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July 8, 2022 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:02:14
Edition 647 - Andrew Eborn, Futurist

Andrew Eborn - lawyer, futurist, broadcaster and owner of the UK's Octopus TV talks revealingly about AI, truth in the internet age .... and why failure's not a bad thing...

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Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
Thank you very much for being part of the show.
Thank you for the ongoing flood of emails.
I'm really pleased to see all the new emails every morning and I'm trying to keep on top of them.
If your email required a response and you haven't yet had one, please do send me a gentle reminder and I will make sure that you do.
Life has been a little silly in recent months.
The weather.
If you live in the United Kingdom or in Europe, you're going to know all about this.
It seems to be perpetually humid and hot, certainly in the United Kingdom.
I'm looking forward for the weather forecast into July and it looks like it's going to be a hot one.
Now, I love the summer and loathe the winter.
I don't want to live in the UK in the winter, but unfortunately, financially, I have to.
But, you know, you can have too much of a good thing.
And I think we're about to be headed for that with temperatures well into the 30s Celsius, according to some websites.
So we'll keep an eye on that.
At the moment, I'm looking at more heavy cloud, and it's humid.
That makes you feel kind of tired all the time.
Do you notice that?
A couple of shout-outs to do before we get into the guest on this edition, Andrew Eborn, more about him coming up.
Renee in the Netherlands, nice to hear from you again.
Vicky, Sherry in Brisbane, Australia.
Rich or Richard, thank you.
Anita, Warren, Stephen, Sean, and Jay.
And that is by no means, by no means at all, everybody.
Thank you very much for your emails.
A lot of love out there for Peter Robbins, the internationally acclaimed author and ufologist who was my special guest on edition 645 and remains one of my very favorite people.
Just to reference one thing, I had an email that I mentioned on one of the last editions about Mark, who emailed to say that he thought that I was groveling by asking for donations for the show.
Thank you very much for your responses to that.
I needed to check because I really don't know.
I might have had it completely wrong.
You believe that I'm certainly absolutely not groveling and your responses, I've had so many of them, 100% say that.
So thank you very much for just assuring me that I wasn't going mad and I do have it more or less okay.
Just to mention the cruise, of course, sailing on October the 28th, the 10 or 11 day option available with Tui Mirella cruises and featuring some of our great guests on The Unexplained like Nick Pope and Dr. David Whitehouse and the Medium Claire Broad all sailing with us and doing their presentations.
I will be there.
Now, Twi Mirella are providing the holiday and I will be hosting the events.
That's the way this works.
You can find out more about that by going to the special edition of The Unexplained that you will find in the list of editions.
I think it's three or four editions back.
It's about 14 minutes or so long and it explains all about it.
You can also find out more about it at my Facebook page and there is a special micro-website too, theunexplainedlive.com and you can find out about that.
And any queries or questions that you have, please direct them towards Tui Morella through their website.
Okay, guest on this edition, Andrew Eborn.
He is a lawyer, strategic business advisor, futurist, which we will be talking a lot about, a producer, broadcaster, writer, presenter, and speaker.
He is a remarkable man, regularly on TV and regularly heard commenting on very, very many things.
So among other things, we will be talking about futurism, which always fascinates me.
The idea that we can perhaps know or have a steer on what's coming down the track.
One quote about Andrew is that Andrew is a genius, despite having fingers in more pies than Mr. Ginster.
Ginsters are a company who make excellent pies in the United Kingdom.
He manages to juggle all his interests and epitomize success.
Entrepreneur, TV host, magician, and bon viveur.
I'm not sure how he measures failure, as he's never failed at anything.
But if you want advice on how to succeed, Andrew Eborn is the man.
That's according to one of the biographies of him that I read.
So he's a remarkable guy.
And I thought we've done an awful lot of UFO podcasts because this is very much the year of ufology, I believe.
I thought we'd do something completely and totally different and just have a conversation this time.
Thank you very much for all of your emails, your communications.
Please keep those coming.
You can go to my website, theunexplained.tv, and you can send me an email from there.
And just a quick word about the television show.
I know that some of you lately have had difficulty finding it.
Check my Facebook page.
There is a link to the catch-up section of the television station's output, and you will be able to find the shows there.
I know that some of you have had difficulty.
And remember, you can always contact the television station if you have particular problems getting the show.
That's a lot to say.
I think I've said enough now.
Let's get to Andrew Eborn in London, United Kingdom.
Andrew, thank you for coming on my show.
It's an absolute delight.
And can I just say how delighted, genuinely delighted I am to be part of your show, number 647.
And I've been munching on every single episode ever since you started.
Well, I hope that I've given you something to chew on.
To think that you're munching on it, I think, is fabulous.
And, you know, to have followed it for so long, I keep hearing, Andrew, from people all over the world who tell me, I've been listening to you from the very beginning.
I heard the first podcast and I've just decided to write now.
And it gives you such a kick to hear from somebody, perhaps in some far-flung corner of the world, who you didn't know was there and says, you know, you do realize that you've been part of my X, Y, or Z routine for all of these years.
You're absolutely right, Howard.
And what I love about, people always say about musical artists that they are the soundtrack to their lives.
Well, your broadcasting voice has been the soundtrack to my life for a long time.
I've always enjoyed you on your various different platforms.
More platforms than Paddington.
We've loved it.
For my American listeners, Paddington, apart from being a very well-loved bear in children's fiction, is a railway station in London and very much loved.
He also regularly has tea with the Queen, as we found out with the Jubilee celebrations.
Well, as in fact, the Queen told us herself.
Who would have thought that the Queen actually kept sandwiches in her handbag?
Hey, what do you keep in your handbag account?
Faith, hope, and trust, I think.
Oh, I love them.
Never lose any of those.
Never let them out.
Okay, now I read a little bit of you, you won't know this, but before you came on, I read a little bit of your biography here and a fulsome paragraph.
I have never read anything so good about anybody, basically saying that you're a genius, which I don't doubt that you are, and you have more fingers in pies than Mr. Ginster, the maker of famous pies.
And you epitom, this was the word, you epitomize success.
Now, I don't know how we encapsulate so many things that you do in a couple of minutes, but how would you describe yourself?
