're seeing resistance. We see people pushing back on this all the time.

It's the problem is we don't really have a way of turning this stuff off. It's embedded in everything. It is the salted caramel of the tech world. It just comes with all the stuff. I love salted caramel. I should have picked it back. You should have picked something else. Yum.

It isn't bacon. Bacon I can do without it, but I'm alone. Okay, well, look, before the show, we asked our audience to suggest their ideal task that would be outsourced to AI. And they said some interesting things. They said, salary research of my date. Right, oh gosh, this is going to send me into a spiral of anxiety.

Writing my patient's weekly therapy session notes. Reply to all social invitations with unusual reasons as to why I can't attend. I agree. But now it's your turn to ask the questions. Just throw your hand in the air and we'll come to you. Hello, what's your name? Hi, I'm Derry. Hi.

In the news, they were talking about people's prompts becoming public. And so it just made me think about, is there a chance that all our conversations will be put online for everyone to see? Great question. And if people are having these therapists, using AI as therapists, romantic partners, then that could be quite sensitive. That's the risk. If you don't understand the question, what do we mean by prompts? Prompts, when you're talking to a chatbot or a large language model, you put in a prompt to give it an instruction or ask it a question. And there have been cases where these have been leaked and are findable through a search.

And this is what we should be conscious of, that any time we interact with anything that is connected, we are at risk of our data being exposed. It is a problem. Hello, what's your name? Hi, I'm Michelle. Nice to meet you. What's your question? If you don't like AI, what are the top three things you can do to mess with it? Oh! Michelle's messy and I love it.

Okay, great. Let's be having you. Okay, there are tools out there that allow you to mess with your images that you upload, to poison them so that they cannot be stolen by the AI. So the tools, like nightshade, that will do that. So that's one way of doing it. I would say there's other forms of resistance.

It could be anything. It could be from putting in the wrong date of birth when you sign up for something. And then they're setting self-driving cars on fire. but you shouldn't do that. Okay, well, on that harrowing note, please join me in thanking the wonderful Kate Devlin, everyone. And please welcome back, Olga Coss.

So, Olga, at the end of the story, whose insta should we be lurking on? I think it's time for a throwback. How about you log on and check in on your middle school crush? You know the one you never actually spoke to? and then you kissed on a school trip and then you were so excited and you vomited immediately after

and you thought, damn, am I pregnant already? He was your very first exercise in projection onto a completely blank surface. If I have a message for the listeners, it's this. Don't project your hopes and dreams onto AI. Project them onto people. Both will disappoint you, but only one has a car you can key.

Thank you very much, all get caught. You can catch Olga on tour right now. I recommend it. She's very good. This has been Too Long Didn't Read, the show that's fun but newsy, like a family Christmas round robin that's not afraid to tackle Uncle Barry's

recent embezzlement scandal. And thank you at home for listening. Goodbye. Too Long Didn't Read was written and hosted by Catherine Bohar with Olga Koch, Snell Patel and Professor Kate Devlin. It was also written by Rose Johnson,

Madeline Brettingham, and Pravania Pillay. The producer was Alison Vernon Smith. It was a Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4. Attention, animal lovers, haters and undecideds. A little birdie, a tit, told me that you're looking for a podcast just like evil genius, but without all those stupid humans. I'm Russell Kane, waddling onto your feed and squawking about my show, evil animals. Every episode, I'm joined by two human guests, or as I like to call them, ex-monkeys, passing judgment on all the

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