Appointing Matt Brittin, a former Google executive, as BBC director general is smarter than critics admit. Although he was on the board of the Guardian’s publisher, Brittin is no journalist. He does understand platforms, scale and digital audiences.
Director generals come under scrutiny when crises hit, like last week’s sacking of Scott Mills over his “personal conduct.” It then emerged that police previously questioned the Radio 2 DJ over separate allegations of serious sexual offenses, closing the case due to lack of evidence. However, the role’s underlying challenge is facing future threats to the corporation’s audience.
On one measure, YouTube reaches more Britons than the BBC’s channels combined. However, hovering into view is AI, which facilitates misinformation, error and ignorance. It is already beginning to mediate the news and how it is understood. The UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) says about 30 percent of searches display AI summaries, seen regularly by more than half of adults. The BBC has tried, for good reasons, to stop its journalism being extracted by AI without payment. However, it risks excluding itself from a technology where many now get information. The Reuters Insititute for the Study of Journalism found that only about 6 percent of users turn to AI for news. However, as summaries embed in search, journalism becomes raw material, not the finished product.
A paper by Kai-Cheng Yang of Binghamton University last year showed that AI-generated answers draw on a narrow band of sources: OpenAI models rest on wire services; Google’s on search-driven global media; Perplexity on respected brands such as the BBC. The same question produces a different response depending on the system used. Despite the BBC being the UK’s most trusted news source, only two of four AI tools drew on its content, said a study from the Brthe UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The UK’s most popular AI tool — OpenAI’s ChatGPT — cited GB News more often. ChatGPT’s top citations often align with OpenAI’s publisher deals, including the Guardian’s. The lack of transparency around how AI’s sources are selected and weighted is problematic.
Audiences once chose between narratives. Social media made them navigate or trapped them in filter bubbles. Now, AI distills a single response. Nuance and plurality are at risk. Journalists traditionally judged what information to use and which sources to prioritize. Their mental models were built through reporting. AI systems perform those functions through hidden algorithms, privileging what is most common, not what is most true.
Control lies not just in owning information, but in structuring, modeling and understnading it. The IPPR rightly argues that the UK must combine transparency over how AI answers are generated, fair licensing frameworks to ensure publishers are paid and intervention to curb platform dominance over information. Public service media, especially the BBC, should anchor this strategy. Impartial, accurate news is essential for democratic stability.
The BBC’s charter review must secure funding and end the cycle of “existential” resets with a permanent settlement protecting its independence. The BBC has the scale, data and mandate to underpin a trustworthy “orchestration” layer for news. Its journalism must be machine-readable, queryable and interpretable on its own terms. Letting companies like Palantir, co-founded by the Trump-backing billionaire Peter Thiel, do this would be a mistake. The BBC has traditionally fused innovation with public purpose. It must do so again and ensure news stays contestable, transparent and accountable.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent the vast Asian chemicals industry into a tailspin. Deprived of the likes of Qatari natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, the region’s fertilizer and plastics plants are slowing production or even shutting down. Everywhere except China, that is. In petrochemicals, China is unique. As well as a traditional industry that uses oil and gas as feedstock, it has parallel output that relies on its abundant domestic coal. Unsurprisingly, India and other regional powers want to copy and paste the Chinese method. This would not be easy — or climate friendly. The
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) recent visit to Beijing and her upcoming visit to Washington will serve as a high-level test of her diplomatic mettle. In Beijing, Cheng was received with symbolic gestures, a warm reception, and high-level access. In Washington, she will receive far less pomp and far sharper questions about the KMT’s vision for the future of Taiwan. Her challenge will be to persuade Washington that the KMT’s engagement with China can coexist with strong deterrence. Cheng’s April 7-12 visit to mainland China coincided with an intense period of conflict in Iran. Despite the strategic significance of Cheng’s trip,
History might remember 2026, not 2022, as the year artificial intelligence (AI) truly changed everything. ChatGPT’s launch was a product moment. What is happening now is an anthropological moment: AI is no longer merely answering questions. It is now taking initiative and learning from others to get things done, behaving less like software and more like a colleague. The economic consequence is the rise of the one-person company — a structure anticipated in the 2024 book The Choices Amid Great Changes, which I coauthored. The real target of AI is not labor. It is hierarchy. When AI sharply reduces the cost
US President Donald Trump recently repeated his claim that “Taiwan stole America’s chip industry,” reigniting public debate on the issue. As a former Taiwanese minister of economic affairs and an entrepreneur deeply involved in semiconductor supply chain development, I feel a responsibility to clarify this misunderstanding. From the perspective of global industrial evolution and the economic principle of comparative advantage, such a statement appears overly simplistic and risks obscuring the essence of the issue. The rise of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry was not built on “replacing America,” but rather emerged as a result of countries pursuing different development paths within the
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