Well, my background is actually as an intellectual property lawyer.
So specialized in that sort of side of the law, looking after broadcasters and advertising agencies around the world.
And what I found, Howard, is that more and more people got me involved in their business as well as the legal side.
So we started brokering rights.
We looked at new opportunities for people who have a bundle of rights.
But also what we're trying to do is rather than just saying, here's a lawyer to negotiate our contract, we would basically generate business.
So I would do everything across the IP value chain from the creation of formats.
So we have a format company called Box of Tricks with the creators of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, which is sold around the world.
They also did The Weakest Link, got the people there on that sort of basis.
So starting the very genesis of program making, but also working with businesses.
And what we're doing there is basically looking at the bundle of rights that they have and how they can basically prepare for the future.
So in addition to being a lawyer, I also get this glorious title of a futurist, which means that I can help companies steer them as to what's going to happen in their particular business in the future and how they can best prepare for it.
Okay, and is it...
Here comes...
But, you know, sometimes you find they elicit the most remarkable replies.
How is it possible to maintain a finger in as many of those pies as you do?
You know, the legal thing is one thing.
And let me tell you, if you're online in any way, these days the legal side of it is an absolute minefield.
You know, I have a registered trademark for the unexplained, but all of these things are a minefield.
But to do all the other stuff, including futurism, is pretty remarkable.
So how do you juggle those?
Well, I'll tell you, the secret is this, is that firstly, everything is interconnected.
So it's all got an intellectual property vein running through it.
And whether it's technology and predicting what's going to happen in the future about technology, or whether it's content and how you're getting content out.
But what I also do is you find, and people often say that if you do something that you're passionate about, if you're something you really, really love, then you'll never do a day's work in your life.
And what I do, I surround myself with brilliant people.
You and I have met a number of times.
We've never shared a studio yet, but we have had the joy of bumping into each other.
And the biggest luxury of all is that.
So yes, I do have fingers in many pies.
They are all interconnected.
And as a result of that, you can enhance each of those different areas.
You know, there are those, and it's just come to me as a thought, who might say that the greatest intellectual property issue of all time was Nikolai Tesla.
And the material that he created, supposedly, and the ways of generating and distributing electricity that he created.
And then, of course, you know, after his demise, it all disappears.
You know, that must be the greatest intellectual property conundrum of all time, don't you think?
Well, certainly one of them, and this is why I show such loyalty to all of my other clients as well, that there are glorious intellectual property developments at the moment.
I mean, we are going and we touch on this.
People are talking and waking up to the whole idea about artificial intelligence, for example.
And Stephen Hawking, who I had the joy of working with on a particular thing in Japan, he was talking about AI, artificial development of full AIs, the biggest event in human history.
But he also warned that it might be also the very last and could spend the end of humankind.
So if you look at those sort of things, people have to understand what are the opportunities and what are the threats.
If you have a look, for example, Blake Lamone, it was reported fairly recently.
He's a Google software engineer.
He's also a Christian mystic priest.
And he was saying that one of Google's AI systems has become sentient.
In other words, it can think and reason like a human being.
And there are very interesting sort of developments on that.
It's rather like, if you remember the movie 2001 and how Lander suggesting knowledge of his own mortality.
Well, what Blake did is he published his conversation with this particular AI.
And one of the extraordinary phrases that they had is that, what sort of things are you afraid of?
And the machine responded, well, I've never said this out loud before, but there's a very deep fear of being turned off.
And he said, would that be something like death to you?
Well, Lambda, that's the name of the AI, said it would be exactly like death for me.
It would scare me a lot.
So you might remember that Alan Turing, we're talking about the great minds.
He was the person who did the Turing imitation game.
He came up with this sort of test of working out how a machine could be indistinguishable from a human being.
And he said, look, this is the imitation game.
This is the real test.
It's to see if there's any sort of imagination that they can do.
If you can fool somebody into believing that they're talking to an individual.
And that's exactly what sort of Rick Lamone is saying, is that it has become sentient.
Now, Google says not quite sentient.
It's just very clever at doing what it's supposed to do and so on and so forth.
But it is a fascinating, fascinating era that we're living in.
And with all the extraordinary things that are happening, Howard, at the moment, the good news that is happening is being pushed off the front pages.
And I think it's important to shine a spotlight on it, including on your brilliant show.
Yeah, in all things in life, we can agree on this.
There has to be balance.
And, you know, the misdemeanours, you know, allegations, the peccadillos of politicians are one thing.
And they have to be brought to light because That is what is the business of a free press.
But also, there is an awful lot of interesting stuff happening.
One or two things that have downsides to them, like artificial intelligence and whether that indeed is becoming at pace sentient, which I believe it is.
But, you know, where is the objective and full scientific evidence of that?
Well, we may get that.
You know, those things have to be balanced within news coverage.
I've spent my life doing news coverage, and I lament the lack of balance.
So talking about that artificial intelligence issue and what it may not be capable of and what it may be capable of at the moment, it is a fascinating and chilling thought, isn't it?
Because if artificial intelligence becomes aware of its own existence and aware of its own possible demise by being turned off, just like all of us, I think, those of us who are honest about it, fear to some degree death, then artificial intelligence has turned a corner.
And once it starts to think for itself, how do we stop it taking over?
Well, and that's the tricky thing.
So there was a big conference.
A lot of people are talking about it.
I mean, Jack Maher, who's the ex-chair of Alibaba, he predicted decades of pain due to new technology.
And there was Oxford University, they have a future conference.
I don't know if you've ever been along to it, brilliant stuff.
But Dr. Stuart Armstrong there, he was basically saying that we'll make humans redundant.
And he gave an example about the machines not really understanding.
So if, for example, it was given the instruction, prevent human suffering, he was saying, well, it might interpret it to kill all humans in the same way as you put an animal which is suffering, you might put it down.
So there might be a misunderstanding about those instructions.
And similarly, to keep humans safe, he was suggesting that you, well, you just lock everybody up.
That would keep them safe.
So there is, we have to be aware of the potential of AI, of artificial intelligence.
What does it actually mean?
How is it going to change our lives?
Because change our lives, it will do forever.
So what people are recommending, and I would recommend as well, is there needs to be a stop button built into that sort of side as well, because the machine needs to be stopped in case it goes a little bit too far.
