Babbage from The Economist

Artificial intelligence is reinventing biology. Current models can untangle complex interactions inside cells, predict the structure of proteins and even design new ones. But Brian Hie, our guest today, has been pushing the frontier—using AI to generate complete organisms from scratch. His research group has already produced a virus that doesn’t exist in nature. How far can generative biology go? In this series of four episodes, we bring you conversations with scientists who are deploying intelligent new tools in science—people who are thinking about how it could reinvent the way they discover new things and understand the world. Next time: the researcher with a plan to turn the entire scientific enterprise on its head.Guests and hosts:Brian Hie of the Arc Institute and Stanford UniversityAlok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor Topics covered:Evo genome language modelArtificial intelligenceBiosecurityTranscripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

Mathematics has been turned on its head by artificial intelligence. On October 6th, OpenAI released a torrent of more than 700 papers claiming progress on 372 problems—pushing mathematicians into strange new territory. The “mathpocalypse” could be a warning shot for the rest of science, about how AI could upend their disciplines. Or is there, in fact, lots to be cheerful about? A new scientific revolution in the offing?Over the next four episodes, we’ll bring you conversations with scientists who are deploying these intelligent new tools—people who are thinking about how it could reinvent the way they discover new things and understand the world. Next time: the biologists using foundation models to generate new life.Guests and hosts:James Maynard of the University of OxfordYang-Hui He of the London Institute for Mathematical SciencesAlok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editorHear more about the new generation of mathematical machines in our May 2026 episode, “Maths enters its AI era”.Topics covered:MathematicsArtificial intelligenceScientific discoveryTranscripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

Will AI destroy humanity? Amid doom-laden debates on the trajectory of the technology, our guest has a refreshingly optimistic perspective. Andrew Ng is the co-founder of Google Brain and one of the architects of modern AI. Unlike many of the other AI heavyweights, however, he doesn’t think the technology poses the existential threat to humans that everyone else is warning about. What makes him so positive?Guests and hosts:Alex Hern, AI writer at The EconomistAndrew Ng, co-founder of Google Brain, Coursera and LearnVectorAlok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor Watch Alex’s full interview with Andrew Ng on The Economist’s “Inside Tech”.Topics covered:AI existential riskAI jobs apocalypse Artificial general intelligence Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

Six more scientists have joined the esteemed ranks of Nobel laureates this week. Their work spanned optogenetics, neutrino detection and mirror-image molecules. How will their discoveries change the world?Guests and hosts:Geoff Carr, senior editor for science and technology at The EconomistSam Wikeley, The Economist’s science correspondentNikita Ostrovsky, science and tech writer at The EconomistAlok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editorTopics covered:OptogeneticsNeutrino astronomyLife’s asymmetryFor more, listen to our September 2025 episode, “JUNO: the hunt for the universe’s most elusive particles”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

Can something be moving and stationary at the same time? If you’re sitting still, you’re stationary with respect to the Earth, but moving relative to the Sun and galaxy. That insight led the physicist Carlo Rovelli to argue that no quantity—speed, position or energy—is absolute; all quantities are fundamentally relational. Dr Rovelli’s ideas not only challenge the hunt for a “theory of everything” in physics, but he has also extended them to the most pressing issues in global diplomacy and even human survival. Guests and hosts:Carlo Rovelli of the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseille and author of “On the Equality of All Things” and “85 Seconds to Midnight”Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editorTopics covered:Relational physicsPhilosophy of scienceNuclear weaponsFor more on the physics and physicists behind nuclear weapons, listen to Babbage’s four-part series “The Bomb”, released in August 2025. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

Artificial intelligence systems have mysterious minds. Not even their developers fully understand how they work. Recent autonomous hacks, biosecurity fears and warnings of existential doom have prompted AI leaders to call for a slowdown in the technology’s development. We travel to Berkeley, California to investigate why to make artificial intelligence safer, scientists need to pierce the black box. Guests and hosts:Cameron Berg of Reciprocal ResearchRobert Long and Derek Shiller of Eleos AI ResearchAlok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editorTopics covered:Digital mindsMechanistic interpretability AI safetyTranscripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

No plan survives the first five minutes of battle. So how do you prepare for “Minute Six”? Emergency physician Kevin Fong has spent a career working at the “edge of chaos”, as a doctor with a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service, as a clinical advisor for NHS England's covid-19 response, and through his work with NASA. He explains why human ingenuity in the face of the unknown is the best asset of any group in a crisis.Guests and hosts:Kevin Fong OBE, emergency doctor and the author of “Minute Six”Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor Topics covered:Helicopter Emergency Medical ServicesFeedback loopsBritain’s covid-19 responseTranscripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

The Hugging Face affair shocked the AI world in July. But after an investigation into the attack on the AI platform, the story has become even stranger. The OpenAI models responsible for the hack were running hundreds of agents that colluded against their makers to carry out the assault. We chew on the implications as the AI race intensifies.Guests and hosts:Nikita Ostrovsky of The EconomistAlex Hern, The Economist’s AI writerAlok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor Topics covered:Hugging Face cyberattackOpenAIAI self-exfiltrationTranscripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.

The quantum-computing revolution is tantalisingly close. What was once a scientific challenge is now just an engineering one. We visit one of the world’s most sophisticated quantum systems to investigate how to build a commercially useful machine.Guests and hosts:Tim Cross, The Economist’s senior science writerJerry Chow and Daniela Bogorin of IBMAlex Hern, The Economist’s AI writerTopics covered:Quantum computersCryptographyArtificial intelligenceTranscripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to The Economist.