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A critical look at new technologies, new approaches and new ways of thinking, from politics to media to environmental sustainability.

Future Tense

Designing a futuristic city is a fraught task — a mixture of ambition, state of the art technology, inevitable budget blowouts and the need to not just inspire, but awe. We get an update on the progress of two mega metropolises — Xiongan in China and Neom in Saudi Arabia. Also, how a better understanding of the brain can help deter future conflicts.

Guests

Dr Andrew Stokols — Assistant Professor of Urban Studies, Singapore Management University

Eliot Brown — London-based reporter, Wall Street Journal

Dr Nicholas Wright — Neuroscientist, University College London and Georgetown University

A tale of two futuristic cities

The global Covid 19 lockdown may seem like an eternity ago, but the threat of another full-scale pandemic has never resided. Scientists warn that as the Arctic permafrost continues to melt ancient viruses and bacteria are gradually being freed from the ice. The risks are significant, but researchers are working to identify potential threats and better prepare the world for future pandemics. Uppermost in many minds is the need to ensure future global cooperation in the event of another zoonotic outbreak. 

Original broadcast on March 26, 2023.

Guests

Dr Christine Prat – Director of Operations, European Virus Archive 

Dr Jean-Michel Claverie – Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Aix-Marseille University 

Dr Aaron Bernstein – Director, The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Ancient viruses, new threats

Negotiations over a global treaty on microplastics have broken down. So, where to from here for one of the world's biggest environmental threats? We also get an update on new efforts to clean-up the cement production industry; and we look at AI chatbots and the increasing role they're playing as sources of advice and emotional support.

Guests

Dr Pratik Sachdeva — Senior Data Scientist, D-Lab, University of California, Berkeley

Dr Shababa Selim — Senior Technology Analyst, IDTechEX

Professor Paul Fennell — Professor of Clean Energy, Imperial College London

Professor Jill Newby — Clinical psychologist, The Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales

Microplastic removal and decarbonising cement

It's exactly three years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene. In that short period of time the process of academic assessment has been in upheaval. Across the world educators are trying to address how students should be assessed and whether AI can be used for more than just helping a student to cheat. But a growing number of education researchers say the real emphasis should be on promoting critical thinking and ensuring future students learn how to learn.

Guests

Professor Dragan Gasevic — Head of the Centre for Learning Analytics, Monash University

Professor Neil Selwyn — School of Education, Culture and Society, Monash University

Professor Rupert Wegerif — Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge

Professor Phillip Dawson — Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning, Deakin University

Learning how to learn in the age of generative AI

In this programme we hear three thoughtful perspectives on the threat digital technologies pose for democracy. Henry Farrell from Johns Hopkins University argues disinformation must be tackled at a group level, not an individual one. Philosopher, John Tasioulas, says modern representative democracy is too easily corrupted by big tech. And AI specialist, Marcus Beard, introduces us to the phenomenon he calls "slopaganda".

Guests

Professor John Tasioulas — ethicist and immediate former Director of the Institute for Ethics and AI, University of Oxford

Professor Henry Farrell — Political Scientist, Johns Hopkins University

Marcus Beard — Digital, disinformation and AI specialist, Fenimore Harper Communications

Further information

Henry Farrell - We're getting the social media crisis wrong

John Tasioulas - The classical key to the AI revolution

Disinformation, digital tech and democracy

Long before AI dominated the media hype-cycle, self-driving cars surfed the hyperbolic wave. But fully automated vehicles have now been a long time in development, long enough that we've decided it's time for an update. So, how advanced is the technology and where is the demand? We also find out about consumer attitudes toward the "driver-assist" technologies that are now routinely fitted into modern cars. Surprise, surprise, it seems not everyone wants to be told how to drive.

Guests

Associate Professor Abdesalam Soudi — Sociolinguist, Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh

Professor Michael Milford — Director of the Centre for Robotics, Queensland University of Technology

Associate Professor Milad Haghani — Principal Fellow in Urban Resilience & Mobility, University of Melbourne

Sönke Iwersen — Co-author of "The Tesla Files". Journalist for German business newspaper Handelsblatt

Getting up to speed with autonomous vehicles

While technology platforms increasingly dictate the way we write and converse, language is being modified to fight back, to subvert the platforms. In this show we examine the growth of "algospeak". And if you want to know how we'll all be communicating in the future, just listen to the way teenage girls speak, because young women lead the ongoing development of language.

Original broadcast on July 7, 2024

Guests

Dr James Cohen – Assistant Professor, Media Studies, Queens College, City University of New York

Dr Sali Tagliamonte – Professor of linguistics and Chair of the Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto

Philip Seargeant – Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies, Open University UK

Further information

Philip Seargeant's book "The Future Of Language"

Technology and language — a dynamic relationship

We build more and more homes for growing urban populations. But doing so without providing much needed amenities doesn't serve our suburbs and the people who live in them. It risks confounding social isolation and urban sprawl. There's also climate change to consider. In a heating world, how do we plan our suburbs to deal with higher temperatures? Are the cities and suburbs of the future going to be livable for our children and our children's children?

Rob Kelly investigates

Guests

Andrew Crowe — Demographer for Australian Bureau of Statistics

Dr Annette Kroen — Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University

Professor Sebastian Pfautsch — Professor of Urban Planning and Management at Western Sydney University and co-lead in People-centred Sustainable Precinct Design at the Urban Transformations Research Centre

Dylan Reid — Urbanist, editor, writer and co-founder of Spacing Magazine

Are we turning the housing crisis into a living crisis?

The remote Canadian island of Oikiqtaruk is disappearing fast, but its cultural and environmental heritage is being captured in digital form. We talk to those involved in the project about its ambition and their success to date. Also, recreating long lost cultural artefacts. For the Madrid-based organisation Factum Foundation it's a journey of reconnection — a way that future generations can celebrate and cherish the character of their past.

Guests

Richard Gordon — Senior Park Ranger, Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park, Canada

Professor Peter Dawson — Dept. of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary

Adam Lowe — Director of Factum Arte and founder of Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation

Further information

Factum Foundation

Digitally Preserving Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park

Reviving the past and digital mapping for the future

Australian rooftops are resplendent with solar panels, but sustainability expert, Martin Brueckner, warns the popular notion that we're rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels is deceptive. When you add Australia's fossil fuels exports to our domestic energy usage, he says, it's clear that "decarbonisation is yet to begin in earnest". Also, whatever happened to the dream that Australia could become a world leader in Green Hydrogen production?

Guests

Alison Reeve — Energy and Climate change Program Director, Grattan Institute

Adjunct Associate Professor Madoc Sheehan — Researcher, James Cook University

Professor Matthew Hill — Head of Materials Science and Engineering, Monash University

Professor Martin Brueckner — Pro Vice Chancellor Sustainability, Murdoch University

Are we kidding ourselves about decarbonisation?

The International commitment to ban landmines is wavering. Several European countries are reversing their opposition to using them. The shift comes as disarmament negotiators struggle to regulate the spread of "killer robots" — AI-controlled autonomous weapons. So, is the future of weapons containment and control under threat? And are treaties signed in peace always likely to be vulnerable during times of war?

Guests

Professor Sean Watts — Co-director of the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare, West Point

Dr Barry de Vries — Research fellow, Public International Law, Justus Liebig University Giessen (Germany) Professor Lee Funnell — University of Chicago Law School

Professor Lee Fennell — University of Chicago Law School

Reassessing the laws of war; and why progress isn't always a straight line

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