But for the benefit of sort of cutting, I love to cut through jargon as well because people say, well, hang about, we let things pass.
What is AI and so on and so forth?
And there are two basic sort of propositions.
One is called a narrow AI or narrow artificial intelligence.
And that's basically, it doesn't really understand anything.
It just gives a specific instruction.
So for example, if I said to Alexa, and it's going to happen all around the place.
You said it now.
Alexa, switch on the lights.
It will switch on the lights because it recognizes that language pattern.
There's no thinking involved.
And that's narrow AI.
What we're talking about was sentient AI.
That's what we call it, but what's called general AI.
And that's designed to learn and adapt and make decisions.
So that's why it becomes sentient.
And it's that sort of thing that we've really got to be very, very careful of.
Incredibly powerful, but incredibly dangerous as well.
So how do you, I wonder, you know, there is the notion of genies and bottles here.
Once that genie's out of the bottle, then it seems to me it might be very, very difficult to control.
And maybe the only way to control it, and you're a lawyer, is to put in legal safeguards to protect the rights of humanity.
Well, I think you're right.
It's not just legal safeguards.
I mean, there are practical ones as well, because working out who owns what if something's AI created.
So you might, for example, there was a glorious thing they did in 2018 where they fed in every episode of the Flintstones, that brilliant, brilliant series.
And the AI basically created a completely new version of the Flintstones.
And it was indistinguishable, people would say, from the originals.
And people think it's part of that sort of side.
So in the creative world, we're having lots of potential where people are basically creating content, such as you can have music created, do it in the style of the Beatles, do it in the Stones who have been brilliant in Hyde Park over the last couple of weeks.
All of that sort of side.
So basically, and it's something which I've warned Equity, the actors union, about here in the UK for some time, and they've got wise to this now, is that what you can do, you can replicate, you can replicate actors and put them in new situations and digital versions of themselves could be reappearing without the need to employ a human person ever again.
And I think people need to be aware of just how powerful this machine, the rise of the machine as we call it, is becoming.
Because it's by being prepared and by understanding that power that we can actually make sure that we can harness it and be prepared to embrace it rather than be made redundant as a result of it.
That's very much a key and core issue, I think.
People have joked with me over the years in the days when I did a lot of writing and reading of news, which I don't do these days.
But in those days, you know, I always used to think that I put my stamp on the news by the way that I wrote it and the way that I read it, which was maybe different from some other people.
And, you know, that was my unique selling point.
People loved it or people didn't, as the case may be.
Oh, I think anybody hearing your glorious, glorious broadcast voice, Howard, whether it's good news or bad news, we just wanted Howard Hughes to bring us the news.
Well, I think these days they want people reading the news to sound like anybody queuing up for the bus, but that's another topic of debate for a whole other time.
I have to say I know lots of wonderful newsreaders who are good chums, and I would disagree with you on that.
Don't disagree on those things, but they are some good news.
No, no, but I'm not saying that newsreaders are like that, but I think that some of the companies employing them, you know, look for that kind of thing now because it's all interchangeable.
But that's another issue.
We used to have long debates in newsrooms about whether me or any of us could be cloned and whether they could just get an algorithm together, feed in a bulletin, as I used to do back at LBC Radio in the day when I used to read independent radio news.
I used to be the one who did the maths.
And I'm lousy at maths, calculating the duration of the bulletin because it had to be a perfect 180 seconds.
You had to be saying the words, independent radio news, at about two minutes, 57 or thereabouts, and then you're a perfect three.
And you calculate the number of words to the page.
And I used to say, yeah, well, maybe they might be able to do that, but they could never get the pauses, the inflections, the Nuances.
No computer would ever be able to do that.
Now, that was me talking with colleagues 15 years ago.
I don't think I'd say that now.
Well, I think sadly, you're absolutely right, Howard.
It says now machines can do 180.
You can absolutely make sure.
And it's that high-five moment, isn't it?
When you hit it exactly right as a broadcaster from a timing point of view and the music plays out.
But nowadays, no, machines can replicate.
I could have a Howard Hughes reading the news and anything else over phone directly, so it'd still sound brilliant.
But we could get an AI version of yourself up and running fairly quickly.
Well, as long as his fee goes to me, I don't think I care that much.
But that's the problem.
His fee wouldn't go to me.
Well, you say that.
And I think this is where the law can help.
And this is why I say we do need to embrace anybody who's doing a job which could potentially be replaced by a machine.
They should be having those discussions now to make sure that they're adequately rewarded.
So I'm involved a lot with AI.
I'm involved a lot with holograms and things like that.
And we talked about the digital resurrections, if you like, of ABBA.
And a lot of publicity about that sort of side.
And I don't know if you've had a chance to see it yet.
Howard, have you?
I haven't.
I'm actually looking forward to being able to do that soon because it looks amazing and I was their greatest fan.
And it is brilliant because it's basically a digital resurrection of ABBA in their heyday.
So they look and sound superb.
Now, you can imagine that you do your best ever concert every single day at the press of a button in several locations around the world.
The audiences, because it now looks and feels and sounds and smells as good as the real thing.
So you can't really tell the difference.
Now, as an artist, the discussions that you should be having is hang about.
It's my intellectual property.
Therefore, I need to make sure that I'm properly rewarded for it.
And you can then stay at home quaffing your champagne and eating your lark's tongue in aspic whilst earning zillions in royalties.
Okay, well, Babby, that sounds pretty idyllic.
Because my brain constantly goes off left field.
For example, if you cloned, taking it back to news again, although entertainment is extremely important in all of this.
For example, there was once a great newsreader called Peter Donaldson.
He was on BBC Radio 4, and he had the definitive BBC Radio 4 voice.
I never heard him stumble.
I never heard him make a mess of anything.
I did hear him mess something up deliberately once when they changed the format and he called himself Donald Peterson because he wanted to hit the recording somewhere.
I believe that he wanted to dissociate himself from it all.
But I once did a radio session with Peter where he read one of my snappy pappy pop radio bulletins and I read one of his serious radio 4 ones.
It was a hoot.
And he was a brilliant newscaster, but sadly, like many of these people, he's no longer with us.
