This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘EU pressures China to help end war in Ukraine’
Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, April 4th, this is your FT News Briefing.
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There’s a new tool to detect if students are using artificial intelligence to write their essays. Universities aren’t sold, though. We’ll talk with our Moscow correspondent Polina Ivanova about the detention of her friend Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
Polina Ivanova
There is nothing to gain from having Russia or a black box, and he really believes and believed that it was important to keep working there for as long as it was possible to do so.
Marc Filippino
And the EU’s calling on Beijing to help end the war in Ukraine. I’m Marc Filippino and here’s the news you need to start your day.
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The president of the European Commission is urging Beijing to play a “constructive role” in bringing peace to Ukraine. Ursula von der Leyen is preparing a visit to China, along with France’s president Emmanuel Macron. In an interview with the Financial Times, Von der Leyen said the EU is concerned by China’s friendship with Russia. She said Beijing should use its ties with Moscow to rein in the war. Last month, President Xi Jinping visited Moscow. Von der Leyen pointed out that President Xi had not yet made a phone call to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Germany’s auditing watchdog yesterday announced an unprecedented penalty on accounting giant EY. It’s for the firm’s work with Wirecard. That’s the high-flying payments company that collapsed after revelations of massive accounting fraud. The regulator banned EY from taking on newly listed clients in Germany for two years. Here’s the FT’s Frankfurt correspondent, Olaf Storbeck.
Olaf Storbeck
This ban sounds quite drastic, but if you look at the fact that EY over the past two and a half years since the Wirecard, it’s kind of broke. It hasn’t won a new big audit client in Germany and they lost a few. It doesn’t change a lot for EY. But it’s still obviously a very stark message and kind of highlights that their reputation is damaged.
Marc Filippino
But it’s not over for EY. There’s also a criminal investigation underway in a case filed by the audit watchdog after Wirecard went bust. Olaf says that investigation is slow going.
Olaf Storbeck
We don’t know the extent of the violations of professional duties by the EY auditors. And I was told by people familiar with the matter that the audit watchdog also did not conclude if EY acted with intent or only with negligence. And that question will be of significant importance for the criminal case against the Wirecard and also for civil lawsuits against EY. Quite a few Wirecard investors are trying to sue EY for damages, but under German law they only have a plausible chance of success if EY acted with at least some intent. Given that the German audit watchdog hasn’t taken sides in that, it’s still an undecided matter in a way.
Marc Filippino
Olaf Storbeck is the FT’s Frankfurt correspondent.
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Thousands of universities use a popular plagiarism detection software made by a company called Turnitin. Today, Turnitin is launching a new product to detect if students have used artificial intelligence apps like ChatGPT to write their essays. The FT’s Bethan Staton reports that universities aren’t exactly lining up to use it.
Bethan Staton
So at the moment, Turnitin is a pretty widely used plagiarism check, but it finds where in an essay there’s passages of text that are used, lifted from the internet. And it shows teachers which passages have been lifted from the internet and links to the sources. The problem with the ChatGPT feature is it’s not as transparent about how it’s come to the conclusions that a text is potentially written by generative AI. So teachers are worried that there won’t be a kind of really robust type of appeal and that students could be wrongly accused of cheating.
Marc Filippino
Interesting. And you report that universities have other concerns with this new tool, too, right?
Bethan Staton
Well, there’s a kind of broader concern that when I speak to lecturers and teachers that tools like plagiarism checks kind of undermine the relationship of trust between teachers and students, that, you know, when you hand in essays, you expect them to be marked by a teacher who kind of cares about you, who thinks about what your abilities are, and whether you’ve produced work that looks good and kind of assesses you fairly. Some lecturers are sort of opposed to running text through these automated plagiarism checks because they feel like it just undermines that system a bit and means that students will be branded as potentially having cheated or plagiarised parts of their essays on the basis of this third party, which, you know, isn’t interested in them and hasn’t really been engaged in their education.
Marc Filippino
How has the company Turnitin responded?
Bethan Staton
They haven’t actually responded to our specific requests about this particular criticism. They’ve been really confident about it. They say that it’s got 98 per cent accuracy, which is obviously very high. And that they’re responding to the very well-documented and urgent concerns of lecturers to be able to trace the use of ChatGPT and other tools. They also say that it should only be used as a starting point. So they’re not saying explicitly when something’s flagged as ChatGPT or similar that it should be a black mark against a student’s name. They’re saying it should be the start of a conversation with a student.
Marc Filippino
Now, Bethan, as an education reporter, what do you find most interesting about AI and education right now?
Bethan Staton
Well, at the beginning of this sort of extremely disruptive period in education as a result of generative AI, lots of educators, however, are thinking a bit more creatively about how ChatGPT and other generative AI might be used. So they’re less worried about it and more thinking about it as a kind of opportunity that they can integrate these tools into their lessons and sort of teach students how to use it really effectively to make their work better. What this taps into is the sort of debate about how those more creative approaches to ChatGPT kind of comes into conflict with the possibility of cheating essentially, and the needs to prevent that.
Marc Filippino
Bethan Staton covers education for the Financial Times. Thanks, Bethan.
Bethan Staton
Thanks very much.
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Marc Filippino
Russia has become an increasingly hostile place for foreigners ever since Moscow launched its war on Ukraine. But Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stayed in Russia to keep covering the news. Last week, Evan was detained and charged with espionage. So we have our Moscow correspondent Polina Ivanova to find out more. She’s close friends with Evan. Hey, Polina.
Polina Ivanova
Hi.
Marc Filippino
So, Polina, what’s the latest information we have on Evan?
Polina Ivanova
All we know is that he was brought to Moscow’s Lefortovo jail on Thursday, 29th. And since then, we have not had any major updates about his case. We’ve basically seen only one image of him. He was leaving the Lefortovo prison and being put in a police van. So we have, that’s the last we’ve seen of him.
Marc Filippino
So, Polina, you were close with Evan. We saw a picture in the Wall Street Journal of you and Evan riding bikes, smiling. How long have you known Evan?
Polina Ivanova
I’m so glad you saw that picture, because it’s a really happy day. We’ve known each other for years now, both foreign correspondents in Moscow. And we both arrived around about the same time in 2017, I think barely a month apart. And both to start our sort of first serious reporting job. And it’s just devastating to not be able to speak to him right now, to not be able to talk to him all the time. He’s a fantastic journalist. He’s an incredible reporter. And it’s also a big tragedy for the coverage of Russia right now, because there’s very, very few people covering it for western media and hardly any for Russian independent media, if none at all. The amount of information we can get out of Russia is shrinking all the time. And what Evan was doing was exceptionally important in telling Russia’s story. There is nothing to gain from having Russia or a black box. And he really believes and believed that it was important to keep working there for as long as it was possible to do so.
Marc Filippino
And we should just mention that the FT has pulled all of its reporters out of Russia out of concerns for safety. Polina, why do you think Moscow chose to detain Evan?
Polina Ivanova
I think it’s hard to know what their motives are for detaining him as an American citizen at this particular moment. It’s also a very clear signal to anyone covering Russia at the moment that they could be treated in a similar way. And the fact that they’re accredited and working officially and professionally in Russia could just be simply ignored. I think that is the signal the government is sending right now by detaining a correspondent that they know very well. And he’s been working in the country for a long time.
Marc Filippino
That’s the FT’s Polina Ivanova. She now covers Russia from outside Moscow. Thanks, Polina.
Polina Ivanova
Thank you so much.
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Marc Filippino
You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.
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