Episode 10 Sunday Morning Live

On today's programme: Are street grooming gangs a Muslim problem,

as was claimed in a tabloid this week, or is the language

we use around the issue racist and divisive?

Equality campaigners propose all jobs be open to part

Will such measures help to close the gender pay gap

We ask is equality impossible in the workplace?

Also on today's show, will we take over the world?

I don't know about that, Sanbot, but I hope you're not looking

As tech billionaires battle over machines that can

think for themselves, should we be worried

Emma Barnett is here ready to help you join in the debates.

And you should be worried about that robot! We want to hear from you

about all our discussions, especially the first one about

grooming gangs. You can contact us by

Facebook and Twitter. Don't forget to use

the hashtag #bbcsml. Or text SML followed

by your message to 60011. Texts are charged at your

standard message rate. Or email us at

[email protected]. However you choose to get in touch,

please don't forget to include your name so I can get you involved

in our discussions. And later we'll meet

a pioneering RAF pilot who has The fact is, that there are already

thousands of people serving in the US military who are transgender. I

am living proof that being transgender does not affect how you

do your job. This week Labour MP

for Rotherham Sarah Champion quit her role on the Shadow Cabinet

after criticism over a newspaper article she wrote

about grooming gangs. "Britain has a problem

with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls,"

she wrote in The Sun on Friday. Or am I just prepared

to call out this horrifying She has since apologised for what

she described as an extremely poor choice of words.

In the same newspaper, another article by former Sun

political editor Trevor Kavanagh referred to "the Muslim problem".

It was condemned in an open letter signed by more than 100 MPs,

So should race be talked about when tackling grooming gangs or are we in

danger of alienating a community? Joining us now are Nazir Afzal,

former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England,

Michelle Dewberry, a broadcaster Kieran Yates,

a journalist and writer, and Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive

of the Ramadhan Foundation. Hearing, has some of the language

that has been used been racist and divisive? I think it has definitely

stoked the fire of prejudice and racism that already exists in the

UK. What it has also done is derailed the conversation away from

the victims, by somehow suggesting there is something inherently

sexually deviant about British Pakistani man, which is disgusting.

What about future victims? If we don't talk about this properly, we

will never solve the problem. Of course any investigation has got to

unpick and discuss the issues of culture and religion, but what

Trevor Kavanagh and Sarah Champion have done is make the conversation

simply about that and devoid of nuance. How did you review the

apology? I think it was a necessary for her to do that. What Sarah

Champion did was speak the truth. It is not racist to say that Pakistani

men are grooming and abusing and raping white ladies or girls, if

that is what they are doing. Grouping them altogether? A

Pakistani men are doing that. Some Pakistani men. She never said all in

her article. People are leaping on this and suggesting that somehow

anybody with a brain cell is walking around thinking that all Pakistani

people are doing this. Lady had suggested that all Pakistani men are

doing anything. Brexit nobody has suggested that all Pakistani men are

doing anything. Growing up as a mixed-race boy in 1980s Britain,

people talked about black people committing crimes, and that affected

me. I was no more likely to commit a crime and my white colleagues.

Pakistani men are feeling finger pointed. Nobody is suggesting that

all Pakistani men are doing anything. Sarah Champion's article

was correct. She should not have resigned and I think she was forced

into that. She should have stood by her words and her position. You have

been involved in prosecuting gangs. Does race and religion play a part

in these crimes? As people have said already, you can't get away from the

fact that British Pakistani men are disproportionately involved in

street grooming. British white paedophiles have a different

approach. They work in institutions and they organise themselves in a

different way. The question that you should be asking is why we focusing

on race and not sexism, when we haven't talked about the victims and

what they gone through. I am with Michelle. I have known Sarah for a

long time and she is a champion for victims and everybody involved in

this is a champion for victims. We can't get away from the fact that

British Pakistani men are disproportionately involved in group

grooming. Is it a race crime? It is about the availability and

vulnerability of young girls. Is it about the way they view white girls?

Part of that is true. They also targeted Pakistani girls and girls

from other ethnicities. I prosecuted the ringleader of Rochdale for his

abuse. But a smaller amount. I totally get that. That is right. The

fact is that victims would be targeted by predators from all

communities. We can't get away from the fact that Pakistani men are

disproportionately more involved in street grooming white girls, can we?

You can't and the facts speak for themselves. I have always been very

consistent in saying that as a community we have got to deal with

this. What has been difficult over the last ten days has been when it

has been politicised. Politicians and commentators turning it into a

massive debate. As my colleague said. And we have forgotten the

reality, the victims. I have met these victims. I have spoken to

them. Do you know the most distressing thing? Not a single

person commenting on this is talking about their experiences. I think we

should be talking about that. In terms of Sarah Champion, I think it

was right that she resigned. She deliberately lied and told the

mysteries when she said that she had the article jape by The Sun. -- and

told an untruth. It was signed off by her office, not The Sun. This

inflammatory talking about race feed paranoia among the far right. I am

standing up against these gangs and I have been campaigning against them

since 2007. But when you make inflammatory comments, as she did,

as a shadow qualities secretary, her position is untenable. You are

talking to one of the victims now. Yes, it is often said that the

victim's voice gets lost in these conversations.

