Welcome to the second episode of Season Two, Signals & Sparks! Our 17th guest is the brilliant Dr. Kate Devlin, Professor of AI and Society at King's College London.

Kate is a leading expert on how we emotionally engage with technology. She's on a mission to explore the complex, messy, and fascinating relationships we're building with AI, from digital companions to the ethics of resurrecting the dead.

In this episode, we explore:

The Signal in the Noise

Kate shares her thoughts on the AI news dominating the headlines, framed as a story of "weird and wonderful":

• The Signal: The release of OpenAI's video generator, Sora, and its most startling use case: creating digital versions of people who have passed away, raising profound questions about grief, memory, and digital ghosts.

Connecting the Dots

We dive into Kate's journey and her process for turning signals into sparks:

• She discusses her decade-long research into human-robot relationships, which started with headlines about sex robots and evolved to the reality of AI companions on every phone.
• Kate explains her skepticism of using AI for research, arguing that inherent biases and the tendency for LLMs to "hallucinate" make them unreliable tools for gathering accurate insights.
• She argues that generating AI video clips doesn't make you a filmmaker, highlighting the risk of "AI slop" and the irreplaceable value of human craft and creativity.

High Five

We finish with a quick-fire round:

• Your Hero: A celebration of curiosity—all the people at conferences and events who are prepared to think outside the box and explore new ideas.
• Your Best Decision: Moving to King's College London, a place that has been a fantastic fit for her work and research.
• Your Worst Decision: Getting involved in work she didn't fully believe in, and a more personal one: marrying her first husband.
• Funniest Moment: The time Jeff Bezos told her she was "very funny," and the endless stream of good jokes that can be found in the world of sex robots.
• A Bright Spark: She recommends Matt Tompkins, the mutual connection who brought her to The Next Dinner Party in the first place.