By BBC Radio 4
Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world
The Digital Human is pausing to focus on what everyone's talking about - AI. Join Aleks and her co-host Kevin Fong for The Artifical Human from BBC Radio 4, listen on BBC Sounds.
‘I asked myself this very question after a family member was affected by dementia. In her later years, the only person my grandmother still remembered was her husband – but he had passed away several years earlier. She asked about...
Aleks Krotoski explores a story which sought to be forgotten, but wasn't. Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), was published in 1992. It was a book designed to decay from its very first use. It was an unusual conceit, and...
Emails from friends should be safe. From a trusted friend especially. Hey, Aleks, check out this cool attachment. The message is a bit brief, sure, but you check that it isn’t a phishing account masquerading as a friend, it doesn’t...
Aleks Krotoski explores culture jamming in the digital world. Once used by "communications guerillas" to subvert corporate advertising, it's now taken on a new life online...
Aleks Krotoski explores how matchmaking in the future will be influenced both by the emerging tech and our attitude towards it. Have we reached the point where the disposable mindset encouraged by certain dating apps is unappealing for today’s singletons?...
With the rush of generative AI, we have the capacity to create synthetic companions that seem more human than ever before. They can talk in real time, and with enough user input can be moulded into a perfect friend -...
Aleks Krotoski looks into the digital world. In this episode, we explore why people are rejecting a traditional relationship with tech, jobs and societal pressures. In addition to the post-pandemic 'Great Resignation', where millions of people quit their jobs to...
Our tech future will supposedly be defined by megaprojects. The most attention grabbing ideas include physical Megacities like ‘The Line’ in Saudi Arabia, or Telosa in the United States, and on the digital side of things, we have the...
We’ve all seen those TV programmes (and perhaps shed a tear) when long lost family members are reunited. Who doesn’t love a fairytale ending? Making those connections nowadays is simpler and faster than ever, thanks to a combination of DNA...
They were ubiquitous - taped onto magazines covers, bursting out of overstuffed office cabinet drawers, used to hold everything from secret family recipes, to photo albums, to legal documents, operating systems; anything you could cram on 1.4mb of storage was...
Now the fanfare of billionaires space adventures has died down we're left with the question of are we witnessing a new democratisation of space not unlike the revolution that brought us the modern digital world? Aleks Krotoski asks if the...
We have been in an odd dialogue with algorithms from the very inception of the internet. They have been trained to spot offensive words, with the goal of allowing civilized conversation while avoiding trolls, spam adverts and hate speech. But,...
"Right now, and I mean this instant, delete every digital trace of any menstrual tracking. Please." This is a tweet that went viral in the wake of the repeal of Roe V Wade in the United States. Fearing a...
When the world feels as overwhelming as it has in recent years, it can be hard to fully disengage. Aleks Krotoski discovers the value of retreat, both on and offline. We take a trip to the the Highlands of Scotland,...
Online and offline, our world is a hugely complex tangle of modern creations and the legacy of the past. As we build upon the shoulders of times gone by, we are in a constant process of assessing what is still...
Ever had that gnawing feeling that there’s some unfinished business you have an itch to resolve? Maybe it’s a friendship you’ve let drift or a task at work left incomplete. Maybe it’s that sense of having too many tabs...
In recent months anxiety around what algorithms will do to the arts has become a hot topic. Art, Literature, Music, all are being generated by AI systems. Even we explored what these algorithms may do to how art is created...
Art has, since time immemorial, been viewed as something quintessentially human. Many utopian visions of a technological future are based on the idea that machines will automate all the mundane, monotonous tasks of life, allowing humanity to fully indulge itself...
What’s going on when we scroll through our social feeds finding momentary happiness in the mishaps of celebrities or politicians whose views we dislike? Or delight in the stupidity of everyday people on 'epic fail' sites? Aleks Krotoski explores whether...
Aleks Krotoski asks how far we can trust digital technology implanted in our bodies
Imagine being able to fix a malfunction in your body with a programmable smart device implanted deep inside your body… The device senses, monitors and responds to your condition in real time and provides updates and analysis on your phone....
Aleks was once asked by a friend to track down an invisible man - a character with no digital footprint at all. How does someone not exist in this media-saturated moment, and why does that make it seem like he...
Aleks Krotoski explores whether disinhibition, often associated with toxic online behaviours such as trolling, may also have benefits in our digital world? Since the early days of the internet, research into disinhibition, including John Suler’s much-cited paper on the ‘online...
Humans are special creatures, in part because of our relationship with out technology. Our brains are not purely biological, we actually think through our tools. Over centuries, things like the telescope have allowed us to view and understand the secrets...
