The Digital Human

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 we're answering some of the questions that have stuck with us over the last ten years. In 2017 we spoke to Eugenia Kuyda who used her AI startup in San Francisco to help her create a chatbot version of her late friend Roman. Using all the texts she and her friends had ever received from him they made an AI that could text in voice.

But it's where she wanted to take the technology that intrigued us. She wanted to give everyone their own Roman, an AI bot that would be a constant companion, infinitely patient and understanding. It would be taught by the user using their own texts and so would speak to them in their own voice. She called it Replika, and five years on the chatbot has 20 million users across the globe.

The idea made us instantly think of imaginary friends from childhood. In this programme Aleks sets out to find out if this is more than an interesting metaphor but perhaps a key way to understanding our relationship with these soon to be pervasive technologies.

Producer: Peter McManus

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 world we have created, and what we may become in the future.

Some of those stories have always stayed with us, because they have generated more questions - questions that we’ve always wanted to have answered, and in this series, we finally will.

In one of our all time fan-favourite episodes, Altruism, we told stories of online kindness, and how the internet could be used to bring out the best of human nature. But in the last decade, we have seen the online environment become more fractious, less community based, and in some cases, outright hostile. Aleks sets out to find out why some online spaces can bring out the best in us, while others the worst, and discovers how we could actually tailor our technology to become a real force for good.

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 deeper motivation - as if we’re already half living in an imagined future of ever greater technological possibilities.

Is this how we’re evolving, instead of adapting to the world like other species, we’re adapting the world to suit us?

Producer: Peter McManus

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 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned was "not free or fair". This resulted in mass protests in the country, which was met with brutal crackdowns - the UN reported multiple violations of human rights, including reports of 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of people who were arrested during the protests following the presidential election. People have vanished, or died, and journalists have even been grabbed off diverted planes, jailed and tortured for publishing about the actions of the regime.

However, there is a different kind of activist working to expose the crimes of the government and bring democracy to the country. The Cyber Partisans are a small group, but have become one of the most successful Hacktivist organisations the world has ever seen. They have hijacked government websites, released huge amounts of evidence of corruption and police brutality, and even taken control of the country's rail system - slowing the trains to cause disruption for Russian troops who were making their way through Belarus on route to neighbouring Ukraine. As of yet, Lukashenko's government has not been able to stop their operations, but can these ethical hackers really bring about change in their homeland?

Aleks tells the story of the Cyber Partisans, explores how Hacktivism has evolved in the decade since Anonymous hit the headlines in the Western World, and finds out if digital activism can really have an impact in countries ruled by Repressive Regimes where traditional activism can mean death.

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 secure a fortune. Proverbs have always helped to answer life’s important questions, and in some cases, this kind of wisdom can save a community from disaster.

In the past, traditional knowledge was held by a matriarch or a wise man. When they died, that wisdom went with them. Now, this knowledge has jumped online. But sometimes, the internet doesn’t just preserve tradition; it manipulates it. This wisdom can be used to discredit expertise, and create distrust in institutions.

In this episode, Aleks Krotoski asks why we are turning away from experts for answers to life’s important questions, and how looking instead to the advice of strangers on the internet for guidance is leading to alternative truths, and conspiracy.

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 our lives and personalities were compressed into a single space - this has become known as Context Collapse.

Aleks Krotoski explores how Context Collapse came to be, the impact it has had on our behaviour and well being, and finds out what it could mean for a potential Metaverse. When the final barrier between offline and online life could be broken down for good, how do we create spaces where we are free to express the different parts of ourselves safely?

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 supporters will flock to this new gathering place. But who have they become in a year without his tweets and facebook posts to galvanise them? Many flocked to encypted messaging services like Telegram or self proclaimed 'pro free speech' platforms like Gettr and Gab. The fear is that moderate Trump supporters will have been radicalised in such spaces and the more extreme elements made even more extreme.

Neo-nazis, white supremacists and other far right activists have taken the opportunity to go a recruiting drives in these largely unmoderated spaces cosying up to those they think can be turned to their cause and gradually exposing them to ever more extreme content.

Aleks will join those who've been trying to monitor what's been happening behind these digitally closed doors and what might be done about what's been going on there.

Producer: Peter McManus

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.

To train AIs, systems need two things: computer vision, to precisely identify images, and machine learning algorithms. But they also need a person to label images over and over and over again, so when the AI perceives that image, they learn what it is.

In this episode, Aleks Krotoski takes a look at affect recognition and explores how it became part of a multi-billion dollar AI industry. It all comes back to a system called FACS or Facial Action Coding System, which was devised by a psychologist called Dr Paul Ekman.

FACS is a framework which categorises facial expressions and was widely adopted by artificial labs in the nineties for use in computer vision. But, the science behind FACS has been widely disputed in the science community for two centuries.

From a Parisian asylum, via the tropical rainforests of Papua New Guinea, Aleks Krotoski traces the history of this controversial science and tells the story of how it ended up in our AIs.

Producer: Caitlin Smith