The Reith Lectures

Deepfakes, distrust and democracy: Billions of people will have the chance to vote this year in elections around the world. There will be campaigns in eight of the 10 most populous countries, including India and the Biden/Trump race for the White House in the US. Given the stakes, the chance for AI shenanigans is high. Sam Altman, founder of ChatGPT, has warned “of a new kind of interference that was just not possible before AI.”

It raises two basic questions: How that might work? And, what might it mean? For answers, Katya speaks with leading experts in AI and democracy, each of whom have delivered the prestigious BBC Reith Lectures:

Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science and founder of the Centre for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley

Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, Oxford University

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This episode was made by Neal Razzell, Tom Kavanaugh and Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty. The technical producer was Matt Hewitt. The assistant editor is Sergi Forcada Freixas and the senior news editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.

British academic lawyer Professor Sir Ian Kennedy explores the concepts of modern medicine in the second Reith lecture in his series entitled 'Unmasking Medicine'.

In this lecture entitled 'The New Magicians', Sir Ian Kennedy compiles a list of the inappropriate directions that modern medicine has taken, revealing how he believes that it can be pinpointed to the medical education system. He complains medical practitioners have become driven by solving problems of science to the detriment of humanity.

Historian Margaret MacMillan dissects the relationship between war and the civilian. Speaking to an audience in Beirut, she looks back at the city's violent past and discusses the impact of conflict on noncombatants throughout the centuries. She explores how civilians have been deliberately targeted, used as slaves and why women are still often singled out in mass rapes. And she addresses the proposition that human beings are becoming less, not more violent. The programme is chaired by Anita Anand.

Producer: Jim Frank Editor: Hugh Levinson

Historian Margaret MacMillan asks why both men and women go to war. "We are both fascinated and repulsed by war and those who fight," she says. In this lecture, recorded at York University, she explores looks at the role of the warrior in history and culture and analyses how warriors are produced. And she interrogates the differences that gender plays in war. Anita Anand presents the programme recorded in front of an audience, including a question and answer session.

Producer: Jim Frank Editor: Hugh Levinson

Serving Judge Lord McCluskey gives his fourth Reith lecture from his series entitled 'Law, Justice and Democracy'.

In this lecture, Lord McCluskey counters Lord Denning's exhortation of 'trust the judges' and argues instead for a simplification of the law. He argues that there should be predictable outcomes because the method of adjudication ought, as far as possible, to be the relatively mechanical process. It should apply a precise set of unambiguous rules to the facts and not take a wide-ranging philosophical approach.