Science Friction

2023 was the year powerful new AI technology went mainstream, with image generators and tools like ChatGPT. And people quickly started wondering where these advances were taking them. This is the story of 2023 in three chapters: the first contact, the backlash that followed, and the new reality. It's the story of actors fighting back against plans to replace them with digital clones, writers suing AI companies for stealing their words, and students figuring out how to use their new magical writing tool.

AI is often portrayed as being all about technology. But it is also about money and control. Because those who control AI, may control the world. In the AI world, there are two names that keep coming up: OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and its CEO, Sam Altman. Who is Sam Altman? How did his tiny company leapfrog the tech giants and win the scramble for control of AI? And what are Altman's plans for the future?

When you think about a driverless car future, perhaps your mind goes to being driven around, watching movies from the backseat and drinking martinis. For over a decade, perfect driverless cars have seemed only a few years away. But in reality, they were nowhere close. Now, driverless cars are finally being rolled out in some cities. But (like humans) they're crashing and causing chaos. So are driverless cars finally here? Or is teaching a car to drive simply too difficult?

As ChatGPT shows us, AI can do some amazing stuff. But it does some creepy stuff as well. And it's already been responsible for locking up innocent people. The story of how AI scanned millions of drivers licences and accused Michigan man Robert Wiliams of a crime he didn't commit. When human biases lead to neural networks going rogue.

The world is experiencing a boom in artificial intelligence (AI). It's everywhere. In just a few years, computers have learned to paint a picture, write a novel, translate languages and consume the entire internet. But how we got here goes back decades to two men who couldn't agree on the best way to teach a thinking machine. The AI world was divided. Then a new kind of machine beat a human at Go, a game it was never supposed to be able to win.

2023 has been the breakout year of artificial intelligence. After decades of investment and improvement, the technology suddenly went mainstream.  For many, it was as though a miraculous machine was plonked in our midst. But AI didn't come from nowhere. And it hasn't been a smooth and simple process. It's been a story rife with drama, conflict, and disagreement. So where did it come from? Who made it? Who controls it? Welcome to our new Science Friction series Hello AI Overlords! Across six fascinating episodes, we'll tell you the human stories that shaped the emergence of today's AI technology over more than half a century and where we might be heading. First episode out Wednesday 25th October

Two groups of boys on a camp in the wilds of America are pitted against each other. But the camp leaders have only one thing on their minds. Science. The mind-blowing story of a psychological experiment that crossed a line. Big time.

What family secrets lie deep inside your cells? A story of survival against the odds, hope after the Holocaust, and the eye-opening new science of epigenetics… Can biology help you transcend the traumas of your ancestors, or forever burden you with their legacy?

At the heart of this moving and extraordinary medical mystery is Robbie, a man in a genetic lottery. Two rare mutations made his life uniquely interesting. Then came a third, random event...a chance encounter, a global detective quest and science at the cutting edge.

Tai Poole is a self-described scientist and the teenage star of multi-award-winning podcast Tai Asks Why. Love, climate change, death, dreaming…there is nothing Tai's tenaciously, voraciously hungry mind won't take on. He joins Natasha Mitchell to talk life, the universe, and everything.

When pioneering Australian RNA biologist Archa Fox was a  child, her parents were drawn into the orbit of the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Her family packed up their life to join the Orange People communes in India and Oregon as disciples. Archa shares her candid, confronting story of what happened when this spiritual movement morphed into a cult.

Nuclear weapons are not toys. But what happens when children get their hands on nuclear know-how? Two explosive stories of two smart kids — both with a radioactive obsession, but with very different outcomes — one celebrated as a child genius and given his own university lab as a teen; the other dead at age 39. Meet Taylor Wilson and David Hahn.

Natasha Mitchell, presenter and co-producer of Science Friction, has some special news she wants to share with you. Listen in. (Spoiler alert: You can catch her as the new host of the ABC's Big Ideas from April 10 2023. Follow the show on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts).

How has fusion inspired the imaginations of science fiction writers? In The Expanse blockbuster book and TV series, fusion energy has changed the course of civilisation in extraordinary ways – for better and worse. Ty Franck, one half of the James S.A Corey writing duo behind The Expanse, and Canadian futurist and science fiction writer Karl Schroeder join Erica Vowles to weigh in on the fantasy and future of fusion.

The promise of nuclear fusion is clean, limitless energy for all. But why do start-up entrepreneurs think they can solve a problem that's perplexed scientists and fuelled the imagination of science fiction writers for decades? Are they kidding themselves, or inching closer to a breakthrough? Big name billionaires like Bill Gates and George Soros are now in the fusion game too.