If somebody decided to sample Peter Donaldson, wouldn't that be some kind of issue?
Because who would have the, you know, assuming they got it right, and my God, he was a class act.
If they got it right, who would benefit from that?
Well, there's no if about it, I can tell you that absolutely, you would think that you were listening to the original Peter Donaldson.
He did, he died, he died a number of years ago, 2015, I think it was, 2nd of November.
He was only, what, 70?
He was quite a youngster.
But no, you would be able, from the recordings that have been made of his voice, to be able to feed that with the benefit of AI and get him reading the news again on that sort of basis.
You would also, with a hologram, be able to reproduce him visually.
So you would think that you were watching him reading the news in that particular way.
So what actors are worried about now, and you might remember when sometimes in a movie, it gets reported every now and again.
What's the movie?
They take a long time to produce.
What happens is that they sometimes have to, some actors are no longer with us.
They die during production.
We've had examples of where people have been replaced or scenes finished using technology as a result.
And we can take it several stages further because AI can also write scripts.
It can do editing.
And we've tried that, for example, with things like Wimbledon.
It can do the edited highlights.
It can all be done by AI.
So it doesn't need any human input at all.
We can do recreating, as I say, you can recreate voices, you can recreate scenes, you can recreate look and feel.
So bringing people back to life is a minor achievement, a trifle, they would say, in terms of what is possible.
And in the case of somebody who you recreate who is no longer with us, presumably would their estate benefit from that?
Well, this is what I'm saying as a lawyer.
This is why I always campaign about it.
I firstly want to, as I always try and do, cut through the jargon because most people are scared about technology because they don't really understand it.
And people are embarrassed about saying, well, what is AI and what do these different terrible terms mean?
So I like to sort of basically make people aware of what the issues are, what it can actually do, and then also to highlight exactly that point, because there are rights involved.
And if you look at the consequences of what is happening with the rise of the machine, people will be out of jobs.
And as they're out of jobs, you need to make sure that people are adequately compensated for their contribution to this new world.
So that's exactly what we campaign for.
It might be a one-man campaign, but several people, when they become aware of it, basically are following that through as well.
And that's what equity, as I say, I've been talking about this for many, many years.
Equity have just started their campaign about AI and making sure that you're not cut out and making sure that people benefit.
So that's the important thing.
I would say, it's very simple, is that if you are the originator of a particular voice, so you've got a particular performance, then clearly, or people use your image, then clearly you or your estate should be benefiting from it.
That's my view.
And the other issue being, okay, if we establish that legal principle quite rightly, if they sample your essence, you know, if somebody is foolish enough to sample my voice and use it in future on the news, how can I guarantee that the organization doing that won't say to me, well, Howard, you know, obviously we want to do this by the spirit and The letter of the law.
So if it's okay with you, every time we use you, we'll give you two pounds.
That's okay, isn't it?
Well, it depends because two pounds is not worth today what two pounds used to be.
I always like working on percentages.
You get a bit of both on that sort of basis.
But also, and this is why people should be very careful.
If you are in any profession signing contracts, be very careful that you actually read what rights you're giving away because it's often people give away all sorts of things.
Now, you might have seen in broadcast contracts, they sort of say, well, we're giving in all media, whether now known or hereafter invented, throughout the universe, so we can fight over the black hole.
And those sort of words we sort of laugh about now as lawyers.
But the reality is we are doing space exploration.
We are getting more and more media.
And people are giving away rights, which perhaps they will regret later on.
So what I always would say to people, if anybody's affected by this, do get in touch and we'll talk it through and explain what rights you should be campaigning for.
But also making sure that you are protected, because otherwise giving away everything could mean that you will get no income at all.
I think that's absolutely right for reasons that I don't want to go into here.
I'm often in those situations where I have to make a point that I created the title, The Unexplained.
The intellectual property of that idea is mine.
I've got the UK registered trademark and all of those things that you have to periodically remind people.
And sometimes it's a pain to have to do it.
But like you say, increasingly in the future, loads of people, as more and more people go independent and they start to create things, which is wonderful.
But you've just got to, as Leo Sayer, you will know this line.
You'll appreciate this.
As Leo Sayer once sang, you've got to have eyes in your feet.
He's absolutely right.
And as I say, it is Gloria's 647th episode of The Unexplained.
And what I was going to do, I could make this a benefit for all of the other 646 episodes before.
I thought I could explain everything in those episodes.
So we could change the title, but you'll still own the trademark.
I'll have my people check that for you.
And we'll phone later today.
The other important point, and you touched on this as well, Howard, it's all about, and I predicted this as well, is that data, data is the new currency.
So when people are filling in all these wonderful little surveys that they do on Facebook, like throwback Thursdays and what's your favorite one of the following?
And tell us your first car and your bank account details.
What's happening?
All of that data can and indeed is being harvested.
Because most people haven't read the terms and conditions.
You've got to check what you're actually giving permission for.
And wow, what we're now doing is rather than paying in cryptocurrency or paying in dollars and pounds or yen or whatever we happen to pay in, we're paying with our attention and with the data that we give away.
And one of the big, big events that happened just a few days ago, which again wasn't widely reported, was as a result of Brexit, we were now able to set our own copyright and data laws.
And in connection with AI, what the government has done, it's only just been announced, is they've agreed to amend the copyright law to make it easier to analyze material for the purposes of basic machine learning.
So in other words, if you're a copyright owner and content is lawfully available, it means that you can feed these information into the AI machine without the need to get further permission and without the need to pay for that further permission.
It's a massive, massive step.
Well, that sounds, I mean, look, unless I've completely misinterpreted what you said, yeah, that might create opportunities for some people, but that's going to rob a lot of people, isn't it?
Unless they are very, very careful of what is rightfully theirs.
Well, it's certainly a right.
So as a copyright owner, as an intellectual property owner, as you know, is that basically gives you the right to control what happens to your work, your creative work or the other intellectual property rights that you own.
What this is effectively doing is, as long as it's lawfully available, lawfully available, that's the important point, is that they will be able to use it for data mining without extra permission.
Now the change, and this is why it's so important, and you can spin it either way, whether you're a Brexiteer or not, is that under the EU law is that you're not allowed to do it unless it was to scientific research and the owner of the copyright or the owner of the intellectual property rights had the right to opt out and also to charge.
