YouSaid · the spoken record

Michelle Donelan

lines on the record: 41
first: 2023-10-26
most recent: 2023-10-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, when my son was born, he was born on May the 4th. So I was sure to text the Prime Minister and tell him who was delighted.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What they've done in the latest now is they've married him off to Therese, and anybody that is a neighbour's fan will know that that storyline just doesn't add up.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm a bit nervous saying expert now because you're going to ask me five questions. I could get zero out of five. The problem is I haven't a bit of a, well, maybe not a closet, but I am a neighbour's fan, yes.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I'm honest, I don't think it really has. It's maybe doubled down on my view, but it hasn't changed my view on the world. And I think that's because I've obviously always been conscious of the fact that I'm representing, I don't know how many families across my constituency and children, et cetera. And I had a nephew and obviously appreciated the impact that politicians are having, not just in the here and now, but in the future too.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Clarify, yeah. Well, he would tell you, he would say about me, he'd say he didn't know me that well either then. And I'd worked closer with all the other people. Nazim Arewe, as you said, you know, I'd worked with him in DFE for a long period of time. I didn't have that relationship with Rishi. I'd only heard what others were saying. I'd seen him from afar. And now I genuinely, I'm not just saying this because he's Prime Minister. I genuinely have been quite taken aback by his work ethic. I'm somebody myself that surprised myself on that. And so I deeply respect the amount of work he does and how much he's across the detail and how he's prepared to listen as well and not just deal with the short term, but the long term, which is at the heart of my department. The work of my department, some of the technological advances, etc., will really not have an impact as much on us, but on our children, our grandchildren.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Though I think we can look back at what happened and the way that decisions were made and the extent to which certain changes were put in place, obviously the relationship with the OBR, the extent of certain tax cuts, etc. were very different to what had been discussed in that campaign during the summer and what a number of MPs had subscribed to. But one of the things that I didn't know then, and I speak very openly about this, is I didn't know the Prime Minister that well. So we were both in the same intake. So there have been so many.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, look, I do believe in tat skirts eventually. Every Conservative will tell you that they do. It's part of our DNA, if you like, and enabling people to spend more of their own money. But we've got to do that when it makes sense to be able to do that. And what happened last year demonstrates that stability has to be at the core of everything. And I do subscribe to this view that the best tax cut that we can give is cutting inflation. And that's why the Prime Minister's made it one of his key targets.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I felt it was the right thing to take the job because at the time it wasn't evident exactly what was going to happen. And then when the Prime Minister at the time had saw the writing on the wall and was still not going, I felt that that was irresponsible for the country and the direction we were going in. And I felt I had to sort of fall on my sword. So it was a very, very difficult period of time.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. I did. And I felt very conflicted. It was a very difficult period of time because I had been responsible for the mopovet size, if you like, for the examinations a couple of years before and then working through them in that year. And it was the first year where we had the potential for young people to be in a good position. And I wanted to make sure I saw that through to ensure that they had the qualifications to unlock the next stage of their lives and the opportunities and I felt very passionate about education, I still do, and the work that I was doing there.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All in the period where Boris Johnson was being removed from a chaotic, sort of where the government almost was sicked itself up, didn't it? It's probably the best analogy”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I've been doing it a year, and it's incumbent upon any politician to make sure that they become an expert in their fields, but also to be empowering and driving forward change. And I like to think of myself as somewhat of a reformer.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's only ever been one science innovation and technology secretary. It's a brand new job, so it's not saying that much, but that is true”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it depends on exactly what is being said and etc. Because I am an advocate of free speech and people putting forward their views. That is totally different to inciting hatred, inciting violence, to committing criminal offences with the language that you are using and then the actions that potentially you follow them up with. So the two are not the same thing. And I think that sometimes the two get confused in order to try and prevent free speech.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, on that, we would say that the law is robust there. But where it's not, we should definitely be changing the law to make sure it is. That's why we've done the online safety bill. That's why I took the approach of saying if things should be illegal, let's actually make them illegal, which wasn't the process before. So things like...”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some of it has been addressed by platforms. So they are taking it down. What we wanted to see was them speeding that process up. And we saw some vile incidences, didn't we? We saw that poor grandmother be executed live on Facebook Live. That's horrendous. Then some of it is illegal and some of it breaches the platform's terms and conditions. And the other thing that's concerned me is, yes, the rise in disinformation and misinformation about a live conflict, which is peddled quite a bit by fake accounts. So one of the things I've been driving the social media companies to really tackle is those fake accounts, because that is easier than trying to distinguish, is this misinformation or disinformation in a live conflict? Because as you say, you know, that is quite complicated and hard to know.