Radio 4: Today (Item)

Robots and Artificial Intelligence

Radio 4 Series 1 Episode 1
First broadcast 7th February 2017, 08:54
Duration: 05:57
Robots and artificial intelligence devices are playing an increasingly central role in society. And if you have a smartphone or Amazon Alexa, you will know that this means we increasingly have to talk to machines. Adam Rutherford is the presenter for Radio 4’s Inside Science. He has a new series out today called The Rise of the Robots looking at the role of robots in science and culture across the ages and Dr Beth Singler is a research associate at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at the University of Cambridge.

Clips from this programme

Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) devices: Smartphone or Amazon Alexa (Rory Cellan Jones), Siri, Cortana, talk to machines, speech recognition. Adam Rutherford (Presenter for Radio 4’s Inside Science)-The Rise of the Robots looking at the role of robots, Dr Beth Singler (Research associate at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, University of Cambridge), Moore's Law, Deep Blue, Deep Mind - John Humphrys

Duration: 05:57

Radio 4: Today (Item)

AI, Artificial Intelligence: Pt1

First broadcast: 15th September 2015
Duration 05:27

Radio 4 Today Item from 15/09/2015: Deep Blue and AI: Why hasn't Artificial Intelligence met Human Intelligence, its sense of self and consciousness? The impact of human-level AI.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence: Pt2

First broadcast: 16th September 2015
Duration 04:36

Radio 4 Today Item from 16/09/2015: Intelligent Machines' use beyond the scientific community: IBM's Watson, the IBM Jeopardy challenge plus medical cognitive systems, financial services, Support to professionals, and IPSoft's Amelia which 'understands like a human'

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Intelligence Services and Our Data - MI5

First broadcast: 17th September 2015
Duration 22:45

Radio 4 Today Item from 17/09/2015: MI5 Director General, Andrew Parker talks about The Intelligence Services, the tools they need and access to our data - MI5 and terrorist threats, The Data Act and Privacy concerns.

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Intelligence Services and Our Data-Technology

First broadcast: 19th September 2015
Duration 04:23

Radio 4 Today Item from 19/09/2015: Intelligence IT: One British Company and what it can do: Tom Griffin of Ripjar who can listen, analyse, explore and make sense of data - Data tools with machine learning, pattern recognition: Sex offenders and terrorist spotting ~

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Intelligence Services and Our Data-The USA's NSA

First broadcast: 27th October 2015
Duration 08:46

Radio 4 Today Item from 27/10/2015: The NSA's surevillance powers: Fort Meade, Deputy Director Richard Ledgett, Edward Snowden and Brian Lord - A case for more transparency in security cyber operations and security?

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1. Thought for Today (Passwords) 23/01/16

First broadcast: 23rd January 2016
Duration 03:11

Thought for Today (Passwords) from the Reverend Rob Marshall: Passwords, security, cryptography, password vaults, what happens to the self when going online, vulnerability and hackers.

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2. BT Openreach - Broadband for All

First broadcast: 23rd January 2016
Duration 08:58

Broadband Access, BT Openreach - should it be split from BT? Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive of BT responds to criticism about those not able to access super-fast broadband.

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Turing and Music

First broadcast: 1st October 2016
Duration 06:45

Morning news and current affairs-Computer Music, Alan Turing, 1948: Computing Machine Laboratory in Manchester

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Hacking TV Stations

First broadcast: 10th October 2016
Duration 04:41

Morning news and current affairs: Russian Hacking of a French TV Station (TV5Monde) report by Gordon Corera

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Quantum Computers

First broadcast: 25th November 2016
Duration 04:04

Morning news and current affairs: Quantum Computing at the University of Sussex report.

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Amazon Web (Data) Services

First broadcast: 14th December 2016
Duration 03:07

Amazon Web Services has announced it is opening its first data centre in the UK. Gavin Jackson is Managing Director of Amazon Web Services UK and Ireland.

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4G / 5G

First broadcast: 14th December 2016
Duration 05:44

The UK is 54th in the world for 4G mobile networks, behind countries like Rumania, Albania and Peru. The Government has been warned that this country risks being left in the slow lane if Improvements aren't made. Lord Adonis, chair of the infrastructure commission, has defended the roll-out of 4G and broadband coverage across the country but does agree that 'companies are not moving fast enough'.

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Were Yahoo Hackers State-sponsored

First broadcast: 15th December 2016
Duration 02:57

Yahoo has said more than one billion user accounts may have been affected in a hacking attack dating back to 2013. Names, phone numbers, passwords and email addresses were stolen, but not bank and payment data. Professor Peter Sommer is a cyber security expert.

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Robots and Artificial Intelligence

First broadcast: 7th February 2017
Duration 05:57

Robots and artificial intelligence devices are playing an increasingly central role in society. And if you have a smartphone or Amazon Alexa, you will know that this means we increasingly have to talk to machines. Adam Rutherford is the presenter for Radio 4’s Inside Science. He has a new series out today called The Rise of the Robots looking at the role of robots in science and culture across the ages and Dr Beth Singler is a research associate at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at the University of Cambridge.

