The future of the Internet • 2014 • episode "2/10" • Curiosity Retreats: 2014 Lectures

55:34

With 66 billion euros in revenue by the end of 2014, Google is the richest search engine company in the world and has become ubiquitous to the point of being used as a verb. Searching the net, sending messages via Gmail, getting around with Google maps, watching videos on YouTube.... By being ever present in our lives, Google has got to know a lot about us. But how much do we really know about Google? How did the big teenager become a giant octopus, data swallower who took the opportunity to sneak itself into so many practical and free services that have become a vital part of our lives? From France in English

2015 • Technology

57:27

Imagine you could make a copy of a loved one. A digital clone with a life of its own – their Avatar. That’s the dream of biomechanical engineer, Dr Jordan Nguyen, and he says we have the technology to do it right now in the form of Virtual Reality.

S1E1 • Catalyst: Series 18 • 2017 • Technology

52:09

Mankind has always looked at nature to solve problems, taking a cue from the solutions that biological systems have refined through natural selection. In this episode we look at a robotic plant that mimics the mechanics of plant roots, and dive underwater to see robots inspired by fish.

S1E2 • The Age of Robots • 2016 • Technology

94:43

Explores state surveillance and digital social control in China by following the experiences of two families and a journalist. Zijuan Chen is fighting for the release of her imprisoned husband, human rights lawyer Weiping Chang, while trying to keep his memory alive for their son. Wenzu Li and her newly freed husband, Quanzhang Wang, struggle against surveillance that is not only stopping him from being able to work but also affecting ordinary tasks like taking their son to school. Journalist Sophie Xueqin Huang, a pivotal figure in bringing the Me Too movement to China, is at constant risk of arrest. Chinese film-maker Jialing Zhang gives an exclusive and previously impossible intimate insight into the interior of China and tells a deeply disturbing story of how the state uses technology to control its citizens as well as propaganda to convince its people to trust it.

2024 • Technology

42:56

What if aliens landed on Earth? Much of science fiction explores the moment of first contact – what will people do when the aliens land? From H. G. Wells’ pioneering The War of the Worlds to Independence Day, Men in Black, and District 9, Invasion deals with our fears of alien invasions of earth. David Tennant explains the appeal of Doctor Who’s Daleks and Cybermen while John Carpenter and Chris Carter explore the rich appeal of the paranoia fuelled by hidden aliens with The Thing and The X-Files. It also asks what if the monsters were our own creation? With the aid of rarely seen animation tests, Phil Tippett takes us behind the scenes in the creation of the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. But not all invasions are hostile. Peter Coyote and Richard Dreyfuss discuss the creation of Spielberg’s spellbinding classics E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There is more than one kind of invasion.

Part 3 • The Real History of Science Fiction • 2014 • Technology

59:00

Mike Wooldridge reveals the huge role AI already plays in our daily lives – sometimes without us even realising its role. Mike investigates how games like chess and Go have become a training ground for AI, helping to bring about key advances we are now seeing in the field, and he reveals how simple methods of learning, like rewarding success, have been used to train AI in spectacular ways. We also feature some of the revolutionary innovations that AI has brought about in healthcare, from the use of AI tools in planning cancer treatment, to monitoring Parkinson's. Mike is joined by members of DeepMind's AlphaFold team, who use AI to predict the structures of large numbers of proteins, which will revolutionise the creation of new drugs across the world. We also reveal the huge impact AI has had on our creative lives – as it is able to write songs and create artworks in seconds. With the help of artist Eric Drass (aka shardcore), the audience creates a collaborative artwork and discovers how image generation works. Mike explores the thorny question of who the creator is – the AI itself, the human who set it to work, or the creators of the art that AI has learned from? 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.

S1E2 • BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: The Truth about AI • 2023 • Technology