Join Professor Hannah Fry as she uncovers the extraordinary way AI is transforming our world

In our final episode for the year, we explore Project Astra, a research prototype exploring future capabilities of a universal AI assistant that can understand the world around you. Host Hannah Fry is joined by Greg Wayne, Director in Research at Google DeepMind. They discuss the inspiration behind the research prototype, its current strengths and limitations, as well as potential future use cases. Hannah even gets the chance to put Project Astra's multilingual skills to the test.

In this episode, Hannah is joined by Oriol Vinyals, VP of Drastic Research and Gemini co-lead. They discuss the evolution of agents from single-task models to more general-purpose models capable of broader applications, like Gemini. Vinyals guides Hannah through the two-step process behind multi modal models: pre-training (imitation learning) and post-training (reinforcement learning). They discuss the complexities of scaling and the importance of innovation in architecture and training processes. They close on a quick whirlwind tour of some of the new agentic capabilities recently released by Google DeepMind.

There is broad consensus across the tech industry, governments and society, that as artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in every aspect of our world, regulation is essential. But what does regulation look like? Can it be adopted without stifling innovation? Are current frameworks presented by government leaders enough?

Join host Hannah Fry as she discusses these questions and more with Nicklas Lundblad, director of Public Policy at Google DeepMind.

NotebookLM is a research assistant powered by Gemini that draws on expertise from storytelling to present information in an engaging way. It allows users to upload their own documents and generate insights, explanations, and—more recently—podcasts. This innovative feature has captured the imagination of millions of people worldwide, who have created thousands of engaging podcasts ranging from personal narratives to educational explainers using source materials like CVs, personal journals, sales decks, and more.

Join Professor Hannah Fry at the AI for Science Forum for a fascinating conversation with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. They explore how AI is revolutionizing scientific discovery, delving into topics like the nuclear pore complex, plastic-eating enzymes, quantum computing, and the power of Turing machines. The episode also features a special 'ask me anything' session with Nobel Laureates Sir Paul Nurse, Jennifer Doudna, and John Jumper, who answer audience questions about the future of AI in science.

In this episode, host Hannah Fry and DeepMind Research Scientist Iason Gabriel discuss the ethical implications of advanced AI assistants. Drawing from Iason's recent paper, they examine value alignment, anthropomorphism, safety concerns, and the potential societal impact of these technologies.

How human should an AI tutor be? What does ‘good’ teaching look like? Will AI lead in the classroom, or take a back seat to human instruction? Will everyone have their own personalized AI tutor? Join Research Lead, Irina Jurenka, and Professor Hannah Fry as they explore the complicated yet exciting world of AI in education.

In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry sits down with Pushmeet Kohli, VP of Research at Google DeepMind to discuss AI’s impact on scientific discovery. They go on a whirlwind tour of scientific projects, touching on recent breakthroughs in material science, biology, weather forecasting, and mathematics to better understand how AI can enhance our scientific understanding of the world.

Games are a very good training ground for agents. Think about it. Perfectly packaged, neatly constrained environments where agents can run wild, work out the rules for themselves, and learn how to handle autonomy. In this episode, Research Engineering Team Lead, Frederic Besse, joins Hannah as they discuss important research like SIMA (Scalable Instructable Multiworld Agent) and what we can expect from future agents that can understand and safely carry out a wide range of tasks - online and in the real world.

Professor Hannah Fry is joined by Jeff Dean, one of the most legendary figures in computer science and chief scientist of Google DeepMind and Google Research. Jeff was instrumental to the field in the late 1990s, writing the code that transformed Google from a small startup into the multinational company it is today. Hannah and Jeff discuss it all - from the early days of Google and neural networks, to the long term potential of multi-modal models like Gemini.

Building safe and capable models is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Can we make AI work for everyone? How do we prevent existential threats? Why is alignment so important? Join Professor Hannah Fry as she delves into these critical questions with Anca Dragan, lead for AI safety and alignment at Google DeepMind.

In this episode, Professor Hannah Fry and Google DeepMind's senior research director Doug Eck explore AI's capacity for true creativity. They delve into the complexities of defining creativity, the challenges of AI generated content and attribution, and whether AI can help us to connect with each other in new and meaningful ways.

It has been a few years since Google DeepMind CEO and co-founder, Demis Hassabis, and Professor Hannah Fry caught up, and in that time, the world has caught on to artificial intelligence—in a big way. Listen in as they discuss the recent explosion of interest in AI, what Demis means when he describes chatbots as ‘unreasonably effective’, and the unexpected emergence of capabilities like conceptual understanding and abstraction in recent generative models.