I'm joined now by Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of the Rochdale grooming

gang, and now a campaigner for victims of abuse.

Good morning. Do you think race and religion played any role in the way

that these gangs operated? You had first-hand experience of it. I think

it has in some cases, yes. We can't get away from that. There has been

evidence in court cases throughout the country. As a country, we are

open to talking about white men raping children, but we are in 2017

and we can't say Pakistani con Muslim and child abuse in the same

sentence. There are lots of factors involved, not just race and

religion. I was targeted because of my sex, I was a girl. You are

targeted for different reasons. There were different races involved.

The fact that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he was.

He was very open to getting away with it and he thought it was

normal. If I can just break in, do you feel the fact that you are white

played a role in the fact that you were seen as vulnerable? I think it

did. That is part of why we were ignored and it was covered up. That

is happening throughout the country, a pattern. We can't make it all

about race, especially on to one race, but we also can't get away

from the facts. We can't tackle it unless we discuss everything. Do you

get frustrated when you see somebody like Sarah Champion having to resign

from the Shadow Cabinet or feeling like she has got to because she has

written what are facts, as she sees them, in a newspaper article?

Definitely. As a country we can have an open and honest discussion about

race and religion. I don't think Sarah did anything wrong and I don't

see eye to eye with her myself, but putting that to one side, I think

she said something that is the truth. What's Jeremy Corbyn did by

sacking her, it resigning, whichever it was, I think that sends a far

more dangerous message, saying that we can't have these discussions. If

you were to summarise what role Pakistani culture or Islamic culture

potentially played in the fact that you were chosen to be groomed as a

young white girl, how would you summarise that from your point of

view and your experience? I think there are a few factors involved.

There are some Muslims that few women in poor light, especially if

you are not a Muslim girl or Muslim woman yourself. I think we need to

be open to talking about it. I don't understand why it has got to be a

secret. Let's tackle it from all angles. I appreciate you talking to

us this morning. Thank you. You have been getting in touch with your

views. Please keep doing so. Ruth says why should this be an

uncomfortable truth? Discuss it openly without the fear of being

called racist. It is impossible not to bring race and religion into

these conversations. Doreen: The reality is that a group of men

exploited and raped young, vulnerable girls. Is it racist to

mention that the girls were white British and the men were of Asian

origin? These are the facts. Suzanne says that all of the offenders were

British-born. Does that mean that Britain is a nation of sex

offenders? You can't tar everybody with the same brush. And this one

says, the question is not whether the MP is racist but why a large

number of men from one community are preying on vulnerable girls. Very

interesting. Sammy says in 2017 we can't use the words child abuse and

Pakistani men in the same sentence. Is that political correctness gone

mad? I think she was saying that we can't make this completely about

race. And what we have seen, we are having a discussion about media

responses, and British Pakistani men are always part of the conversation

when we are talking about this. They have been intertwined into this

narrative, and that is why Sarah Champion was right to stand down.

When we are talking about this case in particular, there is a systemic

failure of Greater Manchester Police who did not believe the victims.

There is something we need to unpick and discuss their without derailing

the conversation. We discuss all parts of it, so why can't we talk

about Pakistani men who are highly involved in this? What about talking

about Polish truck drivers abusing young black girls? We would talk

about Polish truck drivers and the way they view young black women. We

are talking about Pakistani men disproportionately involved in

abusing young, white women. Why can't we talk about the way that

Pakistani men are brought up to view women who do not fit the mould that

they are expecting and don't act in the way they are expecting? Why

can't we talk about that? Among these criminals there is a mindset

that white girls are worthless. I say it time and time

again. Is it the criminals or is it the culture? Are they brought up to

think like that? It is not the culture. I am a Muslim and a

Pakistani and there is no way in my face and in my community that we

were brought up to say you can rape white girls. When you see a young

white girl who is vulnerable, maybe drinking, on the streets, there is a

problem that they are viewing them, some Pakistani men, are viewing them

in a different way. Are they just criminals or is it a cultural thing?

Answer the question. What I am saying is that it is an issue and we

need to address the issue. Why can't we talk about this in terms of race?

