Podcast: The Computer Weekly Downtime Upload – Episode 48
Summary
As Caroline details, reactions to Bezos’ plans have been mixed, with some people applauding the tech billionaire for dipping into his own personal wealth to finance the initiative, including Hollywood actress Reece Witherspoon. Where the latter is concerned, much of their criticism centres on the fact that the online retail giant’s cloud arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS), provides technology to some of the oil and gas market’s major players, whose activities are not generally renowned for being terribly environmentally friendly. On the responsiveness front, for example, Clare said the system could enable M&S to tailor lighting levels within its stores according to footfall, prompting (semi-serious) concerns from Caroline about the perils of being suddenly plunged into darkness in mannequin-heavy retail environments. Rounding out this week’s podcast, Brian talks Caroline and Clare through the EU’s five-year open data economy strategy, which is one of the first big announcements to be made by the European Commission’s recently installed president, Ursula von der Leyen. Brian also goes on to discuss some viewpoints shared by David Barber, director of the UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence, on another podcast about the EU’s track record on supporting AI-based endeavours, which has not always – in his view – produced the goods.