The Forum

Robot designer Usman Roshan, novelist Emma Braslavsky, and Science Museum curator Ben Russell explore why domestic robots still struggle with laundry, dishes, and floors. They trace robotics from Grey Walter’s tortoises to today’s AI, examine humanoid design, privacy, machine mistakes, and the fears robots inspire. A lively look at why housework may be robotics’ ultimate challenge.

One of the first recorded examples of a marriage ceremony is dated more than 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia. And it seems that through the ages, weddings have never lost their appeal. The global wedding industry is today worth billions of dollars, and it is one that keeps on growing.While aspects of weddings differ across many cultures, they celebrate the coming together of two people in a form of contract which establishes rights within the couple. Historically, marriages were often economic, legal and social tools; the love aspect that some marriage ceremonies came to represent was developed much later.Iszi Lawrence investigates how weddings have changed over time with a panel of expert guests, including Dr Vicki Howard, Visiting Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Essex (UK) and the author of Brides, Inc.: American Weddings and the Business of Tradition; wedding planner Marie Haverly, Deputy Head of the Business School and senior lecturer in event management at the University of Winchester in the UK; and wedding photographer Shanaya Arora, one half of Nitin Arora Photography which she founded with her husband. Shanaya is also the host of WED FM India, a podcast all about weddings.Producer: Fiona Clampin(Photo: Comet and Phakalane Mmisi, dance just after they were married, Johannesburg, South Africa, 11 July 2008. Credit: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images)

When magazines first emerged, they were the preserve of an elite who could afford to pay for them. But as time went on, the cost of paper fell, printing technology became more streamlined, literacy improved and would-be publishers spotted an opportunity to connect with audiences hungry for information and entertainment.Magazines found a place to appeal to all types of interest, in the same way that the internet does today. In their heyday they attracted some of the best writers such as Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway, sometimes acting as a vehicle to establish literary careers. Later magazines were to become the go-to place for quality photography and design.Falling advertising revenues have largely contributed to the decline of printed magazines, as well as editions moving online. However some titles have found a way of reinventing themselves in the 21st century.Iszi Lawrence is joined by a panel of guests to discuss the rise and evolution of magazines. Usha Raman is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Hyderabad in India, who began her career in magazines, writing and editing a variety of publications. She's also the owner and editor of a specialist magazine for teachers.Samir Husni is the founder and director of the Magazine Media Centre in the United States. He's also written many books, including Inside the Great Minds of Magazine Makers.And Tim Holmes is a former magazine editor, writer and until his retirement, leader for many years of the magazine journalism course at the University of Cardiff in the UK. We'll also hear from a variety of Forum listeners from around the world, who share their thoughts on magazines.Produced by Fiona Clampin for BBC World Service.(Photo: Newspapers and magazines on display at a newsstand on January 31, 2010 in Khan Market New Delhi, India. Photo by Rajkumar/Mint via Getty Images)

The speed with which cinema caught the public’s imagination is remarkable. The first film screenings took place in the 1890s and just two decades later, in the US alone there were thousands of nickelodeons and other spaces where you could watch a movie. Luxurious picture palaces followed soon after and not just in the West: some of India’s Art Deco cinemas are real feasts for the eyes. But the arrival of TV fundamentally changed our relationship with movie theatres and they have struggled to remain central to our film culture ever since.Iszi Lawrence explores the 120-year development of movie theatres with film historian Professor Ross Melnick, Professor of Cinema Studies Daniela Treveri Gennari, cinematographer Hemant Chaturvedi who is documenting India’s historic cinema buildings, Chinese cinema researcher Professor Jie Li and World Service listeners.(Photo: Kannappa Cinema, Padappai, Tamil Nadu. 2024. Credit: Hemant Chaturvedi)

The quality of customer service can make or break a company. That has always been true but the kind of customer experience we now expect when things go wrong with our purchases is vastly different from what we wanted half a century ago. 1960s answering services, the new organisations managing calls on behalf of businesses, relied on a single technology: the telephone. Now a firm needs to offer its customers multiple ways to contact it. But which one should a company prioritise, especially in these financially straitened times? The latest AI-enabled chatbots? Well-trained, empowered people in call centres? Or something else entirely? And how do these changes impact customer service representatives, the people who actually deliver the service to us every day?Iszi Lawrence discusses these questions with Jo Causon, CEO of the Institute of Customer Service in the UK; call centre researchers Professors Premilla D’Cruz and Ernesto Noronha from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad; Franco-American service designer Matthew Marino and World Service listeners.(Photo: A woman in jeans interacting with virtual contact icons on a screen. Credit: Umnat Seebuaphan/iStock/Getty Images)

Agnes Arnold-Forster, a medical historian and author of 'Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion,' joins nostalgia researcher Krystine Batcho, who created the Nostalgia Inventory, and Tobias Becker from the Free University of Berlin, author of 'Yesterday.' They explore nostalgia’s evolution from a malady to a source of comfort, the role of scents in memory, and its implications in politics. The conversation also touches on how the digital age enhances our longing for the past, revealing nostalgia's complex emotional landscape.

Architect and airport planner Su Jayaraman, architectural historian Lilia Mironov, and cultural historian Alastair Gordon explore how airports evolved from military airfields into dramatic transport hubs. They discuss aviation’s golden age, iconic terminals, airports as public attractions, retail-driven design, jumbo jets, security, art and gardens, and the promise and risks of biometric travel.

What is the purpose of libraries in the era of the internet and AI? Whether at a school or in a community, libraries used to be key providers of information and enjoyment for many. But now, in a digital age, more books and periodicals are available online than even the biggest library can hold. If terabytes of text can now be stored on a single laptop, do we need to think differently about the way we access and navigate books? Could well-designed AI tools be trusted to make sense of this information abundance in a similar way that a good librarian can?Rajan Datar discusses the past, present and future of libraries with Randa Chidiac, Director of Library Services at the American University in Dubai; Dr. Andrew Hui, Head of Literature Studies at Yale-NUS College in Singapore; and Brewster Kahle, computer engineer and digital librarian, founder of the Internet Archive and Wayback Machine. We also hear from World Service listeners.(Photo: An artist's impression of a digital book. Credit: Alengo/Getty Images)

From Colombia to Vietnam and beyond, the US dollar is the currency in which much of international business is conducted, and which many people outside the US use as a means of exchange and a store of value. So how did a country with just over 4 percent of the world’s population come to dominate global banking and trade? When the position of the US dollar as the linchpin of global commerce was confirmed at the end of the Second World War, not everyone was happy with this state of affairs: the French soon spoke of the Americans having an ‘exorbitant privilege’. Did they have a point? And what of the more recent efforts to replace the Greenback with other currencies? Iszi Lawrence follows the history of the US dollar from its origins to today with H W Brands Jr., Professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin; Barry Eichengreen, Professor of economics and political science at the University of California, Berkeley; Carola Frydman, Professor of finance at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University in Evanston; Perry Mehrling, Professor of international political economy at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University and World Service listeners.[Photo: A roll of US dollar notes. Credit: Getty Images]

Historian Jeremy C. Young, sociologist Julia Sonnevend, and leadership scholar John Antonakis explore charisma’s magnetic pull. They trace its journey from mesmerism and mass oratory to social media, examine how charm differs from charisma, and reveal how persuasive communication can be measured and learned. The conversation also probes charisma’s darker side, from political manipulation and cults to love bombing, and asks whether influence can serve the common good.