Show me some respect. I have been campaigning about this since 2007,

even when the police and everybody else was finding excuse for the

grooming. I was on the street campaigning and all we have been

talking about his race and grooming for the last ten years. We need to

talk about this in terms of race. I know but are we also going to talk

about the huge endemic problem of child abuse the church? And Jimmy

Savile? Let's just get real on these issues and remember that was one

victim. I have met many, and I am sure he has. More than I have had

breakfast! With Jimmy Savile, the focus and the finger was pointed out

a lot of male celebrities and rightly so. Somebody in my position

cannot do what he did and we talked about it. We discussed it. With the

Catholic Church we discussed it. Judgment here is that we cannot talk

about it in terms of race. I have prosecuted dozens of these

cases, there is always this conversation for a few weeks after

the trial, then we forget about it. I am with you, we should have this

conversation day in, day out. Some British Pakistani men have a problem

with white girls on the street, there is violent misogyny going on,

misogyny more than anything drives their attitude towards women and

girls. We need to tackle it, every community, including the British

Pakistani community. I am never afraid of

saying who is responsible, if they are responsible they need to do

something. We have focused on this issue for ten days, we have not

focused about the victims, why they were not believed and why they

continue to suffer. Michelle, what can we do? Have a honest

conversations, I fundamentally disagree with you both when you say

Sarah Champion should have resigned. You should be able to have those

conversations, have the courage of your convictions, hold your position

once you have spoken those truths. The second thing is talk to these

people, there have been so many convictions now, talk to these

people and understand what is going on, how can we stop this? There is

some form of cultural influence, it has to be talked about and

understood. I am afraid we are out of time, thank you.

Caroline Paige served in the RAF for more than three decades as a jet

and helicopter navigator but her career is notable for more

than just her remarkable service and battlefield expertise.

In 1999 she became the first transgender officer to transition

Wendy Robbins went on a tour of duty to find out more about Caroline's

When Caroline Paige joined the Royal Air Force in 1980, her colleagues

knew her as a man called Eric, and identity she had struggled with all

her life. I saw myself as a female that just

happen to have been born with a boy's body for some reason, but I

knew that I was now joining an organisation whereby if I was

discovered that I was transgender, then I would be thrown out.

Caroline kept her secret for 19 years of her flying career. It was

something she had lived with since the age of five, when she saw a

dress on her mother's bed. I felt, well, what a beautiful

dress, I need to wear the dress. I put it on and it felt wonderful,

natural, it was me, but it was a little bit tight. And I heard

footsteps approaching and it was my father, and I panicked and I could

not get the dress. I found it very difficult because he shouted at me

and made it very clear it was completely wrong, and that

frightened me. So I felt the best thing to do was hide it. My life

then became one of hopes and dreams, each night I went to bed and I would

hope that the following morning I would wake up and it would be fixed,

I would be the girl that I knew I was.

You wanted to be a girl, you are wearing your mum's clothes, yet you

also wanted to fly fast jets. It goes back to my days in Melayu when

we lived on an army base and the helicopters used to come backwards

and forwards and lands in the field next to the house -- my days in

Malaya. At 15 I learned to fly gliders, I was in the sky is 2000

feet on my own and I felt it was wonderful, fantastic. It was the

first time I had seen there was something I could do. You joined the

RAF, then a very macho environment. It was quite a contrast.

There were no female is allowed to fly the fast jets, combat aircraft,

in the 80s. Not until 1991. It was a very male environment and, of

course, it was an extra pressure because I knew that if I was

discovered I would be dismissed from the air force immediately and I

would be outed. What led you after 19 years to reveal your true

identity and tell the authorities? I was always living with the fear of

getting caught, and I realise that, you know what? I have to standard, I

accept the consequences and see where it goes. I went to see the

medical officer and I sat down and told her, right, I need to tell you

something. When I did, she cleared her appointment is for the rest of

the afternoon. You must have expected to be thrown out? Yes, I

expected thank you very much, we no longer require your servers, get

out. That is going to be disappointing, but a decision came

back that they wanted to keep me in service, which was absolutely

amazingly wonderful. Well, I never dreamt that this would be possible,

and here I am now, Caroline Paige, female officer in the RAF.

In the end, the military reacted better than your parents? And

fortunately my brothers never spoke to me again, my dad initially turned

round and said, as far as I'm concerned, you are dead --

unfortunately my brothers never spoke to me again. That is why I

kept the secret so long for my family. I anticipated losing them.

My father was really lovely, I looked into bits, I think he was

slowly coming to terms and realising I was still his child and he wanted

to support me, I think that is happening, but unfortunately he had

a heart attack and died. You were not allowed to go to the funeral?

The family decided they did not want me at the funeral, but I agreed with

a padre at the base and I have my private servers, but it was very

sad. In 2000 tabloid newspaper discovered

Caroline's story. She then experienced hostility from some REF

colleagues. People came up to me and said get out of RF force, our

military, what on earth are you doing serving? It made me more

determined to want to get the front line and prove them wrong.

Caroline was already experienced on the front line before transitioning.

She went on to serve a further 16 years flying battlefield helicopters

in Afghanistan and Iraq, winning several commendations for her work.

She forged lasting friendships with colleagues during that time,

including Andy, with whom she flew for a decade.

