Ted: Hello and welcome back! I’m Ted, your language expert here at Babbel, and this is Babbel News – English Only, bringing you more news in English, sourced from Reuters!

Remember, just try to get the main idea of the news stories as you’re listening. If you miss a few details here and there, you can go back and listen again. To make things a little easier, I’ll introduce the topics of our stories at the beginning of the episode, and then give you more information about important words and phrases directly before each clip. If you want, you can also read along with the transcript while you listen. You can find the link in the episode description.

Here are your topics for today. We’ll start off with a story about a recent music festival in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the middle of rising tension in the country, the festival’s and performers’ main message was one of peace. After that, you’ll hear about ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool that is currently making lawmakers in the United States a little bit nervous.

Sitting somewhere quiet and comfortable? Ready to focus? Then let’s begin.

Let’s start with some vocabulary from our first story. First, there’s “insecurity”, meaning open to attack or danger, without protection. After that, you’ll hear the word “reconciliation”, or the return to a friendly relationship, similar to forgiveness. And what about the word “duty”? It’s something you feel you have to do, or is the right thing to do. And what is the “duty” you’ll hear about in this story? Listen closely and see if you can catch it! Next comes the phrase “to draw closer”, which means to move nearer to something. And to wrap it up, keep your ears open for the verb “to suffer”, or to experience something bad or unpleasant, like pain. Now, let’s hear the story.

Reuters: Artists from across Africa took to the stage in violence-hit eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The "Amani" festival – that's the Swahili word for "peace" – is a show of support for victims of conflict. More than 20 acts from across the continent performed – and that's despite rising insecurity in the region.
 
"Wherever there is a no-go area in Africa, our mission is to be there with you."
 
Senegalese rap star Didier Awadi said the message of the event was one of peace and reconciliation. "Today Congo is going through a dark time. We have the duty to be in solidarity, to be there on the side of the people who are being attacked."
 
The event had been due to take place in Goma. But an offensive by rebels from the M23 group has been drawing closer to the city, which is the capital of North Kivu province. Instead, Amani was moved, for the first time since its launch in 2014, to Bukavu. That's the capital of South Kivu province and deemed relatively safer despite the presence of several armed groups.
 
Several artists from Bukavu took part. Singer Reine Saidate performed a mutuashi dance, also known as the dance of freedom. "We as musicians don't have tools to help these mothers who suffer with the war. But we convey our messages through our songs."

Ted: Now, on to the important words and phrases from our story about ChatGPT. A very important term to understand in this story is “AI”, or “artificial intelligence”, a computer system that can do tasks that normally only humans can do. Next, we have “regulation”, or rules about a certain topic, usually coming from the government. In the news clip you’ll hear that one lawmaker in the US is “freaked out by”, or scared of AI, especially if it is unregulated. After that we have “biases”, which are when a person or system supports or opposes a certain group in an unfair way. Some educators are worried that ChatGPT could be used to “plagiarize”, to present another person’s – or, in this case, computer’s – work as your own. And the last word for today is “a mitigation”, something that is used to protect against a potential problem, or to make the problem less serious. If you hear any other words you don’t know, be sure to look them up in a dictionary after listening! Now, let’s learn more about ChatGPT.

Reuters: The fast-growing, AI-powered ChatGPT has drawn a frenzy of interest from investors hungry for the next big thing in tech.
 
Created by OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft, ChatGPT was estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history.
 
But its popularity has also made it a fast-growing target for regulation, attracting the attention of U.S. lawmakers with questions about its impact on education and national security.
 
Congressman Ted Lieu, a Democrat on the House of Representatives Science Committee, said that while he was excited about the chatbot, he was also "freaked out by AI, specifically AI that is left unregulated."
 
Democratic senator Ron Wyden, according to an aide, emphasized the need to make sure AI did not include biases that would lead to discrimination in the real world, like with housing or jobs.
 
At this point, much of the recent concern around ChatGPT has come mainly from educators focused on cheating and plagiarism. Others have voiced concerns that the computer program could also be used to spread disinformation.
 
In a statement, OpenAI said: "We don't want ChatGPT to be used for misleading purposes in schools or anywhere else, so we're already developing mitigations to help anyone identify text generated by that system."

Ted: Those are our stories for today. As always, I hope you found them interesting and also learned some new words that you can add to your English vocabulary. Don’t forget to go back and listen to the episode a second or third time if you want to make sure you understood everything! Maybe even write down some of the words you had trouble with the first time so that you can practice them more later! And remember to check back next week for another episode of Babbel News – English Only. Bye!