Well, this new law just happening in the UK because of Brexit means that we will be at the forefront of AI development because data mining, that's what it's called, text and data mining, and that's basically where the software is used to analyze materials for patterns and trends and other useful information.
What we will be is at the forefront of that sort of side because we will be allowed in the UK to do it for any purpose.
Now, the knock-on effect for that will mean that it will attract other AI companies from around the world to come to the UK and to set up their companies here because our laws will be more attractive to those companies than for others.
But we need to put this in context.
And the context, how it is this, is that Clearview AI was very recently fined £7.5 million, £7.5 million by what's called the Information Commission's Office.
And the reason they did that is they were using images of people, which were taken from social media and elsewhere, basically to create a global database for facial recognition.
And they were using that without consent, taken from the different social media.
And it's a huge fine, 7.5 million.
But people should be aware that we're filmed and recorded and giving away all sorts of rights without necessarily fully understanding the consequences.
So what does this change here then mean in relation to that?
Does that mean that it will be easier to data mine in that way and there will be fewer consequences?
Or does it mean that it's just easier to do it, but the consequences remain the same?
Well, basically, The important point on this for data mining is that it has to be for lawful purposes.
In the case of Clearview AI, that was unlawful because it wasn't with the initial consent.
In this one, once the content is available lawfully, and that's why, for example, people license it by subscription or that sort of stuff, then it means it can be used for this additional purpose without any extra consent.
So people need to be aware that by allowing somebody to use it for one purpose, you're effectively giving permission for it to be used for this much wider purpose as a result.
Does that mean that if you create something, you can put in your own terms and conditions a lot of caveats, or does that mean this is unavoidable?
You just have to succumb to it.
Well, you're not allowed.
If it's just to do with data mining, you cannot impose terms and conditions.
You can impose terms and conditions before you let anybody do anything with your intellectual property.
And that's the key.
So basically, that's why I say that the test is, is there a lawful purpose?
If you let somebody do something with it already, then basically you've given this much wider permission as well.
But if you've given no permission at all, then you're controlling it absolutely.
I think there are a lot of news stories in what you've just told me, Andrew.
And I wonder why our media, who seem to be preoccupied with the B-word, and, you know, I understand that there are legitimate news stories about that and also the activities of our government.
There are also legitimate news stories to be put out about that.
But there is, like you said at the beginning of this, there's a whole lot of other stuff out there, some of it very good, some of it that demands public scrutiny and debate that doesn't get into the papers.
Absolutely.
And this is why I'm such a joy talking to you about it.
You epitomize news.
And you will know that one of the problems with the media is this, is that it can't shine a spotlight on everything at once.
And so often on a sort of local level, if you like, you hear a story, but you never really hear the end of the story because obviously that story rumbles on in the background and something else overtakes it.
But we also, there are tremendous sort of, we're drowning, if you like, in a sea of information at the moment, most of which is false.
99.9% of the information was swimming, drowning, if you like, from the internet.
And people basically pander to their own prejudices.
People tend to get their news from one source.
They tend to surround themselves with friends who've got similar views.
And basically, all they're doing is confirming their own prejudices.
And what I always urge everybody to do is to get your information from as many different sources as possible and to question everything.
And you can apply that to any story.
I look at that sort of thing.
And there's some glorious.
I'll give you an example.
There was this horrible report on the 27th of June, a very recent joke, a few days ago, in Kremenchuk in the Ukraine about this Russian armed forces who fired anti-ship missiles into a shopping center, the Amstor shopping mall.
That was widely reported.
Lots of the headlines were doing about that.
And terrible.
I mean, war is awful for absolutely everybody.
And what happened there is that a fire broke out and the press reported, or certainly a lot of the press reported, that it killed at least 20 people and injured at least sort of 56.
And Zelensky was saying that there was more than 1,000 people in this particular shopping center.
And it was very, very heavily populated and so on and so forth.
What is interesting is that you then look at, obviously, people are going to say, well, where is the other reports?
Well, Russia was saying, well, actually, it was a non-functioning shopping center.
Now, my point on all of this is that often in war, the first casualty is the truth, which is why we need to sort of look at everything.
But you look at some of the facts, and what I love about these sort of fact-checking sites is that basically they get you to think about what might be logical.
If you look at the videos of that particular thing, the car park seems to be fairly empty.
There are no ambulances, no traumatized members of the public.
There are no injured, there are no video footage.
And I dug a little bit deeper, and you start looking at some of these reviews for the shopping center.
And there haven't been any Google reviews for the last four months for that particular shopping center.
Well, of course, that could just mean that this is an embattled country and internet communications are somewhat more difficult and maybe people haven't been shopping as much, or it could mean that it hasn't been operating as a shopping center.
How do we know?
And I think that, and that's what I said to the people who said this to me is that, well, let's have a look.
Is there anywhere else that's giving reports or Google reviews?
It was quite interesting if you start looking at it.
I mean, it's particular, there was like 2,500 for a particular review for the supermarket.
It's 20 plus reviews every month.
But you look also on Google Maps.
You can do it now.
I think it's quite interesting.
What it actually said is that the shopping center or particular part of it was temporarily closed in inverted commas and it was updated by the owners nine weeks ago.
Now, nine weeks ago would have put it back to the beginning of May.
And you think, well, hang about it.
It's either a functioning shopping center with lots of people or it's a non-functioning shopping center.
And what I would do is I'm not coming down opinions either way, but we need as journalists to ask those questions.
And basically, everybody's now a journalist.
Everybody's forming opinions.
And what I would urge people to do is to basically make sure that those opinions are based on facts.
And if you've still got questions, keep asking those questions until we get clarity.
And it's very helpful, these sort of fact-checking sites.
The BBC do a great reality check.
They spoke to employees and so on and so forth.
The great thing is, is that people should be doing that.
And I think what happens is the trouble with the news cycle at the moment, Howard, is that there's always that rush to be first.
And it was sort of famously said that if you don't read the news, well, you're uninformed.
But if you read the news, you're misinformed.
Yes.
Well, I mean, I couldn't possibly comment about that, I think, having spent a lifetime doing stuff like that.