We have been hearing Caroline's story, I wonder what you made of

what happened to her? We have flown together on operations from

Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, on many dangerous missions. She is the

same as everyone else, Maxine, great sense of humour, helps us through

the hard times, I think. -- McKerrs in, great sense of humour. Last

month Trump treated his intention to ban transgender military personnel,

part of his rationale said it would degrade military readiness and

demoralise the troops. What did you make of that? It is appalling. There

are already thousands of people serving in the US military who are

transgender, and they have been on the front line, they have been stood

next to their colleagues doing the job as well as anybody else. I am

living proof that being transgendered is not affect how you

do your job. Wendy Robbins talking to Caroline

Paige. Still to come on Sunday Morning

Live: As robots are becoming more developed could they ever take

over from humans? In the long term there is an

existential risk of do you create a form of being batters more

intelligent than us? The latest in a string of terror

attacks to hit Europe this year occurred in Spain this week,

as the Catalonia region of the country was struck twice

by people driving cars The first happened on Thursday

as a white van smashed into people on the famous boulevard and tourist

hotspot of Las Ramblas, while it was packed

with holiday makers. Emergency services were quickly on

the scene but the devastating attack left 13 people dead and more than

100 injured. One of the visitors to Barcelona

at the time was the security expert Will Geddes, who was one

of the first on the scene I know you are not directly there

when the car hits, but what did you see in the aftermath, what did you

hear? As soon as I got with the attack was taking place I got down

to the court in as quickly as possible, I had been at Las Ramblas

only a couple of hours previous to the attack so I knew the area quite

well. When I got there the Spanish authorities have been very quick and

establishing a chord in, lots of the blue light services had arrived and

obviously lots of visitors were moved out of the location -- very

quick in establishing a cordon. They seem to have good control very

quickly. Is a security expert, you were there on business, which is

rather ironic given what happened, why is this being described as the

new normal, vehicles driving into crowds? Lots of people use the term

low-tech, I think that gives too much sophistication to something

which we can fundamentally all access, a vehicle. In every city

centre, unless they start banning wholesale vehicles being able to

access, we will always face this risk. The problem is the camouflage

of a vehicle being used as a delivery device for an attack will

only be determined at the last minute when it starts to strike

members of the public. In terms of what you can do in these situations,

many people are abroad in tourist hotspots at the moment, have you any

tips? Is lots of people will no doubt assess, be aware of your

surroundings, the people in your surroundings, try to establish as

much as you can in your gut as to how you feel. And stop looking at

your mobile phone? Absolutely. You are not giving yourself a chance to

detect the problem before it happens. The second thing is to look

for points of escape, if you are walking down the boulevard, the cup

the side streets, shops, restaurants, if you needed to take

over quickly, where would you do that? If they are not available,

street furniture like parked cars or a roll of motorcycles. It might not

be the most robust coverage but at least it is some level of coverage.

As a family, with your partner or children, try to have an emergency

plan. If you get separated, where do you regroup? Back at the hotel or

somewhere else? Would you stop going to tourist hotspots? Not at all, all

that has happened in Barcelona is to reiterate that there is no set your

location across Europe exempt from these threats. Thank you very much,

Will. Every job should be opened

to part-time working according to the Equality

and Human Rights Commission. The agency claims such

measures would help reduce as well as address the pay

differences affecting ethnic minorities and the disabled

across all industries in the UK. Part-time hours, job sharing

and other flexible working schemes could help reduce the motherhood

penalty that many women face after having children,

the commission says. But MP Philip Davies,

a member of the Commons women and equalities committee,

called the proposals left-wing claptrap and

nanny state nonsense. So should employers

be more flexible? Or would such changes make it

unfeasible to run a business? Joining me now are Stefan Stern,

who writes about management, and Christopher Snowden

from the Institute And still

with us are the journalist and writer Kieran Yates

and broadcaster and businesswoman Stefan, starting with you, some

business leaders have said implementing these plans would be

impossible. Would they be bad for business? I think we all want

flexibility. Bosses have been telling us about the flexible labour

force they need but that has to go to microwaves. Businesses are losing

out on the talents and abilities of all sort of people who cannot get

the hours that they want or need which suits the demands of their

life, whether part-time working, term time working, certain times of

the year they do not want to work. We are underperforming as a country,

low productivity, lower wages, frustration about the economic

circumstances. When something is not working, we need more flexibility so

more of us can give our best at work. Michelle, you are a

businesswoman, with these proposals help women into higher paid and

high-ranking jobs? About there is a difference between part-time and

flexible working, they are slightly different. To say that all jobs

regardless of sector or responsibilities and workload can be

offered with flexible working is just not practical in many work

situations, it is just not. If you offer every potential employee

flexible working, for example if I say I do not want to work on a

Friday, if I had to hire a replacement for a Friday and he or

she says they don't want to do Fridays either, do I get a third or

fourth person? It is just not doable for all jobs to be flexible and/ or

part-time, I don't believe. Kieran? We need to completely change the way

we talk and flexible working hours. There are a couple of things at

play, the gig economy and the high numbers of self-employed people have

really changed the face of the British workforce. More women are

taking up an increased role in the labour market and a bigger share of

division and domestic in the house means that women had to start

galvanising this campaign towards equal pay. I think that there are a

couple of things to discuss and I do not think that demonising women for

needing flexible hours for whatever reason is the way to go. Kieran

talked about the gender pay gap, Christopher, how big an issue is it?

