AI&Us: with Wendy Hall and Sue Black

Headlines constantly warn us about sentient machines, superintelligence and physical robots, but the immediate realities of artificial intelligence are less cinematic and closer to home.

In this inaugural episode, co-hosts Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, and Sue Black OBE, Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist at Durham University, join forces to break through the hype around artificial intelligence.

The podcast is produced and published by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, where both are Fellows.

In the first episode, they argue that fears around the Terminator are less important than the people and ideas who will ensure AI develops in ways that benefit society.

Key Topics Covered:

The Terminator myth: Why physical robots are currently too expensive to replace human care workers and everyday jobs.

The scaling paradox: How artificial intelligence breaks traditional economic rules by becoming more expensive to run as it scales up.

The tech monoculture: Why most venture capital funding goes to men, and how a lack of diverse thought shifts the focus away from solving major global problems.

Data centres and the environment: Navigating the massive energy and water consumption of AI, alongside the future engineering potential to turn data centres into local heat generators.

Pre-flight safety checks: Why we need independent oversight of frontier models