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think that's why you need to stick to those clear criteria. So some of the content that we've been seeing online is actually promotion of terrorism, which is 100% illegal and has no place on any social media platform and should be taken down.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think anybody that has understood and sort of listened to what we've done with the bill thinks that because actually Big Tech weren't very happy with some of the changes that we introduced because they know that they are going to have to comply and they could potentially face billions of pounds in fines.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's two things going on here. So if I just explain, so the bill treated adults differently to children. So what we did for adults is say if it's illegal, it has to go. If it breaches terms and conditions of platforms, so what people had signed up to do on there, then it has to go if it breaches. And the other thing is empower adults. So they have more choice over the content that they see. But for children, absolutely, we should be treating them differently. We treat them differently in every other work of life. So what I actually did with that is made it stronger in relation to children. So one of the things is that if a social media company doesn't just evade the law, but then tries to evade the regulator when they tell them that, they could potentially face jail time.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he should be able to say what he likes within certain parameters, and those parameters are basically the law. And so the approach I tried to take with the online safety bill in that sense is to protect free speech, but in a sensible way. So if somebody says something that's illegal, you shouldn't be allowed online just like it wouldn't offline. But we shouldn't create this quasi-category in between because that's not what we were doing in real life. You accept.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think, well, that speaks to the problem that we have. So if people are advocating for the silencing of others and that there is only one view, then that in itself is quite dangerous.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm a big believer in the importance of free speech. I think that it actually is a vehicle to ensure that society progresses and that we can challenge the status quo that we can debate, that we can open people's minds to different viewpoints. And it actually helps make people more tolerant, ironically, because you are hearing more than one opinion. And I feel very strongly that it is incumbent upon politicians to stand up to this tithe that is happening, which is silencing dissenting views and is almost presenting one version of the truth to our young people, and that is not healthy for their education. It's not healthy for their development, etc. And that's what's been happening in universities that I stood up to address.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“although they're huge some of them, yeah, like the big share, et cetera, they're massive. And some of them are nicer than others, shall we say, obviously don't want to be sued.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. I didn't start that. I did. So my professional background is a marketeer in media and entertainment. So started in Australia, Mary Claire, later at a joint venture of Sky. And then for WWE, the Wrestling Organization, which means that my democracy workshops in my constituency are very popular.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I did, I did. I did. So I believe very strongly that if you enter politics, you should first of all go and get a job outside of politics, a real job, as I call it, so that it gives you a better ability to represent people. That's just my view, but that's why I tried to achieve that.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be honest, I also can't really remember a time that I sat down and thought about different options because I just always felt driven to do it. I think it's a bit like being a doctor, like a calling. Often you speak to medics and they can't remember a time.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Suffer for the fact that he revealed I did speak at party conference of 15 determined to outdo him because I am a bit competitive to him.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, I remember I used to always try and put the BBC Parliament on and my dad would always try and turn it off. That was probably the normal theme. I'm sorry.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was probably a combination of both. And then, as I grew up, the more and more I learned about it. And I'm not from a political family at all. So I think my dad was probably questioning my mama, are you sure she's mine? So I'm not from a discussions.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I was six years old and I saw Margaret Patcher on the TV. I'm not going to pretend that I fully understood what she did or what politics was, but I asked a lot of questions to my mum and got quite inspired. And then as I grew up, the more I learned about how politics can be a job where you can actually open doors and create opportunities. The more I was drawn towards it, because in the community that I grew up in, there were some people that didn't have access to the right opportunities for them or didn't get the right information to empower them to go on and be and do and live the lives they were capable of. And I felt this sense of injustice, I suppose, for those around me. And that's something that I grew up with feeling.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Watermark It's a bit like having a stamp built in, basically, like an ID stamp. Yes, yeah. And then there's technology being developed to identify if it's been produced by AI. Now, there's debates over those technologies as to whether they will be robust enough or whether people can jailbreak them in effect and get around them. So these are all the things that we are looking at and we're talking on a global stage. So stay tuned on that one.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think misinformation and disinformation does pose a threat to democracy, yes. And that's why we are already starting to work on this. It's one of the topics that we will be discussing at this Global Summit. We're not the only country that's going to be facing elections next year, and we need to be sharing learnings and working on this with our international partners. It's also something that we've been working on domestically here in government. It isn't easy, let's face it, it isn't easy. AI offers some of the problems, but it also offers some of the solutions. So there are things like watermarking that are being developed, there's things like AI detector.