From Sapiens to AI

Yuval Noah Harari’s best-selling Sapiens explored human’s extraordinary progress alongside the capacity to spin stories. In Nexus he focuses on how those stories have been shared and manipulated, and how the flow of information has made, and unmade, our world. With examples from the ancient world, to contemporary democracies and authoritarian regimes, he pits the pursuit of truth against the desire to control the narrative. And warns against the dangers of allowing AI to dominate information networks, leading to the possible end of human history.The classicist, Professor Edith Hall, looks at how information flowed in Ancient Greece, and how the great libraries of Alexandria and Pergamon were precursors to the World Wide Web. Homer wrote about intelligent machines in his epic poetry, which suggests that the human desire for AI goes back a long way, along with the hubris about being in control. By understanding and appreciating the past, Professor Hall argues we can look more clearly at our current condition. Madhumita Murgia is the first Artificial Intelligence Editor of the Financial Times and the author of Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI. She investigates the impact AI can have on individual lives and how we interact with each other. And while there are fears that companies have unleashed exploitative technologies with little public oversight, cutting edge software has unprecedented capacity to speed up scientific discoveries. Producer: Katy Hickman

The prize-winning writer Richard Powers moves from the forests and outer space in his last two novels The Overstory and Bewilderment, to dive into the vast and mysterious ocean in his latest work, Playground. Through the lives of four main characters he explores the ubiquity of play in the natural world, and the role technology is playing in the game of evolution. The scuba diving philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith concludes his three part exploration of the origins of intelligence, with Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness and the Making of the Natural World. As he looks back at the origins of life and its divergence, he places humans within this 3.8 billion year history, and their shared sentience with other life forms, and weighs their current responsibilities on an evolving planet. The marine biologist Professor Heather Koldewey takes her responsibilities very seriously, acting to protect the oceans from over-fishing and plastic pollution. One of the world’s leading authorities on seahorses, Koldewey has looked at forming partnerships with others to solve problems, from working with a manufacturer to turn discarded fishing nets into high-end carpets, to creating conservation areas alongside local fishing communities in projects across the Indian Ocean.Producer: Katy Hickman

The best-selling historian William Dalrymple presents India as the great superpower of ancient times in The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. He argues that for more than a millennium India art, religions, technology, astronomy, music and mathematics spread far and wide from the Red Sea to the Pacific, and its influence was unprecedented, but now largely forgotten.China’s significance has long been celebrated and understood, with reference to the ancient trading routes linking the east and west. The historian Susan Whitfield is an expert on the Silk Roads. She talks to Adam Rutherford about the extraordinary discovery of manuscripts in a cave in Dunhuang, in Northern China, which provide a detailed picture of the vibrant religious and cultural life of the town. An exhibition of the manuscripts, A Silk Road Oasis: Life in Ancient Dunhuang, runs at the British Library until 23rd February 2025.But what of India’s cultural and artistic influence and expression in modern times? Shanay Jhaveri is the new Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican and curator of their new exhibition, The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998 (October 2024 until January 2025). This landmark group show explores the way artists have responded to a period of significant political and social change in India in the 20th century.Producer: Katy Hickman

‘Professor Risk’ David Spiegelhalter delves into the data and statistics to explore the forces of chance, ignorance and luck in The Art of Uncertainty. Whereas life is uncertain, he shows how far the circumstances of how, when and where you were born have an overriding influence on your future. But he warns against confusing the improbable with the impossible. The novelist Roddy Doyle returns to the fortunes of one of his iconic characters, Paula Spencer, in his new book, The Woman Behind The Door. Mother, grandmother, widow, addict and survivor Paula Spencer is finally laying the ghosts of the past to rest, but how much is passed on to the next generation?The historian Eliza Filby is interested in inheritance of a different kind – money and housing. In Inheritocracy: It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad, she explores the nature of privilege through her own family’s experience. Filby’s grandfather had the lucky fortune of winning a house in a card game and the family went on to become ‘working class accidental millionaires’ who could pass on their fortune to later generations.Producer: Katy Hickman

The historian Timothy Snyder is famous for his work on the horrors of the 20th century and his call to arms to fight against tyranny in the 21st. Now, in ‘On Freedom’ he explores what liberty really means. He challenges the idea that this is freedom ‘from’ state or other obligations, and explores how across the US, Russia and Ukraine, true liberty is the freedom ‘to’ thrive and take risks. The Ukrainian poet, Oskana Maksymchuk also considers the question of freedom in her collection, Still City, a book that started as a poetic journal on the eve of the Russian invasion in 2021. The fragmentary poems detail the everyday moments amid the violence and fear and precarity of a country at war. The Russian Orthodox Church has managed to survive the turbulent history of the country, from tsarist demagoguery to Soviet atheism, and is now free to flourish under Vladimir Putin. But in her new book, The Baton and the Cross, the journalist Lucy Ash reveals how the religion has formed an unholy alliance with politics, state security and big money.Producer: Katy Hickman