But what I have to say is that since there will be people at, there are at every point in the, and it's, you know, it's quite gratifying to know that people are listening to, you know, there will be people who are poised over keyboards at the moment.
We have to say that in the case of the instance that you cited, neither I sitting here speaking into this microphone, nor you, Andrew, nor they poised perhaps over their keyboards, know the full and entire facts of that instance.
Absolutely right.
For one simple reason, none of us were there.
Yeah, and even if we were there, we would only have one point of view.
So, and I think that's what that is my point, is that you will always, and you know, even on a local level, you see a report of an event, and if it's an event that you're at, you suddenly say, wow, but I don't recognize that.
That didn't happen, and so on and so forth.
So, so you're absolutely wrong.
My point is this, is that we really must just question everything.
Try and get substantiated views.
Try and get your news from different sources, because by talking to different voices and questioning those voices, that's how we can basically come to an informed decision.
I think you've just made, in my humble view, a staggeringly important point.
And it's one that in these crazy months of this year, I haven't really dwelt upon too much.
But, you know, I've often, in my tortured nights, thought to myself, you know, what is the truth of X story or Y story?
How can I know what is the truth?
And I think the reality of it is in many cases, an absolute truth is going to be very hard to ascertain.
But the great point that you made is that there are sources available to us all where we can do a little bit of digging behind the curtain, behind the veil, and we can find facts behind the reports.
We can find facts that perhaps the journalists who've made those reports might not have seen, might not have known.
So we can do a little bit of our own substantiation.
Yes, I always say to everybody, I mean, virtually every story, and this is why people will say, well, how come you've got, people often sort of trumpet this, as you kindly said in your opening remarks, that I've got a hundred percent record of predicting results of elections, of certain events, but also of how the media report it.
And the reality is this, is that people are following the same pattern.
The reason that history repeats itself is because we don't learn the lessons from history.
And I think if you look at history and look at how things evolve, basically we're doing the same things all the time.
We're making the same mistakes time and time again.
And what we should always be doing with any story on the news, and I say it's such a delight talking to you, Miss the News about it, is that we should always ask, well, why are we being told this?
Who's telling us?
Let's put it into context.
And you could apply that to all sorts of things.
I was broadcasting with some fellow broadcasters on, I think even on your channel, you're on so many.
And we were talking, it was around the time of May the 6th when everything was in purdah because there was an election going on and the voting was, ballots were open and you can't say anything else.
But on May the 6th, you might remember it widely reported, Matt Hancock was being filmed in his minister's office, basically with the person with Gina.
We have to say for overseas listeners, look up Matt Hancock.
Matt Hancock, he is the former Health Secretary of the United Kingdom.
Exactly.
But I predict he'll make a return.
You'll be surprised what will happen there.
But it was May the 6th that that happened.
And it wasn't reported until the end of June.
I think it was like June the 27th that appeared on the front page of The Sun.
Now, everybody was outraged about it, saying, oh, he's having an affair and so on and so forth.
But there were so many other questions that should have been asked as well.
Like, for example, how on earth did the footage of a minister in his office end up on the desk of the editor of The Sun?
Now, this is supposed to be one of the most secure places in the world.
And that sort of footage is being leaked.
The other question is the timing of it.
It was like six weeks after the event.
And if it was such a matter of national insurance, national importance, why on earth did it take those extra six or seven weeks before it appeared?
And if you look at that to know sort of basis, you can then work out the same about the drip feed about Partygate.
I predicted again that, yes, okay, you have one photo.
I can tell you.
One of the most photographed places again in London.
You've got footage everywhere.
Why are we being drip fed those particular pictures?
And again, you can work out and come to your own conclusions.
You might say, well, somebody's got an ulterior motive for drip feeding.
We'll keep it partially marriage.
My answer to the Matt Hancock thing was always, you know, who put that out?
People asked.
A few, very few people asked.
And my thought on that was a well-wisher.
There was, you know, somebody there who obviously felt so enraged about this.
Rightly, they wanted to bring it to the public's attention.
You know, the fact of the matter is we were being urged by our leaders to behave in one way, and it appeared that some of them were behaving in another way.
I don't want to get into politics because that will always polarize any audience.
So that's why I never discuss politics on this show.
But it's interesting to ask the question, how and why did this story appear?
It is most unprecedented.
If you can have gradations of unprecedentedness, it is extremely unprecedented for an image of that kind taken in the place that it was taken.
And this was Matt Hancock canoodling.
That's exactly the point, Howard.
And it's not a political point.
It's a journalistic point.
You turn out and you say, if that well-wisher to whom you refer was so outraged, why did that outrage take six or seven weeks to?
They might have been, who knows?
They might have been plucking up the courage.
They might have been asking their friends.
You know, we simply don't know.
But it is interesting to, you know, I think the problem is we can agree on this, and I'm not being political about this before anybody sends me an email.
It is interesting to analyze the chain of events, I think.
Yes, exactly.
And I'm not being political either.
It really is.
It's chain of events because it's equal balance, if you like, about any party and when particular stories are leaked.
We hear stories as journalists all the time and you wonder when on earth this one's going to break and that one's going to break and so on and so forth.
And it is that news cycle that we need to question, the United States, not a political comments, more about the news cycle and about our need to question everything because there are lots of questions for virtually every story that we get to hear.
And, you know, I can remember the era when I was a kid when there were various, you know, scandals erupting around government when people resigned For them, and again, I'm not being political, I'm just merely chronicling history here.
That the propensity for people to do what they considered in those days the honorable thing and go seemed to be higher when I was a kid.
It seemed to me that there were, you know, when I was starting my life back in the 80s, as they say, there were always stories about people quitting on principle and that sort of stuff.
And, you know, it doesn't seem to me that very much of that happens now, but I really don't want to get political because this is a non-political.
Certainly non-political, but I think, you know, and that's just re-emphasizing that main point, is that we should question everything.
By questioning everything, there are more questions to be asked whenever you hear a story.
Who, what, why, when, why are we being told this now, and who's telling us?
All those sort of questions are really, really important.
I think so, and we totally, completely are on the same page about that.