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The New National Cyber Security Centre Pt1

First broadcast: 14th February 2017
Duration 13:58

The Queen will today launch a new national centre to protect the UK against cyber-attacks. The centre says the UK is facing on average 60 serious attacks a month - with Russia a growing concern. BBC’s Gordon Corera reports. Ciaran Martin is head of GCHQ’S new National Cyber Security Centre.

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The New National Cyber Security Centre Pt2

First broadcast: 14th February 2017
Duration 06:31

The opening of the new National Cyber Security Centre is testament to the threat that cyber security poses to governments. Could we be seeing an international cyber treaty? Keir Giles is an expert in Russian information and cyber strategy and Margaret MacMillan is a professor of International History at Oxford University.

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'Babel Fish' Language Translation

First broadcast: 4th March 2017
Duration 05:42

New technology that claims to be able to translate speech through an earpiece worn by the user – like the fictional Babel Fish in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – has been unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Rod Alexander is from Mymanu, a technology company behind the latest earpiece voice translation technology. Danielle D'hayer is associate professor of Interpreting Studies at London Metropolitan University.

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Marcus Hutchins USA Arrest

First broadcast: 5th August 2017
Duration 05:59

US prosecutors say a British computer expert has admitted to creating software that harvests bank details. But Marcus Hutchins' own lawyer says he denies six charges of creating and distributing the Kronos malware. The 23-year-old from Ilfracombe, Devon, who helped stall the WannaCry cyber-attack which hit the NHS, was arrested on Wednesday in Las Vegas. He was granted $30,000 (£23,000) bail, but will spend the weekend in prison after not being able to pay on Friday.

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AI Bias Against Women

First broadcast: 24th August 2017
Duration 05:56

Machines programmed using photos are learning to be sexist towards women, dismissing the great promise of artificial intelligence and its ability to remove bias. Maxine Mackintosh is the founder of One Health Tech and Noel Sharkey is co-director of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics.

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Is Russia ‘Weaponising’ Information?

First broadcast: 15th November 2017
Duration 06:41

Russia is trying to "weaponise" information. That was the prime minister's warning. In a speech this week a senior adviser to the boss of Google was issuing a warning of his own. Jared Cohen declared that "all future wars are going to begin as cyber wars". Cohen runs a think tank called Jigsaw - formerly Google Ideas - which aims to come up with ways to combat cyber disruption.

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AI Effects: Professors Dame Wendy Hall & Noel Sharkey

First broadcast: 20th November 2017
Duration 04:59

The Chancellor delivers his budget on Wednesday but we've already had a few sneak previews. One of them is a £75m fund for investment in AI companies. Dame Wendy Hall is professor of computer science at the University of Southampton and Professor Noel Sharkey is emeritus professor of AI and Robotics at Sheffield University.

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MishalBot Presenter Robot

First broadcast: 30th December 2017
Duration 02:13

Artificial Intelligence makes most people think of two things; futuristic killer robots bent on destroying the human race or spotless factories where obsolete workers are replaced by silently gliding robots. But this morning the Today programme enlisted the help of AI as its final guest editor. For this special programme scientists in the University of Sheffield created our very own robot - one that mimics the style of presenter Mishal Husain. Does this mean presenters will become a thing of the past?

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Cryptocurrency Criminal Transactions

First broadcast: 4th January 2018
Duration 06:04

Police concerns about the increased use of Cryptocurrencies to hide criminal transactions

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Cambridge Analytica, Facebook Data + Uber Self-driving Car Tests

First broadcast: 20th March 2018
Duration 08:53

The UK's Information Commissioner is to apply to court for a warrant to search the offices of London-based political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica. The company is accused of using the personal data of 50 million Facebook members to influence the US presidential election in 2016. Its executives have also been filmed by Channel 4 News suggesting it could use honey traps and potentially bribery to discredit politicians. The company denies any wrongdoing. Uber said it is suspending self-driving car tests in all North American cities after a fatal accident. A 49-year-old woman was hit by a car and killed as she crossed the street in Tempe, Arizona.

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Dr Aleksandr Kogan, Facebook, Data Harvesting & Cambridge Analytica

First broadcast: 21st March 2018
Duration 18:04

An academic who created an app which harvested data from 50 million users says he has been made "a scapegoat" for Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Dr Aleksandr Kogan completed work for Cambridge Analytica in 2014, but said he had no idea the data would be used to benefit Donald Trump's campaign. The psychology academic said he wanted the data so he could model human behaviour through social media. Facebook says Dr Kogan violated the site's policies. The Cambridge University researcher developed a personality survey called This is Your Digital Life.

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Facebook 'Data Breach' Responses

First broadcast: 22nd March 2018
Duration 07:19

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that the social network "made mistakes" that led to millions of Facebook users having their data exploited by a political consultancy. Cambridge Analytica is accused of improperly using the data on behalf of political clients. In a statement, Mr Zuckerberg said a "breach of trust" had occurred. In a later interview with CNN he said he was "really sorry", and pledged to take action against "rogue apps".

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