Do You Trust this Computer • 2018

56:12

Tech billionaires launch a new generation of aerospace companies, setting their sights on colonizing Mars and exploring the universe.

S1E4 • Blue Sky Metropolis • 2020 • Technology

59:00

Mike Wooldridge examines real-life neurons in action and explains how artificial neural networks are inspired by neural structures in the brain. To demonstrate how AI learns, we watch drones as they are trained to recognise and fly through structures in the lecture theatre autonomously. AI exploded into the public consciousness in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT and boasts around 100 million monthly users. Mike unravels the mystery of how large language models like ChatGPT work, and he finds out if one day this technology - along with a whole suite of different AI tools - will allow us to understand the animals we share this planet with. 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.

S1E1 • BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: The Truth about AI • 2023 • Technology

27:49

Jeff takes a deep dive into the world of online gaming and explores its endless possibilities.

S1E6 • The World According to Jeff Goldblum • 2020 • Technology

55:11

Imagine a world without the power to capture or transmit sound. Journey with Steven Johnson to the Arcy sur Cure caves in northern France, where he finds the first traces of the desire to record sound — 30,000 years ago. He also learns about the difference that radio made in the civil rights movement and reveals the Hollywood star who designed a WW2 weapon that would make possible the modern cell phone network. During an ultrasound on a pregnant dolphin, he realizes just how big a role sound has played in medicine. The unsung heroes of sound have had an impact on our working lives, race relations, saving lives and the radical alteration of cities.

S1E6 • How We Got to Now • 2014 • Technology

51:46

A misguided attempt to make plastic wallpaper results in bubble wrap. The precursor to a blood clotting drug becomes rave favorite, MDMA. A mopped-up kitchen spill brings us smokeless explosive guncotton. A defective satellite lens leads to a new way to identify breast cancer.

S1E7 • Oops, I Changed the World • 2022 • Technology

44:28

We take apart the GPO Amethyst, an ocean transporter capable of carrying some of the largest structures by deliberately sinking into the ocean.

S1E2 • Superstructures Engineering Marvels • 2019 • Technology