Fight! • 2020 • episode "S1E5" • High Score

86:23

Investigates a powerful and terrifying spyware called Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by Israeli company NSO Group and used on journalists, activists and others, including both the wife and fiancee of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

Storyville • 2023 • Technology

59:00

Mike Wooldridge grapples with the future of AI in the third and final Christmas lecture. Mike takes a ride in a driverless car. Autonomous vehicles, once a science fiction dream, are now a reality. Many AI researchers believe removing human drivers will eventually make our streets much safer. Mike explores how the car ‘sees' and perceives the world – and how with the help of AI, it gets better the more it drives. Although AI will create many exciting opportunities, advances in AI have raised fears – some justified, others not. With the help of expert guests, Mike talks us through some of the risks AI poses. He unpacks the very real danger of bias in AI, asking how we avoid creating AI that favours those who resemble its creators, and he explores the dangers of 'fake news' and how AI algorithms can lead to dangerous online 'echo chambers', helping to foment extreme views. Mike also demonstrates deepfake technology and asks if AI means we simply can't trust our eyes any more? The prospect of super-intelligent AI means that in the future we may be able to mobilise AI to uncover radical large-scale solutions to the biggest problems facing humanity, such as climate change. But we need to think carefully about what we want to let AI control. Could AI in charge of weapons accidentally begin wars – and present a risk to our survival? And, as AI gets ever more intelligent, how should we treat it? How does our audience feel about kicking an AI robot dog? This lecture addresses the big question of AI: can it ever truly be like us, or are humans unique? As AI advances, it seems these ethical questions are destined to get ever more complex… The Christmas Lectures are the most prestigious event in the Royal Institution calendar, dating from 1825 when Michael Faraday founded the series. They are the world's longest running science television series, and always promise to inspire and amaze each year through explosive demonstrations and interactive experiments with the live theatre audience.

S1E3 • BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: The Truth about AI • 2023 • Technology

21:22

Credit cards changed the global economy and attitudes about personal spending, but record levels of consumer debt beg the question: Just who's in charge?

S2E3 • History 101 • 2022 • Technology

59:12

This episode reveals the fascinating chain of events that made quick and safe travel possible even across the greatest distances a possibility. From the Rolls Royce aero-engine factory in Derby, Michael Mosley, Prof Mark Miodownik and Dr Cassie Newland tell the amazing story of three more of the greatest and most transformative inventions of all time, the steam locomotive, the internal combustion engine and the jet engine. Our experts explain how these inventions came about by sparks of inventive genius and steady incremental improvements hammered out in workshops. They separate myth from reality in the lives of the great inventors and celebrate some of the most remarkable stories in British history.

Part 2 • The Genius of Invention • 2013 • Technology

50:00

If people are the lifeblood of cities, then transport links are its veins and arteries. If they're cut off, the city will die. Thousands of people work every day at making it possible for city dwellers to be where they need to be, when they need to be there. It's an endless demand of brain and brawn. Without the army of drivers, diggers, and planners, our great cities would come to a halt.

S1E4 • How Cities Work • 2013 • Technology

50:37

NASA’s Space Launch System is the most powerful rocket ever built. This is the story of the incredible engineering that went into building it, told first-hand by NASA’s best rocket engineers. Building the rocket that will take us back to the Moon is no easy task, but the payoff will be phenomenal.

Secrets of the Universe (Curiosity) • 2021 • Technology