It started with one post on Instagram. What followed was unimaginable. Scientists turned social media giants Darrion Nguyen (aka Lab Shenanigans) and Dr Cindy Pham (aka The Scholar Diaries) share moving stories of trauma, self-discovery, and growth.  Superficial shiny stereotypes of social media celebrity ... they are definitely NOT.

Chinese scientist Dr Jiankui He flouted the law and bioethics basics to create the world's first CRISPR gene edited babies. Now out of jail, he's back on Twitter recruiting patients and raising funds for more trials, this time in adults not embryos. A dangerous distraction or a cautionary lesson for the world's scientists?  Dr Joy Zhang has an extraordinary insider view after a recent encounter. Dr Katie Hasson is part of a global Coalition to Stop Designer Babies. They join Natasha Mitchell on Science Friction.

Science is political. So let's go straight to the heart of political power in Australia. 10 months into role, the Federal Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic joins Natasha this week. From the muzzling of scientists to stemming the brain drain, from the corporatisation of CSIRO to connecting science to more people — will the state of play for Australian science change?

Self-proclaimed TikTok mystics, healers, wellness influencers are increasingly turning to quantum physics to give their claims credibility, with potentially dangerous consequences. How do you disentangle the woo from the wow in quantum physics? And can it be deadly?

Chemist Kim Kwan didn’t realise how much they needed to find their queer crew in science until they did.  Rami Mandow threw in a successful career in finance and business to find true love — astronomy.  They share frank, fearless stories about coming out as third culture kids and why bringing their whole selves to science - their queer self and their nerd self - has been transformative.

Australia is hosting the 2023 World Pride festival and queer botanists are celebrating by bringing their full selves to their science. Ryan O'Donnell is an accomplished opera singer and musical theatre performer turned botanist studying orchids and fungi. Botanist Hervé Sauquet is piecing together the evolutionary history of flowering plants – most of which are bisexual.   They're here, they're queer, they're fabulous and join Natasha to discuss why connecting the personal and the professional matters to science.

From the nomadic world of the Sahara Desert to a fantasy wonderland inside a Melbourne industrial warehouse ... meteorites are a growing business and a controversial one. Are the secrets inside space rocks at risk of being lost to wealthy collectors in the West? And, the battle of the Arab world’s first — and first female — meteorite scientist to save her geological heritage.

A rock celebrity with a wild biography.  Saharan nomads, a weight-loss doctor feeding an unusual addiction, scientists seeking the origins of Everything. 'Black Beauty' has it all. The meteorite with a mighty story, with love from Mars.

Scientists Jonathan Napier and Cathie Martin remember when they needed armed guards and high fences to protect their genetic experiments. But the rules around genetically modified crops are rapidly changing. What could this mean for your dinner plate? (REPEAT)

A pair of twin girls is born in the late 1980s and their mother, Chris, is told a series of ‘facts’ about them. Each born with their own placenta, Chris is told it’s extremely unlikely that her twins are identical, but, if they were, they’d be a perfect DNA match. She’s also told that her daughters have a much higher likelihood as adults of conceiving twins themselves. These were the foundations of how Chris and her daughters understood their ‘twin-ness’ as they grew. But in recent years, new research has proven that none of these assertions is true. So what has science learned about twins in recent years and what are the mysteries that researchers are still trying to solve? And even if you’re not a twin, maybe you were at some point in your development? There could be a way to find out very soon. For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in February 2022. Guests Professor Jeff Craig @DrChromo Professor in Epigenetics and Cell Biology at Deakin University School of Medicine Deputy Director, Twins Research Australia Chris Kulas Elizabeth Kulas’s mother Jennifer Kulas Elizabeth Kulas’s twin sister Host Elizabeth Kulas Script editing by Joel Werner

Science journalist, biologist, podcaster, teacher and activist Dr Ilya Kolmanovsky is a superstar science communicator. He hosts one of the biggest Russian language podcasts. Bigger than podcasts on sex or politics. But he's no stranger to the brutality of Russia's political leadership. Now, with Putin's violent invasion of Ukraine and as a new Iron Curtain descends, Ilya and thousands of others inside Russia have just made the most wrenching decision of their lives. For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in March 2022. Guest: Dr Ilya Kolmanovsky Science journalist, biologist, podcaster, presenter Further information: Goliy Zemlekop (Naked Mole-Rat) podcast https://zemlekop.libsyn.com/website Sound engineer: Matthew Sigley