The author and poet Kathleen Jamie celebrates a new form of writing – weaving personal notes, prose poems and acts of witness – in her latest book, Cairn. The new collection is a meditation on the preciousness and precariousness of both memory and the natural world. The broadcaster Jennifer Lucy Allan has taken a closer look at the relationship between humans and the earth in her book Clay. From the first clay tablets to the throwing of pots on a wheel, the history of this everyday material is bound up with our own and the act of creation.The artist Mark Hearld has a passion for making, from collage to printmaking, sculpture and ceramics. Like Kathleen Jamie he takes inspiration from the flora and fauna of the British countryside. In July he will be working in collaboration with the weavers at Dovecot in Edinburgh to turn his paper collages into a tapestry. Visitors to Dovecot will be able to see Mark and the weavers in action (Mark Hearld: At Home in Scotland, until July 18th). The Dovecot Tapestry studio was first established in Scotland in 1912 and today’s master weaver Naomi Robertson looks back at its history. She explains how over the last century expert craftsmen and woman have worked together using the colour and texture of the threads to transform artworks, from one medium – paper or canvas – to another.Producer: Katy HickmanStart the Week will be off air until Monday 16th September but you can find hundreds of episodes available on BBC Sounds and through the programme website.

How do animals detect natural disasters before they happen? Martin Wikelski, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour at the University of Konstanz argues they have a ‘sixth sense’ that humans are only just beginning to understand. In his book, The Internet of Animals, he reveals the extraordinary network of information gathered by tagging and tracking thousands of animals across the world.At the University of Glasgow researchers have been looking at how technology can be used to help animals communicate with each other. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas explored the potential of video-calling to reduce loneliness in parrots and found that the sociable birds preferred the live interaction to pre-recorded videos. The traditional rhythms of a pastoral life are at the heart of Kapka Kassabova’s new book, Anima. In the mountainous region of Bulgaria, she follows the ‘pastiri’ people, the shepherds struggling to hold onto an ancient way of life, and their relationship with the oldest surviving breeds of sheep and goats, and their legendary breed of dog, the Karakachan.Producer: Katy Hickman

British social etiquette might be famed for its liberal use of please and thank you, but civility is very much a European import, according to John Gallagher, professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds. As courtiers visited the French and Italian courts in the 16th century they not only learnt new languages but new rules of behaviour too. As the century progressed civility began to be weaponised as travellers sought to distinguish themselves from the ‘barbarous’ foreigners.The lexicographer and Countdown regular Susie Dent explains the etymology of terms like civilised, polite and barbarous. And she explores changing tastes in what is deemed impolite: in the Middle Ages the biggest taboo was any profanity that used the Lord’s name in vain, whilst the words we consider the most offensive today were commonplace.For years Professor Louise Mullany has been studying the prevalence and power of politeness in our everyday speech and actions. In her book, Polite: The Art of Communication at Home, at Work and in Public she uncovers the unwritten rules of behaviour, exploring the gender and generational differences, the art of the political apology, and whether politeness standards really are declining.The comedian and impressionist Matt Forde unpicks the argument that satirical shows like Spitting Image have contributed to the perceived lack of civility in politics. For his latest podcast, The Political Party, he is aiming to behave impeccably as he interviews a candidate from all 650 constituencies before the general election. Producer: Katy Hickman

Why are there areas of severe deprivation in prosperous countries, and how can prosperity be shared more equally? Those are the questions the world-renowned development economist Paul Collier explores in his book, Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places. He looks at areas that were once thriving – from the mining towns of South Yorkshire to the bustling city ports in Colombia – to explore widening inequality, but also to offer ideas of economic renewal.Matthew Xia directs the UK premier of Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morriseau at the Donmar Warehouse (from 28th June to 24th August 2024). Set in Detroit in 2008, the play follows a tight-knit group of workers in one of the city’s last surviving car factories as they struggle to come to terms with its inevitable closure. This is a story about the human cost of a global financial crisis and of enduring hope, against the odds.Joanna Kusiak calls herself a scholar-activist as she recounts the movement she was involved in that put people and community before speculative finance and profit. Her book, Radically Legal, is the story of how a group of ordinary Berliners used a forgotten clause in the German constitution to take back more than 240,000 apartments from corporate landlords. The book is based on Kusiak’s winning entry to the Nine Dots Prize, which supports the development of book proposals, and was in response to the question set by the prize: ‘why has the rule of law become so fragile?’ Producer: Katy Hickman

In front of an audience at the Hay Literary Festival Adam Rutherford talks to the botanist and Native American Robin Wall Kimmerer. In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass she shows the importance of bringing together indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge, to increase understanding of the languages and worlds of plants and animals. Hugh Warwick is an expert on hedgehogs but in his latest book, Cull of the Wild, he focuses on animals less native, and beloved. From grey squirrels in Anglesey to cane toads in Australia he explores the complex history of species control, and the ethics of killing in the name of conservation.The writer Olivia Laing turns her attention to the efforts to create paradise on earth. In The Garden Against Time she retells her own attempts to restore a walled garden in Suffolk while investigating the long history of gardens – real and imagined, follies and pleasure grounds.Producer: Katy Hickman