The Inquiry

When we shop online, we don’t often think about what goes on behind the scenes. Clicking “pay now”, sets in motion a slick, computer-controlled chain of events, that ends with a parcel arriving at your home.

These online shopping logistics are run by Artificial Intelligence, and there are plans for these systems to move from the warehouse to the wider workplace.

“Digital Management” systems in development are able to autonomously hire people and oversee their work on a project from beginning to end. They also have the ability to manage much larger groups of workers than their human counterparts.

But can a software boss really understand its human employees? Are managers obsolete? And are some of these systems already here?

This week on the Inquiry, we ask: will computers put managers out of work?

Presented by David Baker Produced by Jim Frank Editor: Richard Vadon Technical producer: Neil Churchill Broadcast Coordinator: Jacqui Johnson

(Image: Artificial intelligence is showing the path: exdez/Getty)

What progress are China, India, Africa, Europe and the US making to limit climate change? Some experts believe they should they go at different paces to reflect their carbon footprints and development goals. And there are calls that developed nations must pay more to help developing nations prepare from transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy. With Charmaine Cozier.

(Image: Attendees in the Blue Zone during the COP26 climate talks in in Glasgow/ Jonne Roriz)

Earlier this year the global video sharing platform You Tube dominated TV viewership in the United States, knocking Disney off the top spot and leaving major media names like Netflix, Paramount, Amazon and Fox in its wake. In a first for the streaming platform, the time people spent watching YouTube on television accounted for 10.4 percent of total TV in the month of July.

In terms of its world reach, the platform is now available in more than one hundred countries and pulls in nearly three billion users every month, the majority of which are between 25 and 34 years old, that’s younger than the core audience for traditional television.

Launched in 2005, YouTube has since expanded and diversified, but it’s niche area for dominating the market is still in user generated content and the advertising income it draws in provides the platform with its main source of revenue, leaving the traditional TV market in its wake.

So, on this week’s Inquiry, we’re asking ‘Is YouTube’s disruption of TV now complete?’

Contributors: Mark Bergen, Reporter with Bloomberg Technology, Author of ‘Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination’, London, UK.

Chris Stokel-Walker, Journalist, Author of ‘YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars’, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Rahul Telang, Professor of Information Systems, Carnegie Mellon University, Co-Author of ‘Streaming, Sharing, Stealing: Big Data and the Future of Entertainment’, Pennsylvania, USA

Dr. Marlen Komorowski, Professor for European Media Markets, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Senior Research Fellow, Cardiff University, Wales, UK Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producer: Jill Collins Researcher: Kirsteen Knight Editor: Tara McDermott Technical Producer: Cameron Ward Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley

Image: Silhouettes of laptop and mobile device users are seen next to a screen projection of the YouTube logo

Credit: Reuters/Dado Ruvić

In his first speech as King, Charles III said he would endeavour to serve his subjects, wherever they live “in the UK, the realms and territories across the world”.

But following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, several realms – countries other than the UK that have the British Monarch as head of state – say they may become republics. Barbados became a republic in 2021. Antigua, Belize, Jamaica and Grenada may follow.

King Charles III has also just become the elected head of the Commonwealth of Nations. But will any new republics leave because of its roots in Empire, or embrace an organisation that represents nearly a third of the people on Earth?

This week on the Inquiry, we ask: what’s the future of the Commonwealth under King Charles III?

Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producer: Ravi Naik Researcher: Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty Editor: Tara McDermott Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford Broadcast Coordinator: Jacqui Johnson

(Image: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales speaks during the formal opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at Buckingham Palace in London on April 19, 2018. (Photo by DOMINIC LIPINSKI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Recent protests in France oppose plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

The demonstrations stem from a government plan so people would work -and pay into the pension system - for longer. There’s also concern about what that change might mean for those who are many decades away from pension age. France isn’t the only country facing economic efficiency challenges as populations age and leave the labour market. As more people leave Europe’s labour market, will young workers have to pay for the old?

The Inquiry hears also about the productivity challenges facing Spain and Germany.

Anne Elizabeth Moutet is a French columnist for the Daily Telegraph newspaper Bart Van Ark , Professor of productivity studies at the University of Manchester Prof Marcel Jansen, an economist from the Autonomous University of Madrid Stefano Scarpetta is Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs at the OECD

Presenter Charmaine Cozier

(Protesters at the rally against Macron's pension reform, Paris, France. Credit: Telmo Pinto/Getty Images)