It is tremendously misrepresented. It exists, but not for the reasons

many people assume. It is not endemic sexism in the workplace. As

is explained every year, it is three things, one women are much more

likely to be in part-time work, which is generally paid less by the

hour, they tend on average to go towards slightly less well paying

occupations, things like childcare rather than engineering, for

example, and... I forgot what the... The gender pay gap, often we talk

about it with the same job? A woman doing the same job as a man? That

ruins your argument. That has been a legal for 42 years. But there is a

gender pay gap. On average, because more women are in part-time jobs and

a gender pay gap. On average, because more women are in part-time

jobs and in lower paid professions. If you look at like-for-like,

comparing a female engineer with a male one, they had to be paid the

same. If they were not, the courts would be overrun. It is the mistake

of looking at averages when you need to look at individuals. It comes

down to choices. The third one that I have remembered as bringing up

families. If you are going to take several years out of the labour

market you will obviously be paid less when you return to it, so these

are down to choices. It depends on the context in which these

apparently free choices are being made. If you look at the

professional services, accountants and lawyers, at graduate level,

there are as many women and men, but further up the chain the women have

gone. Maybe because they have had families. But it is Beverly possible

to have families and go to work. -- perfectly possible. Maybe we are

putting pressure on women to go to work and not bring up their

children. Of course but there is research that shows that women would

cut their hours by half as much if they had genuine flexibility. From

an economic point of view this is a waste of potential and talent. You

are creating insecure workers. Women are insecure workers because they

are not represented. Now we have an interesting guest on this.

I'm joined by Danielle Ayers, a solicitor specialising

in pregnancy, maternity and sex discrimination, who

advises both employers and employees in these areas.

Good morning. Have we still got a great deal of discrimination for

women? Have you seen stories of late that you couldn't quite believe?

Unfortunately, yes. You think in this day and age that employers

would know what they have got to do in these situations and they would

be up to date on the law, and they would not fall foul of these rules

and regulations, but unfortunately it seems to be becoming more

blatant. One of the main examples I can give you is equal pay. Women are

being paid less to do the same job as men. That is different to looking

at the gender pay gap, which is taking an average of your female

workers and your mail workers and providing an average of their wages.

Equal pay is looking at men and women doing the same job, where

there can be no argument that women should not be paid the same. Why is

it happening? It is down to employers not knowing what they

should be doing in these situations. There was a report by the equality

and human rights commission last year which said that more needs to

be done to support employers. More needs to be done to give them the

knowledge that they need to make sure that their employees are

supported and doing the right things. What knowledge do they need?

The law is the law, isn't it? Why is it happening? You would think so. I

think employers have become more bolshy overtime and a lot has gone

in their favour. Just a couple of weeks ago, the employment tribunal

fees have been scrapped, which is a great thing, but a lot of things

have happened. ACAS conciliation has been brought in, unfair dismissal,

you can't bring an unfair dismissal complaint unless you have been

employed for two years. They are becoming more bolshy in making

decisions around staff. They have rights on their side. This idea that

everybody should be offered flexible working, surely you can see the

issue with that for buses? It is hardly workable for all companies.

No, I don't think it is and I agree with those in the studio saying that

but that is not what we are asking for here. I am asking that if you

make an application that there is a sensible and informed discussion

between the parties to see whether or not there is a workable solution

for both. There cannot be a case where it is costing an employer so

much just to put flexible working in place for an employee, however in

the vast majority of cases there is a solution for both parties. Thank

you for that. We have lots of responses here. Thank you. Mavis

says that equality sounds fine on paper but so does communism.

Different people work at different rates and some work better than

others. Should they all get the same money? And Andrew says that all work

should be opened up to allow part-time positions and people

should be allowed to decide how many hours they are happy working. It has

big benefits for the employer as well. That sounds nice! Now,

Danielle Croce about businesses becoming bolshy. You have mentioned

that women have become insecure. Yes, women are an increasingly

insecure workforce because they are aware of discrimination. The gender

pay gap, the same money for the same job, that is clear evidence of

discrimination. British African women and Bangladeshi and Pakistani

women are disproportionately affected. This is something that

does exist and it is happening and we need to talk about it.

Christopher says it doesn't exist. It exists but not for those reasons.

