The Digital Human

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 original software code leave or move on, taking their expertise with them. Without proper knowledge of the old code, maintaining legacy software can become problematic and leave a company or organisation vulnerable to technical bugs. The damage brought by thee bugs can leave a legacy of its own. And Aleks asks whether the software is really to blame?

Producer: Kate Bissell

Researcher: Anna Miles

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 radio’s early days cast aside. Doctor Who and Dad’s Army fans still scour basements and attics in the hope of finding episodes lost decades ago. When a new technology creates a new artform, we seem to make the same mistake - not seeing the value, and ditching parts of our cultural history.

The same mistake was made with video games.

Compounding this is the fact that games are a particularly challenging art form to preserve. Technology is constantly changing, consoles rapidly become obsolete, and for the first few decades the companies that made the games had no financial incentive to save old games - it was all too easy for games to be cast into the void.

However, the gamer community has long been fighting against this erasure of history, and now more and more organisations are forming to save not just games, but the cultural and social history tied up in the games, and the communities who love them.

Aleks Krotoski explores how we can prevent gems of video game history from being lost, while following the unlikely story of how one of these forgotten games was recovered against the odds.

In 2006 the creators of the alternate reality game, Perplex City set a puzzle challenge called Billion to One. With only one photograph and a first name players were tasked with using the internet to find out who the man was in the photo. Despite thousands of people looking for Satoshi he stayed hidden for 14 years until eventually, just before New Year in 2021 Tom Lucas in Germany used reverse image search and in under five minutes discovered who he was, where he lived, worked and how to contact him.

This may be considered progress for those who want to be found but for people like Sian who live under Witness Protection, advancements in technology means stepping out of her house becomes a huge risk. Because we capture so much of our lives and put it online, where ever Sian goes she has to be vigilant she’s not caught on camera or video. Just one reverse image search could mean she is found, which could have dire consequences for her and her family.

In Japan, Satoshi records his first interview since being found giving a voice to the Billion to One puzzle photo for the first time. Aleks finds out if Satoshi knew thousands of people were looking for him and how feels about being found?

Producer Kate Bissell

Researcher Juliet Conway

Dreams have fascinated people since the dawn of humanity, seen as prophetic, used by the ancient Greeks to diagnose illness before physical symptoms appeared, and inspiring some of the world’s greatest inventions and works of art.

But dreams have a darker side. Often we meet our internalised anxieties in our sleeping subconscious. During the Pandemic there was a surge of people reporting having more dreams, especially vivid, nightmarish visions - facing down swarms of insects, swept away by title waves, or being overwhelmed and oppressed by unstoppable forces. At the same time, there was a spike in online searches for ways to induce lucid dreaming, and how to take control of dreams.

Aleks Krotoski explores why we have this urge to take control of our dreams, how technology can influence us in our sleep, and finds out if it’s wise to really try to take control, when we’re still figuring out the purpose and mechanics of dreams and don’t yet know the consequences of tinkering with them.

As we hunker down for the last period of lockdown novelty has never felt more absent from our lives. Aleks Krotoski explores its importance and asks if the digital world can actually provide it.

Producer Peter McManus

Every time we seek treasure and eventually find, we get a hit of endorphins that tickles the happy parts of our brains.

There are tales of extraordinary discoveries; King Tut’s tomb, The Mona Lisa, Viking gold. Incredible things that took ingenuity and dedication to uncover. Wouldn't it be remarkable to strike it lucky and find real treasure buried for hundreds or even thousands of years? Every rabbit hole we go down, every mystery we try to solve scratches that itch. It might be offline, or on. What does it look like? How do we find it? And is it wise to do so?

Archaeologist Peter Reavill tells us about the discovery of an astonishing Viking hoard in Herefordshire, but like so many tales of treasure warn, it became a curse to those who found it. They chose to value secrecy about what they discovered digging up the hoard, higher than its historical value.

Stefan from Germany is sitting on an unbelievable hoard of digital treasure - $371,000,000 but with only two goes left on his flash drive to guess the password, it became such a curse it drove him to contemplate ending it all.

And alternate reality game developer Dan Hon introduces us to Perplex City, an online and offline treasure hunt which led Andy Darley to dig up a metal cube claim a£100,000 prize. Dan draws similarities between alternate reality games and how QAnon works and we hear from Leila who after becoming obsessed with QAnon explains how a search for information, patterns and connections became the digital equivalent of seeking treasure but became so toxic it started affecting her mental health until she managed to pull herself out of it.

Producer Kate Bissell

Researcher Juliet Conway

In the early days of the internet, trolls were nothing to fear. Comedians, tricksters, harmless pranksters ready to waste a little time or pounce on a typo. Some people enjoyed a bit of provocation to spark some spirited debate. You had flamers and griefers, but in general communities were good at booting out malicious actors, while leaving the trickers to their fun.

But in 2021, things are very different. In the past, a random troll post on 4Chan would quickly sink into obscurity. Now, one proved the start of the QAnon movement that lead to an attempted coup in Washington DC.

Malicious trolls are now the dominant type across our shared internet spaces, their numbers are rising, and their influence spreading both online and off, causing harm to both individuals and wider society.

Aleks Krotoski explores troll evolution, finding out why maliciousness became an evolutionary advantage in the digital space, and asking what happens when being a troll is becoming the new normal.

Aleks Krotoski explores the power of toys and play in shaping our technological future.

Apple's Tim Cook has said he began working on the smartwatch aged 5 after seeing the cartoon character Dick Tracy's wristwatch two way radio. So how much of our technological present has been prescribed by future visions of the past? Clearly many innovators imagination’s get fired up by childhood experiences but do they end up pursuing technologies that don’t actually solve the problems we’re facing? Or worse still, do they lock coming generations into futures where many key decisions have already been made and they’ll end up having to deal with them? Look at climate change.

Aleks explores these ideas with Steven Johnson author of Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World, Jonathon Keats experimental philosopher and founder and curator of The Museum of Future History and Valentina Boretti; a researcher who has been looking at how toys were used to shape the children that would create China’s industrial miracle.

Producer: Peter McManus

Since March this year - 2020 - venues have been black. Performers and live audiences are separated by COVID-19. Had it lasted a week, maybe two, things might not have changed. But as with the rest of our lives, technology has had to step in to give a lifeline to those who make their living from live performance. Aleks asks whether streaming online commodifies and commercialises artists and cultural scenes by turning what they do into just more online content? Or will streaming, together with limitations, promote greater creativity from the re- imagining of performance through the use of technology, to engage and reach audiences?

Producer Kate Bissell

Researcher Juliet Conway

The monsters we create have always given us insight into what we're scared of in the world around us. Whether that's zombies igniting fears around racial tensions in the United States of the nineteen sixties or Dracula articulating a fear of the other and of immigration at the end of nineteenth century.

Aleks Krotoski asks what those monsters born in tech tell us about our fears today.

Producer: Peter McManus