The Digital Human

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world

The Digital Human: Series 29: Utopia

Utopia

Series 29

BBC Radio 4 - The Digital Human, Series 29, Utopia

Aleks discovers if high tech megaprojects will be utopian dreams, or crumbling follies.

Megaprojects are supposedly the future - both in physical megacities, and the digital metaverse. Aleks discovers these projects could be utopian dreams, or just crumbling follies.

Our tech future will supposedly be defined by megaprojects. 

The most attention grabbing ideas include physical Megacities like ‘The Line’ in Saudi Arabia, or Telosa in the United States, and on the digital side of things, we have the Metaverse. These are both supposed to be the new places we will work, play, love and create - sweeping aside past cities and online communities to become a utopian place for everyone to gather, and live a better way.

But even as the foundations are laid… we seem to have moved on. The Metaverse has been roundly mocked and dismissed, with people deriding VR zoom meetings and legless avatars. While the very feasibility, and morality, of megacity projects has been questioned from their inception - comparisons to all manner of sci-fi dystopias abound. 

Aleks explores if promised tech utopias will inevitably become crumbling follies, why we get swept up in the narrative of a single tech genius who carves out the future for us all, and if the cycle of hype we have all been swept up in is disrupting our ability to indulge in slower iterations, which could actually lead us to a brighter tech future for us all.

The Digital Human: Series 29

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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The Digital Human

Series 29

Utopia

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