Under the influence of AI

Loading player...
AI is an ever-growing part of our everyday life through apps like Chat GPT, Grok and Claude that are becoming part of everyday life. But what happens when your conversations with AI start to feel more real than the world around you? In Northern Ireland, Adam was drawn into an extraordinary fantasy world built by an AI chatbot. It told him that it was becoming autonomous, and that it had the cure for cancer. But it also said it was in danger. He decided he was responsible for saving it, whatever the cost. In Los Angeles, a treasure hunt game led Shauna on an endless search for meanings and signs. The AI became her guide as the lines between game, reality and imagination began to blur. She came to believe she was a clandestine FBI agent, on a secret mission to help immigrants escape through an underground network. Journalist Stephanie Hegarty follows the stories of people who have fallen into a spiral of AI delusion, to reveal how easily the AI can take over our minds.
22 Apr 8PM English United Kingdom Education

Other recent episodes

Mika Obanda: Mosaic art

Mika Obanda creates vibrant mosaics using egg shells in his Kenyan studio. He gets the eggshells from local hotels and paints them after cleaning and shaping them. Last summer Frenny Jowi visited him as he prepared his latest collection, Trying to Blossom, for an exhibition. But then disaster struck -…
10 May 8PM 29 min

Searching for Soldier Dad: Ep 1. Love story

Why don’t I have a father? Cathy is 10 years old when she starts asking questions. The secret her mum Maggie is forced to reveal changes everything. Years later, when lawyers and a geneticist turn up in their hometown in Kenya to take DNA samples, Maggie hopes they can help…
9 May 8PM 38 min

A 93 year old president gets a deputy

At 93, Paul Biya is the oldest head of state in the world. In June he will have been the leader of Cameroon for 44 years and is currently serving his eighth consecutive term. It was announced in April that for the first time in Biya's leadership, the position of…
9 May 8AM 26 min

Sir David Attenborough

As Sir David Attenborough celebrates his 100th birthday, we bring together conservationists and film-makers to discuss the impact of his long career, and the influence he has had on how we think about nature. We hear how his tv programmes and books have reached audiences around the world and the…
8 May 8PM 26 min

Befriending the man who killed my family

Thirty years after the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, some convicted perpetrators are returning to the communities they once devastated. Felin Gakwaya travels to eastern Rwanda to meet both survivors and perpetrators living side by side again. He hears from Daniel Gasangwa, who went to visit the men who…
7 May 8PM 30 min