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

A BBC Audio Scotland production.

Ai is at a turning point, Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong ask what direction it will take and who is advising the most powerful man in the world on what vision of AI to pursue?

There are numerous camps vying for President Trump's favour over how to develop Ai. There are those demanding that it be allowed to run free without the burden of innovation stifling regulation. Others still cling to the notion that the risks of rampant Ai still need to be curbed, while a third camp want to see 'big tech' working even closer with government to harness the power of this new 'wonder technology' and beat China both economically and in cyber security.

Who will be listened to, and what does it mean for the rest of a world that's a good deal more sceptical about the potential of Ai and its risks? Andrew Strait Associate Director at the Ada Lovelace Institute helps Aleks and Kevin understand the various characters pushing their Ai agendas, while Nobel prize winning economist Daron Acemoglu explains the possible consequences of what's being proposed and how it is only a very narrow view of what Ai could be and how it could benefit mankind.

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong

Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong explore our fears around AI, where they come from andwhether we're worrying about the right things?

Listener Paul asks 'if AI gets so smart wouldn't it realise it was a threat to society and switch itself off?' Its the stuff of Sci-fi fantasy, an artificial intelligence that gets so smart it decides it doesn't need humanity anymore. But if AI were ever to get that powerful and for many its a very big 'if' why would it want to do that? Kevin and Aleks speak to Dr Kanta Dihal who researches the stories we tell ourselves about technology and ask her why they seem to have become increasingly apocalyptic.

Do these far-flung futures distract us from much more immediate problems with AI and is that their purpose? Professor Michael Rovatsos explains the issues AI raises today and what’s being done counter them.

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski & Kevin Fong

Listener Gordon is worried that as AI content spreads across the web there'll be proportionally less and less human content for the AI’s to be trained on with the result their output will just get blander and blander.

He’s right to be worried, Aleks and Kevin explore the phenomena of ‘model collapse’ the inevitable breakdown of an AI to give useful results if its training data is already AI produced. Speaking to NYU data scientist Professor Julia Kempe the pair discover that training on AI generated data also means a brick wall in terms of improving AI performance.

There is hop however according to Shayne Longpre of the Data Provenance Initiative the answer is to put humans back in the loop to curate the data for the AI’s and teaching them what’s good data from bad.

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski & Kevin Fong

You don’t need to be a diehard gamer to realise video games have long been used as a yard stick to measure how far technology has come. From Pong and Space Invaders, right the way to Minecraft and Fallout, as the technology has advanced, so have the games. Pushing new boundaries and creating previously unimaginable worlds and experiences. But how will AI revolutionise the world of gaming itself, both for those who develop games and those who play them? Are we on the cusp of a huge leap forward? Or are the changes on the horizon more evolutionary than revolutionary?

Aleks and Kevin chat to one man who has been using AI to develop his own game from scratch, and hear from an industry insider about what the big companies are doing, and why advances in gaming may not be as dramatic as you might expect.

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong

Can you imagine how quickly Poirot could have solved a crime, if only he’d had access to AI software? Following a fictional murder case provided by real life police officer, Aleks and Kevin try to unravel how AI is already used in crime fighting, and what the cutting edge uses might be.

Ruth Morgan, Professor of Crime and Forensic Sciences, explains how the ability of AI to crunch huge volumes of data could lead to new forms of evidence being used in criminal trials. Aleks and Kevin also chat to Rudi Fortson KC about the legal ramifications of AI sourced evidence. Will it stand up in court? Is the UK judiciary ready for the influx of AI evidence? Or has it been used for years, without our knowledge?

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong

Of all the jobs artificial intelligence might replace surely trading in stocks and shares is at the top of the list. Aleks and Kevin find out it might have already happened.

The first algorithms hit the trading floors nearly 30 years ago and since then the numbers of people involved in the buying and selling of shares has been dwindling. Aleks and Kevin speaking professor Dave Cliffe who wrote one of those first trading programmes. He was told the future of trading was a computer, a dog and a man. The computer would do the trading, the dog would guard the computer and the man, well he was there to feed the dog.

So how close are we to that future, closer than you think. But what does that mean for volatility in financial markets with AI’s well documented imperfect view of the world and is there still a place for human insight and perspective?

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski & Kevin Fong

The arms race is over and we lost. All those increasingly annoying little puzzles to prove "I am not a robot" from how many buses can you see to the invisible behavioural analysis going on behind the screen, AI powered bots can now pick every lock designed to keep them out.

Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong ask what's left to prove we're an actual human being online and if that becomes impossible does much of the internet stop being useful?

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong

Conspiracy theories—once confined to fringe communities—have entered the mainstream.

Social media has supercharged outlandish narratives, giving them an air of legitimacy through viral sharing. With generative AI now capable of producing hyper-realistic images, videos, and audio, the boundaries between fact and fiction are more blurred than ever. It feels almost inevitable that AI will further amplify conspiracy theories in public and online discourse.

But perhaps the future isn’t quite so bleak. Aleks and Kevin explore how AI could actually help debunk conspiracy theories and combat the flood of misinformation online.

They speak with the team behind 'Debunk-bot', an AI chatbot that has shown remarkable success in shifting people’s beliefs around conspiracy theories. They also talk to Mick West, who has spent decades debunking falsehoods, about how AI might help reduce the impact of dangerous conspiracies—and what role humans must play in guiding those who find their way out of conspiracy rabbit holes with the help of a bot.

Join Aleks and Kevin as they investigate how AI can help us separate fact from fiction. And if you have a question about AI, email us at [email protected].

The Darzi report of September 2024 painted a bleak picture of the NHS; crumbling infrastructure, low productivity and increasingly unhappy patients. AI is seen as key to turning the health service around but is it the panacea many claim?

Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong find out if its on the front line or in the back office that AI can offer the NHS the biggest bang for its limited buck?

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski & Kevin Fong