Leading computer scientist and co-founder of Black in A.I, Dr Timnit Gebru, was hired by Google to co-lead its Ethical AI team with another tech industry trailblazer Dr Margaret Mitchell. The team investigated the ethics of artificial intelligence to understand and prevent its potential harms. Timnit was the first Black woman the company had employed in a research scientist role. Then Google terminated her contract sparking an international outcry. Some 7000 industry colleagues and others, including thousands within Google itself, signed a petition protesting her departure. Then Dr Margaret Mitchell was fired too. Now Timnit is driving "community-rooted" artificial intelligence research free from what she describes as "Big Tech's pervasive influence". For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in April 2022. Guest: Dr Timnit Gebru @TimnitGebru Computer scientist and engineer Founder of the Distributed A.I Research Institute (DAIR) Co-founder, Black in A.I Further info: The Algorithmic Justice League Coded Bias (documentary film) Data in Society Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification (Buolamwini, Gebru; 2018) Timnit Gebru's publications (Google Scholar) Petition in support of Dr Timnit Gebru Why Timnit Gebru Isn’t Waiting for Big Tech to Fix AI's Problems (Time, 2022) Timnit Gebru is building a slow AI movement (IEEE Spectrum, 2022) On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? (Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Mitchell; 2021) AI at Google (Sundar Pichai, 2018) "The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google" (Platformer, 2020) "We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here's what it says" (MIT Technology Review, 2020) "Inside Timnit Gebru's last days at Google - and what happens next" (MIT Technology Review, 2020) Google fires top AI ethics researcher Margaret Mitchell On racialised tech organisations and complaint - a goodbye to Google (Alex Hanna, 2022) Constructing a Visual Dataset to Study the Effects of Spatial Apartheid in South Africa (Sefala, Gebru, Mfupe, Moorosi, 2021) The In/justices of AI (Science Friction, ABC RN, 2020) Chatbot mania and algorithms of oppression (Science Friction, ABC RN, 2017)

What does it take to reimagine your life? In this occasional Science Friction series, scientists who end-up their lives and strip themselves of their professional identity to become artists. Kolkata-born engineer Nishant Jain flew in the face of expectations, threw in a PhD in biomechanics, and reinvented himself as a cartoonist, writer, and self-taught artist. Now the self-described 'Sneaky Artist' hosts a podcast of the same name and sells his urban artworks to a growing global fanbase. For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in April 2022. Guest: Nishant Jain @SneakyArt The Sneaky Artist Artist, cartoonist, writer, urban sketcher Vancouver, Canada

It started with an idea. Then came the university car park full of tonnes of fish heads. Now this extraordinary 20-something couple have deployed a mighty maggot army to turn 50 tonnes of food waste a week into … well, you'll want to listen to find out. A story of science, ingenuity, and revolution. We throw out a third of the food we produce, and the food system is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. Let's stop the rot! For RN Summer we're playing some our favourite programs from the past year. This program was first broadcast in July 2022. Guests: Phoebe Gardner CEO and co-founder, Bardee Architect Alex Arnold CTO and co-founder, Bardee Scientist Stephanie Stubbe Vet and founder, AniPal Anna Augustine Project Manager Trader House James Grant Junior sous chef Cumulus, Melbourne Further information: Bardee The Melbourne Accelerator program

Two teams. Scientists and science journalists. Brains vs brains. Boys vs Girls. From the small (bed bug sex) to the big (er, the whole cosmos), it's the year in science with a tongue firmly in our cheeks.

The long prison sentence given to Sydney climate protester Deanna 'Violet' Coco for blocking traffic on the Sydney Harbour bridge has surprised many, including her fellow protester Jay, who spent 42 days under house arrest. Are new laws suppressing fundamental human rights to protest, or a proportionate response to disruptive blockades? Note: Since making the show, Violet Coco, has been released on bail, as from 13th December.

We make machines, but do our machines make us? And who's in control really? Superstar anthropologist, technologist, futurist, cyberneticist, and Silicon Valley insider Genevieve Bell and guests talk machines, minds and messing with the code to make the world so much better.

