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How To Grow A Human

By: Dr Philip Ball
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  • Summary

  • Philip Ball has two brains… In 1818 Mary Shelley wrote the seminal work ‘Frankenstein’, an exploration of the consequences of rivalling God by building a human being using parts stolen from dead bodies. 101 years later, Philip Ball explored in his book ‘How to Grow A Human’ how science is moving us closer to a different possibility, unguessed in Shelley’s novel: not of building but of growing a human artificially. The book arose from Philip’s experience of having a "second brain" grown from his own cells in a lab in London. As a visiting scholar at Harvard, he takes us to Boston to speak to the foremost leaders in the fields of biotechnology, genetics and AI about whether it’s now possible, and desirable, to consider treading the path of Victor Frankenstein in creating our own artificial human.
    Aurra Studios 2021
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Episodes
  • Living With Our Creation

    Living With Our Creation
    Oct 26 2021

    Part Six. The final episode in this series looks forward into the future. If we are able to reach the point where we can create advanced AI ‘beings’, will we be able to live alongside them – especially if they are in some ways more intelligent than us, or hold our lives in their hands? Phil puts this question to Iyad Rahwan, a social psychologist formerly of MIT’s Media Lab, who is working on the ramifications of human-machine interactions.

    Thanks to Philip Ball for original music and www.Freesound.org for supplying sound effects under creative commons Attribution 3.0 license created by the following artists;

    Decembered

    The licence can be read here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
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    37 mins
  • Artificial Intelligence

    Artificial Intelligence
    Oct 26 2021

    Part Five. IBM is one of the world’s biggest makers of “thinking machines” – computers. So what better place to find out about the prospects for machine alternatives to the human brain? Would a cyborg be more successful, for example, than a being made entirely from human parts? Can a machine be considered to truly ‘think’? Phil speaks to David Cox of IBM, an expert in the intersection between machine intelligence and neuroscience, to find out what current and future artificial intelligence might achieve. Could it ever become more intelligent than us?

    Thanks to Philip Ball for original music and www.Freesound.org for supplying sound effects under creative commons Attribution 3.0 license created by the following artists;

    Decembered

    The licence can be read here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
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    35 mins
  • Helping It Learn

    Helping It Learn
    Oct 26 2021

    Part Four. Phil goes to Harvard University to speak to eminent psychologist Tomer Ullman about how humans think and to ask if (and how) we could teach an artificial mind to learn what it needs to become ‘sentient’ and behave like a human.

    Thanks to Philip Ball for original music and www.Freesound.org for supplying sound effects under creative commons Attribution 3.0 license created by the following artists;

    Decembered

    The licence can be read here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
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    39 mins
Nature & Ecology
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