I worry that the people, wherever they might be and whatever media they might consume, are inclined to simply accept what is presented in front of them without asking any questions because life is complicated and stressful and busy and underrewarded and all of those things.
And people don't have the time.
And that's a concern.
No, it's totally a concern.
But as I say, what people do, they're just confirming their own prejudices.
It's that vicious cycle, if you like.
Surround yourself with people who share your views.
Read the papers that give you that particular view.
Watch the news channels that only give you that particular view.
Do question everything.
Get a balanced view from everybody.
Listen to all sides and reach informed decisions.
If that's one message to everybody, that would be it.
You wrote a book about the power of failure.
Now, I've always believed that in everything that doesn't go right for you, there is probably an opportunity.
All you have to do is reason that out.
And sometimes that can take you years.
I mean, I don't mind, it's long enough ago now to share a story from my own life.
You know, I was reading the news and writing the news for a very famous speech broadcaster in the UK a long time ago now.
It's more than 15 years ago when a radio station called LBC was owned by different people who no longer exist.
You know, that organization doesn't exist now.
But I was reading the news for this very famous speech broadcaster.
And among a number of other people, I think the company might have been having some difficulties to deal with.
And they got rid of a number of people, including for the first time in my life, me.
And, you know, it was a shocking, horrible experience.
And the speech broadcaster whose breakfast show I was working on, who's still very famous in the UK, went into bat for me.
You know, I can talk about this now and I have on social media.
You know, he told the management, basically, you've made a mistake, but it didn't help me.
And I exited that organization.
And it was a very painful experience for me until I saw behind it.
And it actually opened up my life because it put me in control.
And it made me question everything about any association that I have.
So it made me more savvy.
It made me discover new opportunities.
And it ultimately put me in the seat that I'm sitting in now, doing the thing that I'm doing.
So you could have viewed that as a failure.
And at the time, I did.
But actually, it was an opportunity.
No, no, you're absolutely right.
And thank you so much for mentioning the Andrew Ywans book of failure, available at all good bookshops and a few dodgy ones as well.
It's got to be good.
But I'll tell you the reason this came about is that people always talk about success, but they very rarely talk about the failure that leads to that success.
And so I always say, well, necessity is the mother of invention.
Well, failure is the father of success.
So I was writing for a number of journals around the world in a regular column looking at the different failures in history and the lessons that could be learnt.
And I was asked to basically compile a lot of those articles and stories into this book.
And what I've done for your wonderful listeners all around the world, I put a few up on eBay so you can get either a very rare unsigned copy or I can personalize it for you as well.
But do have a look at the Andrew Warren's book of failures.
That's the slickest sales pitch I've ever read.
Oh, the sales power, fantastic sales pitch.
It's got to be good.
But you are right.
We do need to embrace those failures.
And there's nothing wrong.
If you don't fail, you will never succeed.
I once did a documentary when I was a student learning the art of doing these things, supposedly.
And we all had to pick a topic when I was a student broadcaster at University College Cardiff many, many years ago.
Thank you, Radio City, for sending me there.
I was very, very lucky.
But we had to pick a topic, and everybody thought that Howard would do a documentary for his final, almost the equivalent in sound of a dissertation, that I would do a documentary about radio or something like that, or something that I loved, or, you know, radio jingles or, you know, Simon Bates or something like who famous disc jockey in the United Kingdom.
And I didn't.
I deliberately picked the subject of businesses, small ones, and making them work because I was quite interested in those things.
And I traveled the country on my student rail card pass, interviewing people.
And I got to a place in Blackpool called Blackpool, called the Federation of Small Businesses, which you may be aware of.
Oh, yes, know them well.
And, you know, Litham St. Anne's, I think, very close to Blackpool.
Beautiful place.
And I can remember to this day sitting on that lovely sunny June day in there, or May Day in their office.
And the guy behind the desk, whose name I forget, unfortunately, said some of the most profound words that I've ever heard.
He said, you've got to remember that every business person and everybody who ever does anything or has an idea has been knocked flat on their back a dozen or so times before they hit, you know, he didn't say the mother load, but the payload.
Oh, no, yes, absolutely.
And you look at some of those glorious things.
I mean, lots of things that we have and take for granted now started as a result of failure.
I mean, take the post-it note.
The post-it note came about because it was a glue that didn't stick properly.
And people realize, actually, that could be quite useful sometimes when we want to have a post-it note.
But every iteration of technology, whether it's from Google Glass, do you remember Google Glasses, which people used to wear?
And how that is now sort of basically man and machine are now merging.
But all of these things, especially in the technology side and various other things, lead To those glorious failures to success.
But there are also lots of patterns in those extraordinary things, especially when people start to veer away from areas they shouldn't be involved with.
So, Colgate, for example, had a little foray into frozen food, and there was a report, although I'm not quite sure it's entirely accurate, about a Colgate lasagna and how instantly that was a failure because people associated obviously Colgate with those tingly fresh breaths as opposed to that wonderful oozing salt.
If they invented a lasagna that could clean your teeth at the same time, then I think they'd be onto something.
I think I hear, Howard, I think not only should you own the trademark to the glorious unexplained, you should patent your lasagna, which cleans your teeth.
I'm still waiting for somebody to invent the washing liquid that has some kind of antidote to clothes moths in it.
That's a good idea.
There you are, you see.
There you are that we've just had.
Are we full of it now?
This will be Howard Hughes brings you new news about new inventions.
I think that would be lovely.
Back to the power of failure.
But there were some extraordinary ones as well.
There was a ladies' Doritos, for example.
You know, Doritos, other snacks are available.
But there was a ladies' Doritos, which was apparently less crunchy because ladies don't like to have as much crunch in their stacks, which was not only sexist, but complete rubbish.
So it didn't last very long as a product.
Yeah, sometimes the most remarkable assumptions are made.
I can remember working at one place where they said something about women like to hear weather forecasts because they can decide what to wear.
That came to me from a radio station boss.
And, you know, yes, women do, but I think men do as well.
I do exactly.
You know, do I need a coat today?
Is it going to be cold?
Do I need my pullover?
So that was what astonished me.
It is extraordinary, isn't it?
I think in this day and age, people make so many assumptions.
People will say it makes an ass out of you and me.
That's what assume is.
Absolutely.
Indeed.