If the universe began with a big bang, how will it end? This question has suddenly got very personal for acclaimed science poet Alicia Sometimes. Physicists have got some hair-raising ideas, from the Big Crunch to the Big Rip. The personal, the poetic, and the physical of endings this week on Science Friction. Hear Part 1: What Came Before the Big Bang Guests: Alicia Sometimes Poet, writer, broadcaster, podcaster Chris Ferrie Quantum physicist, Associate Professor, Centre for Quantum Software and Information University of Technology, Sydney Author, Quantum Physics for Babies (and other children's books) Katie Mack Theoretical cosmologist, Associate professor, Department of Physics North Carolina State University, Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Author, The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) Writer: Alicia Sometimes Writer: Alicia Sometimes Producers: Alicia Sometimes, Natasha Mitchell Sound Engineer: Matthew Crawford

Should solving climate change be left to politicians? What if YOU could drive policy without ever running for an election? WHO'S GONNA SAVE US? is an ABC podcast about the people who are trying to map out a better future in the face of the climate crisis. France gave so-called 'deliberative democracy' a crack, where lay citizens are assembled to deliberate and shape vital policies. Europe is ahead of the game in this, but find out what happened next in the French experiment. Catch up on the whole series HERE, or wherever you get your podcasts. Guests: Amandine Roggeman, Louis-Gaeten Giraudet, Professor Nicole Curato. Host: Jo Lauder Reporters: Jo Lauder Series Producer: Cheyne Anderson Executive Producer (audio): Joel Werner Executive Producer (digital): Clare Blumer Sound engineer: Hamish Camilleri

Saul Griffith has an ambitious plan to save the planet. It all begins at home and it's completely electrifying! WHO'S GONNA SAVE US? is an ABC podcast about the people who are trying to map out a better future in the face of the climate crisis.  Catch up on the whole series HERE, or wherever you get your podcasts. Guests: Saul Griffith, Andrew Davies, Cameron Gardiner Host: Jo Lauder Reporters: Joel Werner, James Purtill Series Producer: Cheyne Anderson Executive Producer (audio): Joel Werner Executive Producer (digital): Clare Blumer Sound engineer: Hamish Camilleri

Science and culture ... with extra spice. All species welcome.

When intrepid botanist Tim Collins went sleuthing in the wilds of Australia in pursuit of a papery daisy's DNA, little did he know he'd find himself at the heart of an historical saga, a complicated romance, and a botanical mystery.  A floral story of love, exile and serendipity. Oh, and an Emperor and Empress!

Too much. Not enough. Too weird. Not weird enough. Sex is enjoyed, explored, exploited, and policed in countless ways. The pleasure and pain of writing about sex … with authors Jennifer Mills (The Airways, Dyschronia), evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks (Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, digital lovers, and algorithmic matchmakers), and Josephine Taylor (Eye of a Rook).

2022 Hugo Award winning science fiction author, Becky Chambers, is loved by fans for her brilliantly hopeful imagined worlds in her Monk and Robot and Wayfarers book series. Archaeologist Dr Emma Rehn investigates the ancient relationship between humans and fire. Science Friction brings Becky and Emma together to share a conversation about worlds past, future, real, and imagined.

What came before time as we know it began? A time before. Can we ever really know?

Four big minds on the next steps for our species.

Sex is complicated. Oh yes indeed.

Science is way personal.

Three rising stars in science on why they can’t come back.

An explosive love triangle with a difference.

They hold their secrets close. But these scientists are getting Tasmania's "living fossil" trees to talk. And whoa, we need to listen!

There's a wild tale inside every trunk. The trees join us alongwith Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees & The Heartbeat of Trees) and other tree lovers.

Comedian Craig Reucassel (The Chaser, The War on Waste), mathematician Barbara Holland and their teams are out to change your mind.

Flower power, and a botanical battle that divided nations.

What’s violent nationalism got to do with Nature?

It's out there somewhere... they just have to find it

Follow the silvery trail and enter the world inside a shell. To be or not to be.

You just never know when you'll need a rat will save your life.

Some people dream of changing the world. Others do. Thank the flies.

There is nothing this physicist with radical roots won't think about! [REPEAT]

Once fences and armed guards protected genetically modified (GM) crops. But the rules are rapidly changing. From Vitamin D-boosted tomatoes to low GI potato chips, what say should citizens have?

Meet the neuroscientist turned bestselling rom-com novelist who's exposing the underbelly of science, the passion, and the power games.

Would you be game? Hear what happened when scientists make themselves vulnerable AND hilarious.

Two words. Tweeted then deleted. A meeting meltdown. Has #BlackLivesMatter put international science on notice?

Lace up your boots. Get down and dirty. We're hunting the impossible.

Nature's rules are made to be broken. Paul Steinhardt just had to find a way.

Big Pharma has helped get life-saving COVID-19 vaccines into billions of arms. The profits are pouring in, but at what cost?

Jane Goodall wants you to gird your loins. What does that mean? Well ... for hope, push PLAY.

