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Narendra Modi is one of the most popular politicians on the planet. Indiaâs prime minister is eyeing a third term atop the worldâs biggest democracy.
A tea-sellerâs son, Mr Modi began life an outsider and the man behind the political phenomenon remains hard to fathom. India has become an economic powerhouse during his ten years in charge. But heâs also the frontman for a chauvinistic Hindu nationalist dogma.
Can Mr Modi continue to balance both parts of his agenda and finish the job of turning India into a superpower? The Economistâs Avantika Chilkoti finds out what makes him tick.
Launching June 2024.
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Artificial intelligence is already making its mark in health careâbut new, bigger, models promise to improve how patients access services, help doctors spot diseases faster and transform how medical research is done. In the first of two episodes on the potential of AI in health care, we ask: how will patients benefit from the technology behind ChatGPT?
Host: Alok Jha, The Economistâs science and technology editor. Contributors: Natasha Loder, The Economist's health editor; Gerald Lip of NHS Grampian; Peter Kecskemethy of Kheiron Medical; Pranav Rajpurkar of Harvard Medical School; Hugh Harvey of Hardian Health.
Want to learn more about generative artificial intelligence? Listen to our series on the science that built the AI revolution.
Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.
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Ever since there have been smartphones and social media, there have been concerns about how they might be affecting children. Over the past decade, doctors have seen a decline in mental health in the young in much of the rich world. But whether that rise can be attributed to technology is still a matter of fierce debate. Nevertheless, demands are growing to proactively restrict teenagersâ access to phones and social media, just in case. How concerned should parents and teachers be? Or is this just another moral panic?
Host: Alok Jha, The Economistâs science and technology editor. Contributors: Tom Wainwright, The Economist's technology and media editor; Clare Fernyhough, co-founder of Smartphone Free Childhood; Carol Vidal of Johns Hopkins University; Pete Etchells, a psychologist at Bath Spa University and the author of âUnlocked: The Real Science of Screen Timeâ.
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What is intelligence? In the middle of the 20th century, the inner workings of the human brain inspired computer scientists to build the first âthinking machinesâ. But how does human intelligence actually relate to the artificial kind?
This is the first episode in a four-part series on the evolution of modern generative AI. What were the scientific and technological developments that took the very first, clunky artificial neurons and ended up with the astonishingly powerful large language models that power apps such as ChatGPT?
Host: Alok Jha, The Economistâs science and technology editor. Contributors: Ainslie Johnstone, The Economistâs data journalist and science correspondent; Dawood Dassu and Steve Garratt of UK Biobank; Daniel Glaser, a neuroscientist at Londonâs Institute of Philosophy; Daniela Rus, director of MITâs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; Yoshua Bengio of the University of MontrĂ©al, who is known as one of the âgodfathersâ of modern AI.
On Thursday April 4th, weâre hosting a live event where weâll answer as many of your questions on AI as possible, following this Babbage series. If youâre a subscriber, you can submit your question and find out more at economist.com/aievent.
Get a world of insights for 50% offâsubscribe to Economist Podcasts+
If youâre already a subscriber to The Economist, youâll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
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Dark matter is thought to make up around a quarter of the universe, but so far it has eluded detection by all scientific instruments. Scientists know it must exist because of the ways galaxies move and it also explains the large-scale structure of the modern universe. But no-one knows what dark matter actually is.
Scientists have been hunting for dark matter particles for decades, but have so far had no luck. At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held recently in Denver, a new generation of researchers presented their latest tools, techniques and ideas to step up the search for this mysterious substance. Will they finally detect the undetectable?
Host: Alok Jha, The Economistâs science and technology editor. Contributors: Don Lincoln, senior scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Christopher Karwin, a fellow at NASAâs Goddard Space Flight Center; Josef Aschbacher, boss of the European Space Agency; Michael Murra of Columbia University; Jodi Cooley, executive director of SNOLAB; Deborah Pinna of University of Wisconsin and CERN.
