Supersenses

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Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Prof Ben Garrod investigates the AI revolution which is super-charging sensing technology.

An AI revolution is super-charging sensing technology. Prof Ben Garrod meets the scientific first adopters who are having their worlds turned upside down and inside out.

We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until Now.  This technological disruption is starting to profoundly change how we interact with the world around us, revealing it to us for the first time in high fidelity and with striking detail.

An AI revolution is super-charging sensing technology, promising us eyes with laser precision, ears that can distinguish every sound in a mile's radius and noses than can sniff out the early signs of forest fires before a flame is present.  

Prof. Ben Garrod, evolutionary biologist & primatologist, meets the first adopters. The archaeologists, ecologists and medics, who are having their worlds turned upside down and inside out.

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Supersenses: Super-sensing Ben

Super-sensing Ben

BBC Radio 4 - Supersenses, Super-sensing Ben

Prof Ben Garrod explores whether through technology he can become a super-sensing human.

Professor Ben Garrod plays with the wearable tech helping track to our health and meets pioneers of brain implants. Could all this technology help us learn more about ourselves?

We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us, but is allowing us to see, hear, smell, taste and even touch things we never imagined possible before. 

An artificial intelligence revolution is super-charging sensing technology, promising us eyes with laser precision, ears that can distinguish every sound in a mile's radius and noses than can sniff out the early signs of forest fires before the first flame forms.

Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of these sensory innovators and technological pioneers. The brain surgeons, bio-ethicists and psychologists who are turning our world upside down and inside out.

In episode five, we take the jump from virtual reality into augmented reality. We meet a man whose VR experience takes us inside a ducks vagina. And a company whose VR experiences have won prizes at major film festivals. We play with the health monitors which could just make us fitter, happier and more productive humans in the future. We meet a neuroscientist behind the first medically approved brain implants. And we meet a technologist who says he might be able to give people back lost senses.

Could these new technologies and natural evolutions be redefining what it is to be human? Ben takes us through the amazing adaptations, and technological developments that could help stretch us become all-sensing superhumans with possibly even more than five senses.

Presenter: Professor Ben Garrod
Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski

Series exec: Alex Mansfield
Development producer: Melanie Brown

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