By day, she's making molecules dance. By night, this vintage fashionista has a different dance on her mind.

Timnit Gebru was fired by Google in a cloud of controversy, now she's making waves beyond Big Tech's pervasive influence

You need a new organ. But there aren't enough to go around. Would you accept one from a pig? Hearts, kidneys, corneas ... xenotransplantation is here.

Indian-born engineer Nishant Jain flew in the face of expectations to radically reinvent himself as the Sneaky Artist

Ilya Kolmanovsky is a popular science superstar in Russia. Like so many anti-Putin activists, he’s just made the most wrenching decision of his life.

Why are we so weirdly paradoxical about food? Food, farms, revolution with two women closer to it all than most.

If you sell the gun but don’t pull the trigger ... are you to blame?

After 25 years of painstaking research, could scientists be getting close to unlocking the mysteries of Buruli ulcer?

When people from a small beach town on Phillip Island started developing severe skin lesions, scientists were left scratching their heads as to what was causing them.

Despite being very different people, sisters Masha and Dasha spent their entire lives conjoined.

A pair of twin girls is born in the late 1980s and their mother is told a series of ‘facts’ about them. But just how much of what she was told is true?

Covid-zero was once a dream pursued by many countries, but the arrival of highly transmissible variants has brought an end to such aspirations for most. However there is one place where the Covid-zero dream is still alive: China.

A sliding door moment. A test of character. A career on the line. What would you do?

Few scientists can say they saved the planet. Paul Crutzen did. Legit. (RN Summer highlight)

Science Friction breathes life into the bones of an ancient medical curiosity...and investigates the story of a child lost in time.

How has one of the world's poorer nations become a shining star in this pandemic, when rich countries failed to save lives? Two African movers and shakers tell it like it is.

How would you react if you received this SMS? BUSHFIRE WARNING. LEAVE NOW. When we evacuate from a bushfire, we fall into one of seven types of evacuee; from Threat Deniers, to Worried Waverers, to Experienced Independents. This is the story of a bad evacuee turned good.

This Summer's overwhelming bushfires have produced overwhelming numbers - hectares burnt, animals killed, carbon dioxide emitted. But who's fact checking the numbers? We are.

The poetic cosmos drips with mango juice. Pigs might fly when porcine cells are your paint and wings your canvas. Rap lyrics that challenge science denialism. Artists pushing at the boundaries of the imagination and the possibilities of science.

You're a top cancer scientist. And then you get cancer. Suddenly you become "A Cancer Patient", and one of your colleagues is wielding the (robotic) scalpel. A story about science, knowledge, and vulnerability.

In pursuit of a predator. A sting operation. A black list. Big law suits. Is this the biggest threat to science since the Inquisition? This audio has been updated due to technical glitch. Science Friction's fresh season for 2020 kicks off next episode.

Palestinian-American cartoonist and illustrator Marguerite Dabaie thought she understood her ancestry. But then she had a genetic test and things got messy. It’s not her DNA, it’s the technology

A young ornithologist. A Nazi expedition to Tibet. A Faustian pact in the name of science, but at what cost? This story gets very weird, very fast. But the animals are watching.

One Amish childhood + one strict Christian upbringing = two 21 year olds questioning everything they were ever taught. On the afterlife, evolution, and making your own way. (Summer Season highlight)

Lolita had one of the world's first uterus transplants - then what happened? (Summer Season highlight)

Who needs to get pregnant anymore when you can use a baby pouch? FullLife has the product for you. The sci fi imaginings of Helen Sedgewick. Utopia or the ultimate dystopia? A Science Friction mini-series that takes a womb's eye view of the future of reproduction.

It's boys against girls. Unleash the nerds and mischief. Play along.

Are you a little bit evil or a lot?

The selfish gene. The selfish ape. Survival of the fittest. Remarkable stories of two renegades who challenged a scientific orthodoxy about selfishness.

On poo, pooing and all that palaver. A children's author, a colorectal surgeon, a psychologist walked onto stage...

In the 1950s computers were so big they filled whole rooms. Women were employed in big numbers to work with them. But then something weird happened.

Hidden amongst astronomy's nineteenth century effort to map the stars, is a tale about some of the first women working in computing in Australia.

It's there if you look...under the sea. But how would we know? Join Science Friction on a journey into the lost heart of Doggerland.

What if you suddenly found out you aren't quite who you thought you were? Matty and family's story will move you.

What should you do with the embryos you have left over after IVF treatment?

A mystery about two Californian millionaires and two "orphan" embryos at the very beginning of the IVF revolution.