Show 41 - First broadcast 13th March 2009

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WE’RE BACK! WE’RE LEANER, MEANER AND BURNING TO GO.

Science in the News

Playstation disease

According to the Journal of Dermatology,there’s a new disease doing the rounds called Playstation palmar hidradenitis.But don’t worry if you play on your Playstation too much, there is an easy cure.

Bring me the head of Albert Einstein

The new Einstein robot head that copies your facial expressions. It doesn’t feel emotion and so you can just kick it out of your way when you tire of it. Read my piece in the Guardian about it: While my android gently weeps.

From our futures defence correspondent

Rear Admiral Chris Parry talks us through electromagnetic radiation weapons. The can take out the who electricity supply for a whole city in seconds and anyone connected to it.

Feature Interview: Moral Machines with Colin Allen

Would you trust a machine to make life and death decisions about you. It doesn’t have to be a robot. I might be a piece of software that decides when to turn off your life support. A new book worth a read this year is  Moral Machines: Teaching robots rights and wrongs by Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen. Noel talks to one of the authors, Colin Allen a Professor of Cognitive Science and the History and Philosophy of Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, to find out what all the fuss is about. The book discusses many of the issues about why and how machines in the near future will make ethical decisions about our lives. They are not talking about some far fetched super intelligent machine that is conscious. They are talking about machines based on todays technology. The book is written in a very straighforward, interesting and non-technical style. Although there are parts where I don’t agree with them, it is in everyones interest to read this. It will make you better informed about a possible future that you may want to have opinions about – it is in your own interest.

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