Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Rethink... the promise of AI
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Rethink... the promise of AI
In 2023, ChatGPT took Artificial Intelligence into the mainstream. Now there's a bewildering choice of human-like chatbots to choose from. Generative AIs can produce pictures and video from a text prompt, and many websites and apps are now labelled "Powered by AI".
This new technology can do lots of things and tech companies have raised vast amounts of money from investors based on its potential.
But what is AI actually for?
Certain specialised AIs have a clear purpose. AlphaFold2 can predict how proteins fold-up and won its creators the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and Google Translate is an AI with a purpose that’s clear from its name.
But so far there is no must-have or "killer" application for the Large Language Models and Generative AIs.
The future of AI is equally hazy. Will AI somehow lead to all-purpose "Artificial General Intelligence", autonomous robots or even machine consciousness? Or is this all just the stuff of fantasy and nightmares?
Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Lisa Baxter
Contributors:
Mike Wooldridge, the Ashall Professor of the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Oxford.
Rosalind Picard, Grover M. Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.
Ethan Mollick, Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and AI researcher.
Pip Finkemeyer, author of "One Story" and software designer and researcher.
Tracy Dennis Tiwary, Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology and Developmental Psychology at the City University of New York.
Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University.
View all episodes
By BBC Sounds
4.8
99 ratings
In 2023, ChatGPT took Artificial Intelligence into the mainstream. Now there's a bewildering choice of human-like chatbots to choose from. Generative AIs can produce pictures and video from a text prompt, and many websites and apps are now labelled "Powered by AI".
This new technology can do lots of things and tech companies have raised vast amounts of money from investors based on its potential.
But what is AI actually for?
Certain specialised AIs have a clear purpose. AlphaFold2 can predict how proteins fold-up and won its creators the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and Google Translate is an AI with a purpose that’s clear from its name.
But so far there is no must-have or "killer" application for the Large Language Models and Generative AIs.
The future of AI is equally hazy. Will AI somehow lead to all-purpose "Artificial General Intelligence", autonomous robots or even machine consciousness? Or is this all just the stuff of fantasy and nightmares?
Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Lisa Baxter
Contributors:
Mike Wooldridge, the Ashall Professor of the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Oxford.
Rosalind Picard, Grover M. Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.
Ethan Mollick, Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and AI researcher.
Pip Finkemeyer, author of "One Story" and software designer and researcher.
Tracy Dennis Tiwary, Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology and Developmental Psychology at the City University of New York.
Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University.
More shows like Rethink
View all
Global News Podcast
7,913 Listeners
From Our Own Correspondent
376 Listeners
More or Less
863 Listeners
Newshour
1,067 Listeners
In Our Time
5,576 Listeners
The Documentary Podcast
1,808 Listeners
6 Minute English
1,729 Listeners
Learning English Conversations
1,018 Listeners
The Infinite Monkey Cage
1,952 Listeners
The Bottom Line
38 Listeners
Thinking Allowed
306 Listeners
Moral Maze
73 Listeners
The Life Scientific
227 Listeners
Start the Week
159 Listeners
Westminster Hour
45 Listeners
The Briefing Room
75 Listeners
13 Minutes Presents: Artemis II
4,186 Listeners
You're Dead to Me
3,245 Listeners
Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government
20 Listeners
Americast
779 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics
3,858 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics: Leading
851 Listeners
When It Hits the Fan
45 Listeners
How To Win An Election
27 Listeners
Rory Stewart: The Long History of...
80 Listeners