The Hundred Year Ego

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Archive on 4: The Hundred Year Ego

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, The Hundred Year Ego

David Baker looks back over the 100 years since Sigmund Freud published The Ego and the Id

A hundred years after Sigmund Freud wrote The Ego and the Id, David Baker explores the ego's journey from a way of thinking about the mind to how AI is developing an ego of its own

It’s 100 years since Sigmund Freud wrote The Ego and the Id, a book that reshaped the way we think about ourselves and the workings of our minds. 

David Baker explores the ego’s journey over the past century - from the inflated egos of dictators and the music of Hollywood films, to the mind-expanding love-ins of the hippy era and the greed is good ethos of neoliberalism. 

And, he asks, what can we make of claims that artificial intelligence is developing an ego of its own?

Producer: Neil George
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

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