The Office for National Statistics looked at this again this year and

it said for the three reasons that I gave before the full explanation of

it. There might be sexism here and there and that is why we have got

the courts to look into these things. Sometimes it might be sexism

against men, you don't know. These things are going to court on the

occasions that they happen. It does not explain the 10% pay gap, which

is just an average. It tells you nothing whatsoever. Likeable

working, it is incredibly inefficient actually. It might be

all right on a factory line or something but in most jobs doesn't

work. And most people don't want part-time work. There are always

more people who want full-time work you are working part-time currently

than the other way round. Flexible working is inefficient? That

management is inefficient and bosses who don't listen to their workforce

are inefficient. -- bad management is inefficient. Not giving employees

the chance to be flexible is inefficient. That explains chronic

low productivity in this country. You couldn't work flexibly because

then you couldn't be on this show. It works in some jobs and not

others. That is right. Any NHS, they work long shift that we need them to

be there and it has got to be managed. This is part of the job of

being a good manager, using people properly. It is down to the

managers? I think this conversation, this report calling for flexibility,

it is just think tanks sitting in a corner somewhere dreaming up things

to be more politically correct, to create equality, where actually it

is not realistic in the real world, in the world of business for

example, as one sector, you cannot turn around to all employers and say

that all jobs need to be flexible and part-time. I want to touch on

what Chris is saying. I agree with so much of what you are saying about

the gender pay gap. You are talking about ladies feeling discriminated

against in the workplace. I don't feel discriminated against in the

workplace. I believe in myself and my abilities and I will negotiate

hard. We need to stop saying to women that if you go into the world

of work that you will be automatically earning 80p to the

pound compared to men. Shouldn't we highlight a problem? That statistic,

it is a headline figure which takes all the men and women in this room

and says she earns 80p and he earns ?1 and now we have got a problem.

You can only compared pay and discuss whether it is fair when you

take two people doing the same job with the same experience. So there

is no gender pay gap problem? I don't feel that taking the headline

figure and saying that women own 80p and men ?1 is helpful. An equal pay

is illegal. Yes I know, is there gender pay gap problem? Not in the

way you're trying to describe with that headline figure, no. Thank you

very much. A recent University of Oxford

study concluded that artifical intelligence, or AI,

will be better than humans at all tasks within 45 years,

and many people, including Stephen Hawking, believe humans

will be in trouble in the future if our ambitions don't match

with those of machines. Now two tech titans are engaged

in a public disagreement about AI. Billionaires Elon Musk

and Mark Zuckerberg have differing opinions of the future possibility

of machines that can Tesla and SpaceX founder

Musk has been warning A few days ago he tweeted "If you're

not concerned about AI Facebook's Zuckerberg thinks

it's all fear-mongering. Responding to Musk's

warnings he said, "I think and in some ways I actually think

it is pretty irresponsible". To explore the issue further,

we sent Samanthi Flanagan Whether we realise it or not, robots

and artificial intelligence are becoming more and more part of our

everyday lives. I am here to meet the curator of the robots

exhibition, Ben Russell, who introduced me to a rather theatrical

robot. This is Robo thespian, built by a UK company. He is quite

remarkable. They decided to build a robot actor. His movements are

naturalistic and characterful and the expression, on his face, a

wonderful thing. Surely a robot couldn't replace the human actor.

They are not capable of emotions. You can programme stuff in. Whether

or not he is a motoring is the question. It is following a piece of

code, effectively. They can't improvise. They find it difficult!

Is it something you are working towards? At the moment they are very

good at doing a carefully defined job in a very specific way

repeatedly, but not acting in the human environment of flexibility.

Now a robot worker called Baxter who with no programming can teach a

tough new tasks and is designed to work alongside humans. It takes bits

of human nonverbal behaviour. If it moves its arm, it looks at where its

arm is going. It looks at an obstacle, if rounds. So much of

human conversation is not verbal and it is these physical cues that we

picked up on and so it is very smart in this respect. Like a young child,

Baxter learns to pick up the objects through trial and error, improving

with each attempt. There are 3000 Baxters out there. They all learn

and upload that information centrally. If one object picks it up

successfully, it uploads that information and in theory all the

other robot should be able to pick up the same object. Sharing

information between machines is very important, machine learning. Do you

think we need to monitor the development of AI? Absolutely.

Everybody concentrates on the big red thing physically doing things,

the robot, but there is a lot of software behind-the-scenes that we

don't think about and that is the important thing. We are taking our

eye off the ball we are thinking about the robot. As complex as

Baxter is, he doesn't look very human but this robot is uncannily

lifelike and has found work as a newsreader. How humanlike do you

want your robots to be? There is something called the uncanny valley.