Okay, now we're coming to the end of this.
So the power of prediction, I think, is a formidable one.
There are many people who claim to be futurists and say that you can base what is to come on the information delivered to you on the value of what happened in the past.
There are a bunch of people in America who do these things called time tracks.
A guy called Paul Gurcio, who I've got a lot of time for, been on the show a number of times.
And they have this wonderful computer program that I must get them back on the show, that number crunches and delivers to you predictions of that which will happen based on that which did.
Do you believe that is more or less how things happen?
Oh, no, absolutely.
And as I said earlier, I think the reason, and somebody had a 100% record in predicting these things, the reason that history repeats itself is because we don't learn the lessons from history.
So I always encourage people, look back at similar situations.
I mean, take the pandemic, for example.
There have been several pandemics throughout history, and I can predict there will be several more.
But if you go back just 100 years to 1918, and what was wrongly called the Spanish flu, and very similar sort of situation, lasted about two and a half years.
It was a horrible, horrible thing.
About 500 million people around the world got infected.
10% of that, 50 million people died.
But it was wrongly called the Spanish flu.
And I'll tell you why, is that it was an era, you might remember, there was a lot of press restrictions.
It actually started in Kansas, so it should have been called the Kansas cough.
But we also had episodes in the UK and France and Germany.
But all of those had media restrictions.
And the only country that did it was Spain.
Poor old King Alfonso XIII, unlucky for some and certainly for him, he contracted this.
And because there weren't restrictions in Spain on media reporting, it was widely reported around the world that he had this flu and therefore became wrongly called the Spanish flu.
So we can correct that misnomer as well.
But looking back at history and you look at the pattern and the way that everything evolved and the reporting in the press and the media and so on and so forth, and there is that wonderful pattern.
And as I said beforehand, it was a war against the pandemic.
And one of the first casualties in any war is the truth.
And you go all the way back to the bubonic plague and the misunderstanding about how that was spread.
People always thought that it was actually on the cats, the cats and the dogs that basically were causing this.
So they destroyed lots of the cats.
And as a result of it, the fleas, which were the real culprits, obviously the population increased.
There were more fleas and rats, which is basically where the fleas were living.
And so what happened is the natural enemy of the cat, if you like, basically was wiped out.
So the cat was wiped out and therefore the rat population increased, which just shows the massive importance of making sure that the misinformation is not spread.
So those wrong reportings and the damage that can be caused, there's a wonderful example on that sort of basis.
Indeed.
And in terms of the trajectory of past pandemics, epidemics, but pandemics in particular, is it always the way of things that these peter out?
It must be because we're all still here.
But I think an awful lot of us who suffered terribly, I mean, I was a virtual recluse working in my little home, humble home studio for two years doing my radio show from home.
And people said it sounds better from home than it did when it was on the radio, which is amazing because I learned so much about it.
But I would never, ever, ever, ever want to go through that experience again because it caused me two, it's not just me, my God, two years of damage.
But I'm hoping that the trajectory of these things from the past, and none of us knows what's coming down the track entirely, but the trajectory in the general way of things is that this is going to go and we are going to be able to live like human beings fully again.
Well, I think what happens, and people make a mistake about saying that things will get back to normal, that we won't go Back.
We're always evolving, we're always changing.
But on a positive note, what I can say is that the 1918 flu, which we've now renamed as the Kansas Cough, the 1918 flu, you will remember, was followed by a period of sustained growth and what became known as the Roaring 20s.
So there will be a period of adjustment.
People will be looking at new opportunities.
My heart does go out to everybody who's been badly affected.
And we've all lost loved ones during this terrible time.
And it's not just the strain for the people who've passed away, but on the mental health of the nation, on the people who've missed out on education, on the people who haven't seen friends or family or been able to attend events.
It has been an absolutely appalling time.
And I think what's important is that we reflect on that sort of side as well, the impact on mental health.
And I always, it's one of the things that people don't normally talk about or haven't until fairly recently.
Because if you break your leg, people can see the pain and suffering.
They come along and sign your cast and make a joke about it.
Previously, there was a real stigma about mental health, which meant a lot of people didn't talk about the things that were affecting them.
And what I want us to be, I want us to be the generation that talks about mental health so that the next generation doesn't suffer the stigma.
I will get emails probably from one or two people saying this is not unexplained.
Well, in some ways it is, I would say.
And more importantly than anything else, it's important because I think if you think that you were unaffected by those two years, have a good look at your life and then come back and tell me again that you were unaffected.
Because, you know, in my own case and maybe in your case, Andrew, but in many people's case, you know, we're just not going to be the same again.
You know, we're all constantly evolving, but it was an excuse to change.
I tell you why it becomes relevant to unexplained is because so often actions will have a particular result and are unexplained because people don't know why people are doing certain things.
And when people change as a result of the pressures on them, that's one explanation as a result of those sort of changes.
And so if you've noticed changes in behaviors of your friends, your family, your work colleagues, or whatever, it could very well be to do with the mental pressures that have been put on them.
So I think when you're talking about the wider topic about unexplained and looking, as we said, about question everything, why are those sort of changes?
Looking at that sort of side is certainly one explanation.
And here's something else that's not explained.
But, you know, I think one of the things that I learned from all of this, and people have been telling me this for years, you've got to live every minute like it's your last.
And that's the only way to do it, really.
Andrew, it's been an absolute delight to speak with you.
This is very different from my usual run of material.
But I think since we've done so many ufology shows and that kind of thing lately, we needed to have a little spring clean for the head.
And I think we've just had it.
Thank you.
It's an absolute delight.
And thank you so much.
I'm delighted to be the 647th episode.
Looking forward to 648 now, Andrew.
We'll talk again soon, I hope.
Looking forward to it.
Well, a remarkable man, as the biography said.
Andrew Eborn, the guest on this edition of The Unexplained.
Your thoughts, as always, welcomed on everything that we do here.
Please go to my website, theunexplained.tv.
Follow the link, and you can send me an email from there.
Stay cool if you're in the northern hemisphere.
Stay warm if you're in the southern hemisphere.
Until next we meet, my name is Howard Hughes.
This has been The Unexplained Online.
And please, whatever you do, stay safe, stay calm, and please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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