Show Notes
Developers have been trying to create driverless cars since the 1920s. Numerous iterations have come into being and fallen away over the years - radio controlled cars, electronic guide systems buried into roads, lidar, radar, computer vision, but with the roll out of AI, we seem closer than ever to getting from A to B without having to touch the wheel. In fact, in several places in the United States, Driverless Cars are already on the streets - albeit in a limited scope - ferrying users across the cities of Phoenix and San Francisco. And yet here in the UK? There are few autonomous vehicles in select locations, such as airports. But we’re unlikely to be hailing a cab without a driver in the near future? Why? Aleks and Kevin are all set to find out. They’ll talk to Elaine Moore, who has been a frequent passenger in driverless cabs in San Francisco. Dr. Jack Stilgoe, leader of the Driverless Futures Project, and engineer Paul Newman who is developing autonomous vehicle software here in the UK. They’ll learn about the practical, legal, ethical and technical needs that autonomous vehicles will need to meet in order to function, how the fabric of cities might need to change for them to operate, and just how soon driverless cars will be able to safely operate on UK streets. If you want to ask to answer your burning question on AI, please get in touch at [email protected]
More from The Artificial Human
With headlines full of apocalyptic predictions about AI, Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong ask: is this just more hype, or do these technologies pose genuine risks now and in the future? Ever since a researcher at AI lab Anthropic went public with concerns about the technology he was helping to create, fears about artificial intelligence have returned to the public consciousness. From AI enabling terrorists to develop biological weapons, to killer robots, warnings about catastrophic risks are becoming increasingly common. And with reports of seemingly "rogue" AI agents exploiting vulnerabilities in businesses and government systems, those fears can appear to have some foundation. So are these threats real? How close are they? And what is being done to protect us? Aleks and Kevin hear from BBC Reith Lecturer Professor Stuart Russell, Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI, who believes the risks are serious but avoidable. They also speak to cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier, who explains both the immediate threats AI poses to our digital infrastructure and the measures being taken to defend against them. Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus Research: Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Ciaran Richter A BBC Audio Scotland production for Radio 4.
While the United States and China dominate the global AI race, the UK sits in a distant but still significant third place, boasting the most developed AI ecosystem in Europe. The question is: how can middle powers such as the UK assert their technological sovereignty, ensuring that the AI systems we rely on reflect our values and laws while also delivering a fair share of the economic rewards? Britain has long been at the forefront of artificial intelligence. From Alan Turing's pioneering work, which laid the foundations of the field, to Sir Demis Hassabis's Nobel Prize-winning contributions, the UK has consistently helped shape the direction of computing and AI. Yet without the vast computing infrastructure and energy resources now required to train and deploy cutting-edge models, there is a growing risk that Britain could lose its influence over how this transformative technology develops. We hear from Professor David Barber about his new SOFAIR AI lab, which aims to keep the UK at the forefront of AI innovation. Broderick McDonald explores the geopolitical consequences of failing to maintain sufficient AI capacity on British soil, while Roa Powell of the Institute for Public Policy Research outlines the economic opportunities that could be lost if the UK is unable to compete with the world's AI superpowers. Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus The Artificial Human is a BBC Audio Scotland production
Artificial intelligence is changing many aspects of our lives, but some of its most exciting possibilities are happening in the world of science. There have been lots of headlines about how artificial intelligence could transform this area, including curing disease, suggesting new drugs, and generating hypotheses at a speed no human could replicate. AI has been behind real scientific breakthroughs; it’s also running experiments round the clock in new autonomous labs, and even “AI scientists” are beginning to emerge. So, Aleks and Kevin explore what happens when AI becomes part of the scientific process – could it be your new lab partner? Charlotte Deane, Professor of Structural Bioinformatics at the University of Oxford, and Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, explains how AI has already changed the way she works in drug discovery, and how much further the technology could take us. But if an AI helps make a groundbreaking discovery, who gets the credit and who owns it? Physician-scientist, lawyer and author Ryan Abbott tells us what AI-generated discoveries could mean for patents and ownership. Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong Producer: Rachael O'Neill The Artificial Human is a BBC Audio Scotland Production for Radio 4.
The hacking of Medicare in Australia was the first time an autonomous AI deliberately breached a government system, and coming just months after the same company's agents gained unauthorised access to another AI business, Hugging Face, it throws fresh attention on the growing risks of cyber attacks from artificial intelligence. Artificial Human explores what happened in both these incidents and look at what it tells us about the future of hacking. Aleks Krotowski and Kevin Fong speak to Margaret Mitchell from Hugging Face about what its like to be the target of such an attack, and ask if recent concerns around "rogue" AI behaviour are justified. Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus The Artificial Human is a BBC Audio Scotland Production for Radio 4
Concerns about jobs, the environment and concentrated power are driving many Gen Zers to see AI's downsides as outweighing its benefits. They're finding themsleves stuck between a rock and a hard place, on one hand they're being told they have to become AI literate if they're ever to get a job, while on the other concerned about how it might undermine their own ability to think. But this is the most digitally literate generation, they've seen the harm caused by social media and are rightly suspicious of this next technological revolution, and if their critical skills are telling them to be wary, should we listen? Presenters: Aleks Krotioski and Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus Researcher: Caoilfhinn McFadden