You build a machine and it gets a bit lifelike and we are happy with

that. As soon as it is too lifelike, we get weird associations with

corpses and other stuff, and people back away, and that is uncanny

valley where robots plummet. What if we don't monitor the development of

AI? In the long term there is existential risk of creating a being

that is more intelligent than us. Generally, how does that

intelligence work in a physical form? That is very comeback to the

more mundane things which can trip is over. How do they interact with

the world that we take entirely for granted and they find very

difficult? That is a challenge. AI is a very different thing. I am

going to argue that she will not replace me as a presenter and I will

stick to that! Time will tell. Samanthi Flanagan visiting

an exhibition which runs Samanthi showed some concern

about her job being taken by robots, So over to our future overlord

Sanbot with the question. Should you be worried

about the rise of robots? I don't think so,

but what do you think? To answer that question,

I'm now joined by Luke Robert Mason,

a science commentator, Michelle Hanson,

a journalist and author, Kriti Sharma, vice

president of AI at Sage, and Oliver Moody, science

correspondent for The Times. Michelle, you have written about

your concerns over the rise of artificial intelligence. What

worries you the most? I am worried about this taking jobs, as she

suggested. It has already taken over shop assistants. You can't go into

Boots and talk to anybody. You have people standing around like odd

socks with no job, just showing people how to use machines. All

right, if they are going to take over thousands of jobs and people

will be unemployed and people are going to get a basic wage, I bet it

will be measly, not generous or luxurious. There are thousands of

people out of work sitting at home with nothing to do. I expect there

will be social unrest then, don't you? But robots are there to help

us. Many people in history have worried about the advancement of

technology. You're just like them, aren't you? No, it is much worse and

out of hand now. The genie is out of the bottle. We have got to use them

but we have got to control them. If you imagine it will be benign forces

in charge of these robots, OK, but it won't be. It will be greedy

people wanting to make lots of money. We are not a benign species

and it is very risky. It seems dangerous building machines

which will outsmart us and take our jobs? He is talking about super

intelligent AI in the image and likeness of us as humans. Where a

lot of the concern comes from Arendse per intelligent AI is that

we are equating to human intelligence. We see intelligence is

what makes us as humans the paragon of animals, but we have realised

that humans do not necessarily always do the best thing for

ourselves. Intelligence exists on a spectrum and if you look at where we

existed here and chickens down here and dogs here, if we have something

more intelligent than as we worry that we might be treated like the

apes, if we take seriously the notion that we are an evolved

version... That is worrying? Considering how humans are

destroying the environment of animals and other entities. They

would destroy us? We are concerned we will put the sorts of values that

we have whereby humans have caused so much trauma and harm, we will

translate some of that to our artificially intelligent machines.

Are you worried? A I am to a degree, but I don't think we need to be as

worried as some of us may code. Because it will not affect you, it

will affect your grandchildren. Partially because I do not think it

will happen. Will it happen? How club are these machines? Is who

works in AI everyday we are quite far from machines taking over the

world, but AI is already everywhere in our daily lives. If you have ever

used Google search under prompts the next few words, it ranks the results

based on what you see at the top, all you would talk to Siri, that is

AI. It is not have to be a robot taking over the world, thank you to

Hollywood for that image! We are creating AI good at certain

specialised tax, it is doing a good job at augmenting and supporting

humans. We need to design AI correctly. It is like any other

industrial Revolution but the differences this time AI learns on

its own. It is the job of the creators of AI as well as the humans

teaching AI or talking to it to do it right. Oliver, is it worrying

that we are making something that will be more clever than us? They

will never have the same ability to generate emotion, art or music, so

shouldn't we say we will always be better than them? Super intelligence

is a bit like the Apocalypse of computing. It has been predicted so

many times, in 1960 's and academic predicted it would happen within a

generation. I think there are much bigger reasons to be worried about

the impact AI is having a society now. There is a common misconception

that AI is a magical process by which computers can make

superhumanly perfect decisions about the world. That raises a serious

enough moral question when it works, but what is worse is that it often

does not and you are taking limited information about what people have

done in the past and using it to make decisions about who gets a

mortgage, who will reoffend when they leave prison? You are doing it

very badly and it is a recipe for biased and Abhijit decisions that

the computers cannot even explain. Many applications of AI are computer

says no on steroids. I would love to say that Emma is talking to a robot

but I do not think a robot would be able to deal with your difficult

questions. I'm joined now by Noel Sharkey

a professor of robotics And a real humanoids, I am told. We

want to talk about jobs, lots of messages coming in, when will a

robot take our jobs? Do you see that any time soon? It has already

happened for some time, it is just the number of jobs they take. There

is a lot of talk that perhaps there will be new jobs, and there

certainly will be, but I fear that the new jobs will not be as many as

we currently have, we will see a big job reduction, particularly in the

service industry, making burgers, driving trucks and cars, taxis,

those kinds of things will go first. AI is sweeping through many areas

and it is difficult to really predict the future because there are

new laws coming out in Europe and in the UK, I believe, where we are

giving too many decisions to AI programmes. People are now looking

at the idea that if these decisions impact on people they should be

transparent and give a good explanation. That is difficult when

you have machine learning because you are left with big matrices of

numbers. We might see many of those things become a. On to emotion and

nuance, when will we get to a point where robots and artificial

intelligence develops that side of things? I can't see it myself. It

might turn out that you need an organic body to feel emotions, I

don't know nobody knows. We also chemical machine as well as a

metaphor we have for our brains as computers, but they are quite

chemical in origin and we might be able to simulate emotions, which we

can do pretty well, we can make a robot smile and frowned, we can get

them to perceive emotions in a sense that they can classify whether we

are happy or sad, but getting them to understand sadness, a child

crying, did it drop its lollipop down the toilet or did its mother

just die? They are not good at subtle contextual stuff. As far as

feeling emotions we are nowhere with that, we do not understand that.

Thank you for painting a picture and doing a very good robot impression.

One viewer says robots will only be as bad as we make them, without

making them in our own image and our own reflection is frightening. If we

give them our intellect, power and inhumanity they will be an adversary

to humanity. Another person says we afraid of something better than us?