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the institute is an independent auditor. So the institute is not an arm of the company. So the companies do their own processes. And then the institute is evaluating them. But one of the things that we're discussing at the summit is something, I mean, the jargon sounds quite strange, but it's called responsible capability scaling. And what that really means, I describe it as a, it's like a fire alarm. So in your house, you would always have a smoke alarm, wouldn't you? But companies at the moment don't all have safety processes in place. So they don't have as systematic standard. They don't have a system where if something went wrong, they would know at what level do they pause, at what level do they stop? Have they been transparent with the government? Have they shown all of their processes? And that's one of the things that we're discussing at the summit.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the companies have already started to do that, so the Prime Minister secured an agreement in TechWek last year around model access from these companies, and that's already begun to happen. We have the task force, as I said, which has been leading on some of the research, trying to get to grips with the risk, trying to start that evaluatory work around the models. And then the institute is the next evolution of that task force. So its primary function would be to really evaluate these models.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, bioweapons, loss of control because the technology self-proliferates or it tries to self-preserve, and also societal harms, which you mentioned some of before, so things like disinformation, misinformation, the effect that that could have on democracy, etc. But we are not talking about these”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Done is I've sought to bring the experts in because government doesn't have all the answers on this or many topics and that's why we should be bringing people in that do and that's what we've done and I've listened to them and I've really sought to become somewhat of upskilled in the area because I think it is vitally important I describe this as mankind sort of standing at the crossroads and we really do have the ability to transform our lives and this is going to be a monumental period of time in our history but there are huge risks. Three of the categories that we identify are one misuse so that could be by an individual it could be by a hostile state for things like cybercrime bio loss of control”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Etc. So these are massive tools for good that we should be accessing and leaning into. We got to grip the wrist, and we believe we”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's not feasible for many reasons. Firstly, because it's not just a decision that a country could take as a silo because this is many countries have capabilities in this space. So if we decided to do that, that wouldn't happen in America where most of these companies are based, for instance. And then the other point is that that is neglecting the massive, huge potential and opportunities that this technology presents already in the UK. It is transforming people's lives. So for instance, a few months ago I saw an example of a brain surgeons using AI and it had reduced by about 50%, I think it was, the number of deaths from that surgery. Now that is what's happening here today. Can you imagine what could happen next year? And it's not just the ability to solve domestic problems. AI has the ability to help us with global challenges like climate change or helping developing countries with food inequality.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things to say here that the companies I've had many Meetings with the various heads of the large frontier AI companies. And when we say frontier, we mean the really highly capable cutting-edge models. And what they're telling me is they're quite uneasy with the current situation as well. So they want this to be addressed, not just here in the UK, but globally too. So they're quite on board with this. And then in terms of the different countries, some of them are more behind in terms of their thinking on this topic. Others are quite advanced, like we've seen with America doing things like the White House Accords. So getting them around the table in the first place is quite an achievement because there's never been this detailed conversation on the frontier. But the summit isn't going to be a talking shop. We're not just going to meet and have a nice chat. We're going to actually try and get some results in the form of setting up a network, establishing a forum in which we can research together. And as the Prime Minister has announced, a new safety institute which builds on the work that we've been doing here in the UK.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we've been honest and transparent with the public about that. We could bury our heads in the sand or we could tackle this head on and be proactive. We're not the only country in the world facing this. This is an issue that every country is trying to grip. That's why we wanted to bring the world together round one table with a summit that we're holding next week. But I think for me, the biggest risk is actually non-on that list. The biggest risk is the fact that we haven't got a full handle on this situation. We don't properly understand the risk. It's unpredictable. It's the unpredictable nature of AI that is the biggest risk that we're facing. And that's why what we've tried to do here in the UK is bring on board some of the world's best and brightest experts on AI into our frontier AI task force to help us do this exam question, have a better understanding of the risks, and then to have that conversation with our global partners to see not just what can the companies do more, but also what can we as countries do more to address.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“NHS and our other public services and what we On the cusp potential to really transform Lives for the better, and we're talking about people being able to live healthier, easier, longer lives. So that is something that I think we all want. But with that, the other side of the coin are some massive humongous wrists. And we publish some documents to detail them. We're the first country in the world to ever do that, to be really transparent with the general public and say, these are the stakes, so we are going to be proactive. We're not going to wait for these to become a reality in certain circumstances. And some of them already are risks that are evident. We're going to grip them.”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To understand this point, I think you have to consider For us Potential to offer phenomenal opportunities. It already is doing that within our”
2023-10-26 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Michelle Donelan One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source