It’s been a big year for artificial intelligence—sealed by winning the highest accolades in the scientific world: the Nobel prizes. The innovations that underlie machine learning were recognised in the physics prize. And one of the most important scientific applications of machine learning won the chemistry prize. In the award for physiology or medicine, meanwhile, the discovery of micro-RNAs offers hope for a new generation of therapeutics. In this episode, we examine the winning discoveries and investigate how they could transform the world.

Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: The Economist’s Natasha Loder, Geoff Carr and Emilie Steinmark.

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