Aleks discovers how the digital world has reshaped social class and the rights of workers, and finds out how those workers are using lessons of the past to redress the balance of power in a world where the giant...
The internet began as an academic tool, made to share information, bring people together and spur on advances that would benefit humans across the world. When it was shared with the masses, the dream was that with enough shared information,...
Aleks Krotoski explores what it means to be solitary in our digital world and whether we should be more nuanced in our approach to the complex human emotion of loneliness. To mark the 10th anniversary of the Digital Human, we’ve...
Aleks Krotoski asks if we've all become techno-fundamentalists, unquestioningly accepting the latest innovation into our lives without thinking about potential downsides. Perhaps we could learn from a society who think much more carefully and critically about adopting new technology -...
Economics has always been complicated, but the day to day stuff was always pretty straightforward. Make money from working, exchange that money for goods and services, save a bit for a rainy day if possible. The online world changed things....
Aleks Krotoski asks if AI companions will be like imaginary friends of childhood. And if so will they afford the same benefits - making us better, more social human beings. To mark the 10th anniversary of The Digital Human...
This year, The Digital Human celebrates its 10 year anniversary. During that time, we have explored all corners of the digital realm, and told hundreds of stories that have revealed how we as humans have been shaped by the technological...
Aleks Krotoski explores who owns the function of the devices we use, and why we need the right to repair and hack the things we consume.
Aleks Krotoski asks why we're always yearning for next technological solution to our problems? What is it that has driven us to the current, seemingly relentless cycle of innovation. It’s not all explained by consumerism, there appears to be a...
Alexander Lukashenko has proudly called himself 'Europe's last dictator'. He has held power in Belarus since 1994, and has been known to repress opposition with brutal efficiency. In 2020 he was re-elected for his 6th Presidential term in an election...
A special kind of wisdom is transmitted from generation to generation - proverbial knowledge with no basis in fact, but still intuitive: chicken soup cures a cold; live, love, laugh; turn a coin in your pocket in the moonlight to...
Offline, we as individuals present different sides of ourselves in different situations. We behave very differently with friends, employers, parents, lovers and strangers. But as Social Media Giants like Facebook and Twitter became ubiquitous, suddenly all those different facets of...
Aleks Krotoski asks where did all those groups and individuals deplatformed after the Jan 6th riots go and what have they been doing in the year since? With Donald Trumps 'Truth Social' platform about to launch it's hoped all his...
Aleks Krotoski asks if how we use technology has affected our attitudes to ephemerality and the transience of things. Producer: Peter McManus
There are many ways in which the taint of prejudice, outdated ways of thinking and plain old human error can enter our artificial intelligence systems. The weakest link is always where the sticky handprints of humans are most visible. ...
We've all had experiences of our attention wandering, usually at those moments when we most need to concentrate. But, in our productivity-driven society, are we placing too much emphasis on paying attention and failing to recognise the benefits of more...
If you want to send a message without any chance of it being intercepted then end-to-end encryption services are the way to do it. Governments and intelligence agencies can’t even intercept these messages, without compromising the phone they’re sent or...
Aleks Krotoski explores the relationships between social media content creators and their audience, asking how does it get complicated when money starts to change hands. These are often described as para-social relationships. Ones were the audience knows a lot about...
We all cheat at least a little bit, some of us in family games of monopoly, others on their taxes. Aleks asks if the digital era has made that easier; with less apparent consequence and therefore more tempting? If that's...
Aleks Krotoski explores what it's like to be 'villain of the day' on social media. It seems every day an individual rightly or wrongly becomes the object of the online world's condemnation. What's that like and what motivates people to...
Dr Charu Smita, a media researcher in Delhi explains how as the social contract between middle class Indians and the Government, to provide medical assistance, crumbled, people realised they'd need to mobilise to help save lives. Anirudh Deshmukh is...
Aleks Krotoski explores the impact of Sci-hub on science and the Open Access Movement.
Aleks Krotoski talks to the children of those lost to QAnon conspiracies. Many have sought support and advice in online forums where they exchange stories of estrangement and bereavement unable to prevent their parent falling further down the rabbit of...
Most banks, airlines even the military use legacy software because to replace it costs millions. Instead, as companies grow or change, old software is merged with new software. Aleks hears about ‘technical debt’, when software engineers who create...
Illustration by Seonaid MacKay The history of early cinema, radio, and television has suffered from a mass loss of material. Lon Chaney’s vampiric grin and Betty Balfour’s joyful dances were melted down for the silver. Canisters full of voices from...