Why not say, yes, they can do better than us. Another person says we

should appreciate the rise of robots, solving problems for the

future and automating more processors. Michael says we should

only be afraid of the people behind the robots. We should be very afraid

of them. Michelle, we are talking about robots being the answer to the

social care crisis, they could help to look after the elderly, people

with dementia? Surely even you can see that is good? That really

frightens me because I am so old. The one in Japan, 24 fingered robot

that washes your hair, I do not want that. We do not have enough people

to do that. Get more people, pay them, sort out social care and stop

wasting money McGraw robots. Kriti, a highly respected professor at

Southampton University says it is not artificial intelligence that

worries me, it is human stupidity. How far do you agree? We heard that

from the e-mails? Humans are interacting with robots and

surprisingly they are asking them out on dates, robots are trying to

be as human as they can be. It is about designing the right solutions

for the right problems. Lots of work needs to be done with education,

health care, transportation, AI can help. Rather than focusing on the

interactions that are stupid, we need to focus on problems to be

sold. Can it solve our problems? That is less of an issue. What Noel

Sharkey is talking about is key. We already seeing artificial entities

with agency of the human beings, they are called artificial persons,

otherwise known as corporations, we give them a degree of agency to

cause a great deal of harm. This is not science fiction, it is already

yet. Ten seconds, is it a good thing? Is what? AI. It has the

potential to do enormous good, but now is the time to focus on the

social problems that may create. In the future I will have this debate

with ball robots. Or cyborgs. Yes. Thank you.

A celebration of the Hindu God Krishna was marked this week.

He is depicted in many ways, from an innocent child,

a conquering hero, a lover, a cattle herder and a musician.

Mehreen Baig went to Watford to join thousands of devotees and join

I am at their home to the International successes --

International Society For Krishna Consciousness,, better known as the

Hare Krishna movement, when the house and the grounds were gifted to

them by George Harrison. The man, just outside Watford, is one of the

UK's most popular Hindu pilgrimage sites, and I am here for the biggest

event of the year. More than 50,000 pilgrims are expected here over the

course of two days to celebrate Janmashtami. This man has been a

devotee of Krishna for 15 years. It is one of the most wonderful and joy

you should occasions in our calendars, Sri Krishna Janmashtami,

the birthday of Krishna, who we regard as supreme God. Krishna has

many manifestations over the ages but the fountain had the source of

all incarnations, it is said to be Krishna.

Krishna is one of the most popular Hindu gods, so Hindus from many

traditions gathered to mark his birthday. The spiritual focus of the

day is to offer a prayer to Krishna in the temple. I can't wait to see

inside. It is a very long queue. I can hear

chanting, music. I have seen things like this in the

Bollywood movies we watch at home, but never in real life. It is an

incredible sights to see devotees making their offerings. Food is at

the heart of the celebrations, everyone who attends the festival

gets a free meal, and all the food is vegetarian. This woman, who hosts

a vegetarian cooking demonstration, explains why. From the spiritual

perspective, Krishna says if one offers me with love and devotion a

leaf, a flower, fruit or water I will accept it. He said in the

Bhagavad-Gita that killing animals is not permitted. So we are

vegetarian. An army of volunteers work behind the scenes in the

kitchen, preparing over 50,000 plates of the free food offered to

pilgrims. After I have had a quick makeover, more of an explanation.

My mother will be very proud. I can smell is an amazing things around

me. Can you tell me what is going on? I can smell some amazing things.

We have been preparing for four weeks, the last four days have been

very intense, we have been chopping coriander and peppers. We offer the

food to Lord Krishna once it has been sanctified. Then we give it to

the pilgrims free of charge. What is the importance of feeding people?

When you go to temples, you get sanctified food. It is about being a

compassionate person. I am not a natural in the kitchen

but my helpers welcomes all the same. I can do that. This is not me

and my prime. -- my helper is a welcome to all the same.

As well as food and worship their all kinds of entertainment choose

from. When I spot a henna artist, I can't

resist getting my hand painted. I am a devotee of Krishna, so every year

for the last 17 years I have been doing mehndi for Krishna. In the

Scripture it says that a person who has any talent given to you by Lord

Krishna, you should offer that if you cannot festival time. This is

the reason why I do mehndi every year. We are spreading the message

of love, humility. Just give something to earth which God has

given you. All too soon it is time to go home, but I am not leaving

until I collect my plate. The best part of day! Thank you.

And that is a very special end to a very special day. For me personally,

this is a community I have barely had an inside too, so seeing what a

strong sense of community there is, people who have been volunteering

for weeks, coming after work to make sure everyone has a really great

time, that was particularly heart-warming.

That's all from us for this week.

Many thanks to all our guests and you at home

Emma will be carrying on the conversation online.

Yes, I'll be talking to Kriti Sharma about the future

Log on to facebook.com/bbcSundayMorningLive

In the meantime, from everyone here in the studio and the whole