Radiolab12 Joulu 2025

The Alien in the Room

It’s faster than a speeding bullet. It’s smarter than a polymath genius. It’s everywhere but it’s invisible. It’s artificial intelligence. But what actually is it?

Today we ask this simple question and explore why it’s so damn hard to answer.

Special thanks to Stephanie Yin and the New York Institute of Go for teaching us the game. Mark, Daria and Levon Hoover Brauner for helping bring NETtalk to life.

And a huge thank you to Grant Sanderson for his unending patience explaining the math of neural nets to us. To learn more about how these 'thinking machines' actually think, we highly recommend his wonderful youtube channel 3Blue1Brown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aircAruvnKk).

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Simon Adler
Produced by - Simon Adler
Original music from - Simon Adler
Sound design contributed by - Simon Adler
Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini

Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.

Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(652)

The Wright Brothers

104 years ago this week, Wilbur and Orville Wright managed to coax their spruce biplane off the North Carolina sand for twelve seconds, and those twelve seconds started a revolution in flight. We exam...

18 Joulu 200710min

Contact

This week, a look at the different ways that people connect to each other, and how they act once they’re together. NOTE: This episode contains EXPLICIT language about sex. Hosted by Simplecast, an Ads...

4 Joulu 200757min

Space Capsules

How would you describe life on Earth to an alien? In 1977, the Voyager spacecraft launched into space. And with it, went the Golden Record-- a sort time capsule, a collection of sounds and images that...

20 Marras 200718min

Making Radiolab

In spring of 2006, Jad and Robert took the stage at the SoHo Apple Store to talk about the making of Radiolab. Jad geeks out on the nitty-gritty of digital sound editing, and Robert discusses the edit...

9 Marras 200733min

Musical Language

In this hour of Radiolab, we examine the line between language and music. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data fo...

24 Syys 200759min

Detective Stories

Forensics, archeology, genealogy, and genetics are devoted to figuring out what really happened. In this hour of Radiolab, digging up the past leads to some very unexpected finds. Hosted by Simplecast...

10 Syys 200756min

This is Your Brain On Love

Radiolab is given the charge to put on a Singles Night. That's right. 'Jad,' they said, 'stand on a stage and make strangers fall in love! Or, at least, you know, exchange a few phone numbers with eac...

28 Elo 200724min

Emergence

What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies -- all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony. This ho...

14 Elo 200757min