The Artificial Human

According to the Harvard Business Review companionship has become the number one use case for generative Ai. But what if the model gets updated and the Ai chum you've been confiding in and sharing your life with disappears? Who picks up the pieces and do the creators of these technologies be more careful?Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong explore the latest and most high-profile incident of this when Open Ai replaced GPT 4o with GPT 5. At a stroke, all personas that users had shaped their use and careful prompting got wiped causing a wave of emotion from ranging from irritation at the lack forewarning to genuine distress of people denied the opportunity to prepare and say goodbye.They'll hear from Casey Fiesler, Professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder about how this all went down and whether Open Ai could or should have done things differently. They also be joined by Alan Cowen from Hume Ai about how you can create highly personable Ai responsibly.Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus Sound: Tim Heffer.

Guest Jessica Smith, a former Paralympic swimmer and disability advocate, shares her struggles with AI-generated images accurately reflecting her experience of disability. She emphasizes how AI often perpetuates societal biases and the urgent need for inclusive design. Abraham Maldonado, an AI prompt engineer, discusses his work on creating diverse and representative AI outputs. Together, they explore why marginalized communities risk erasure in AI, the importance of diverse prompts, and a hopeful outlook for more inclusive technology.

What would make you want to exercise? Is it the thrill of being discovered as the next football legend? Or maybe the threat of a scary drill sergeant shouting at you? Join Aleks and Kevin at the starting line, as they set out to discover how AI could help reshape your fitness goals. From what the high end athletes are using to track their progress and how that trickles down to everyday users, to how AI is levelling the playing field when it comes to scouting new talent. Plus, could an AI coach be just the thing to help with that pesky fleeting motivation?Presenters: Aleks Krotoski & Kevin Fong Producer: Emily Esson Sound: Sean Mullervy

This discussion dives into how AI could transform urban traffic management by responding to real-time conditions, potentially enhancing efficiency. The speakers explore the nuanced emotional dynamics between humans and AI, revealing how our behavior influences AI responses. They also tackle the mysteries of consciousness and dreaming, pondering whether AI could experience dreams like humans. Finally, the podcast examines the challenges of catastrophic forgetting in AI, relating it to human memory processes and the vital role of sleep in learning.

As more and more of us use Ai chat bots inevitably people will start asking them about their problems. Aleks and Kevin ask if there's a risk they do more harm than good?They talk to Ryan Broderick who turned to Ai when going through a rough patch with his mental health. He's now seeing a human therapist and has a fascinating perspective on the advice his chat bot gave him. But are the potential risks of using Ai as a support especially if its one not designed for that purpose? Zoha Khawaja has been studying people's use of Ai and explains the 'therapeutic misconceptions' users can be prone to.Presenters: Alekes Krotoski & Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus Researcher: Juliet Conway Sound: Neva Missirian & Murray Collier

In a thought-provoking discussion, former CIA case officer Peter Warmka and Professor Chris Moran delve into how AI is revolutionizing espionage. Warmka, with over 20 years in the field, shares insights on the balance between AI's analytical prowess and the irreplaceable nuances of human judgment. They explore AI's potential in recruitment, interrogations, and data management while emphasizing the enduring importance of human relationships and emotional intelligence in the spy game. Discover a new era where technology meets the art of espionage.

When Chinese AI startup DeepSeek released their R1 model on the world it sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley. Out of nowhere was an AI that performed as well as any of big tech's products but had been built at a fraction of the cost and with a fraction of the resources. Now the dust has settled they’re asking themselves whether the driving idea of bigger models, trained on ever bigger datasets still holds up. They're also asking if their business model of fiercely protecting the secrets behind how their technology works is the best way to innovate. DeepSeek is what’s called Open Source meaning that its creators have made the software available for others to study, use and modify. The race is on to see which of these approaches will dominate and see AI embedded into more and more of our lives.Presenters: Aleks Krotoski & Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus Researcher: Juliet Conway Sound: Neva Missirian & Fraser Jackson

When a Norwegian man idly asked ChatGPT to tell him something about himself he was appalled to read that according to the chatbot he'd been convicted of murdering two of his children and had attempted to kill a third. Outraged, he contacted Open AI to have the information corrected only to discover that because of how these large language models work its difficult if not impossible to change it. He's now taking legal action with the help of digital civil rights advocate. Its an extreme example of Large Language Model's propensity to hallucinate and confabulate, ie make stuff up based on what its training data suggests the most likely combination of words, however far from reality that might be.Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong find out exactly what your rights are and whether GDPR (general data protection regulations) are really fit for purpose in the age of genertive AI.Presenters: Aleks Korotoski & Kevin Fong Producer: Peter McManus Researcher: Jac Phillimore Sound: Gav Murchie

Kate Mosse, an award-winning author and advocate for copyright protection, shares her concerns about AI's unauthorized use of millions of books for training. Tanya Applin, a professor of intellectual property law, explores legal challenges regarding AI's outputs and data use. The conversation dives into the tension between technology and authors' rights, the potential for AI to reshape the publishing industry, and whether AI-generated books could ever truly replace human creativity. The future of authors, readers, and copyright law hangs in the balance.

Aleks and Kevin step into the world of actors “banking” their voices for use after death. With the help of AI your favourite actor can continue to appear on screen for years after they've gone. But what does that really mean? What’s a performance without the actor behind it? Benjamin Field is the producer behind the AI Sir Michael Parkinson podcast, where the late interviewer talks to new guests thanks to AI technology. Benjamin explains how the technology works, and the ethical concerns that it poses. Plus he describes how he sees the technology as a way to create more work for actors. Impressionist Alistair McGowan has portrayed everyone from Alfred Hitchcock to John Major to Boris Johnson. He explains that a voice is more than sound waves, but about soul, character and personal strength. Can those elements be replicated by AI? And do we want them to be? Produced by Emily Esson Researched by Juliet Conway A BBC Audio Scotland production.