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OpenAI and Microsoft are leaders in generative artificial intelligence (AI). OpenAI has built GPT-4, one of the worldâs most sophisticated large language models (LLMs) and Microsoft is injecting those algorithms into its products, from Word to Windows.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economistâs editor-in-chief, interviewed Sam Altman and Satya Nadella, who run OpenAI and Microsoft respectively. They explained their vision for humanityâs future with AI and addressed some thorny questions looming over the field, such as how AI that is better than humans at doing tasks might affect productivity and how to ensure that the technology doesnât pose existential risks to society.
Host: Alok Jha, The Economist's science and technology editor. Contributors: Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist; Ludwig Siegele, The Economistâs senior editor, AI initiatives; Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI; Satya Nadella, chief executive of Microsoft.
If you subscribe to The Economist, you can watch the full interview on our website or app.
Essential listening, from our archive:
âDaniel Dennett on intelligence, both human and artificialâ, December 27th 2023
âFei-Fei Li on how to really think about the future of AIâ, November 22nd 2023
âMustafa Suleyman on how to prepare for the age of AIâ, September 13th 2023
âVint Cerf on how to wisely regulate AIâ, July 5th 2023
âIs GPT-4 the dawn of true artificial intelligence?â, with Gary Marcus, March 22nd 2023
Sign up for a free trial of Economist Podcasts+. If youâre already a subscriber to The Economist, youâll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
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Books are the original medium for communicating science to the masses. In a holiday special, producer Kunal Patel asks Babbageâs family of correspondents about the books that have inspired them in their careers as science journalists.
Host: Alok Jha, The Economistâs science and technology editor. Contributors: Rachel Dobbs, The Economistâs climate correspondent; Kenneth Cukier, our deputy executive editor; The Economistâs Emilie Steinmark; Geoff Carr, our senior editor for science and technology; and Abby Bertics, The Economistâs science correspondent.
Reading list: âThe Periodic Tableâ by Primo Levi; âWhen We Cease to Understand the Worldâ by BenjamĂn Labatut; âA Theory of Everyoneâ by Michael Muthukrishna; âMadame Curieâ by Ăve Curie; âSociobiologyâ by E. O. Wilson; âThe Selfish Geneâ by Richard Dawkins; âWhy Fish Don't Existâ by Lulu Miller; and âHow Far the Light Reachesâ by Sabrina Imbler.
Sign up for a free trial of Economist Podcasts+. If youâre already a subscriber to The Economist, youâll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
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A year ago, the public launch of ChatGPT took the world by storm and it was followed by many more generative artificial intelligence tools, all with remarkable, human-like abilities. Fears over the existential risks posed by AI have dominated the global conversation around the technology ever since.
Fei-Fei Li, a pioneer that helped lay the groundwork that underpins modern generative AI models, takes a more nuanced approach. Sheâs pushing for a human-centred way of dealing with AIâtreating it as a tool to help enhanceâand not replaceâhumanity, while focussing on the pressing challenges of disinformation, bias and job disruption.
Fei-Fei Li is the founding co-director of Stanford Universityâs Institute for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence. Fei-Fei and her research group created ImageNet, a huge database of images that enabled computers scientists to build algorithms that were able to see and recognise objects in the real world. That endeavour also introduced the world to deep learning, a type of machine learning that is fundamental part of how large-language and image-creation models work.
Host: Alok Jha, The Economistâs science and technology editor.
Sign up for a free trial of Economist Podcasts+. If youâre already a subscriber to The Economist, youâll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.
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In the coming decades, electric vehicles will dominate the roads and renewables will provide energy to homes. But for the green transition to be successful, unprecedented amounts of energy storage is needed. Batteries will be used everywhereâfrom powering electric vehicles, to providing electricity when the sun doesnât shine or the wind doesnât blow. The current generation of batteries are lacking in capacity and are too reliant on rare metals, though. Many analysts worry about material shortages. How can technology help?
Host: Alok Jha, The Economistâs science and technology editor. Contributors: Paul Markillie, our innovation editor; Matthieu Favas, our finance correspondent; Anjani Trivedi, our global business correspondent.
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If youâre already a subscriber to The Economist, youâll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription.
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Babbage is our weekly podcast on science and technology, named after Charles Babbage—a 19th-century polymath and grandfather of computing. Host Alok Jha talks to our correspondents about the innovations, discoveries and gadgetry shaping the world. Published every Wednesday.
