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Insane Hollywood As so to recap, were

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unlimited within. Pretty good bye to the my clothes bathrooms that Mint

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mobile.com. Hello

1:20

and welcome to Tech Life, the program

1:22

about the technology making a difference to

1:24

your life. I'm Chris

1:26

Valance and today we hear from

1:28

the music legend Peter Gabriel. He's

1:31

endorsed a competition to find a

1:33

way of decoding animal communications using

1:35

artificial intelligence and then talk back

1:37

to them. Microplastics in our

1:39

seas and drinking water. It's a real

1:41

problem. We hear from two teenage students

1:44

in Texas who found an innovative way

1:46

to get rid of the stuff. If

1:49

you haven't heard about the Global Digital

1:51

Compact, we speak to someone who says

1:54

you really need to know about it

1:56

and bringing tech to a traditional Indian

1:58

instrument. Drum roll please. with

4:00

bonobo apes where they prove

4:02

to be both sensitive and

4:04

very musical. And I hope that

4:07

we will soon emerge into a

4:10

world in which all

4:12

sentient beings have a chance

4:15

to express themselves in whatever

4:17

ways they're capable of and

4:20

to be treated with respect, dignity

4:22

and compassion. Peter Gabriel

4:25

there. The prize, its organizers

4:27

stress, is looking for proposals

4:29

for serious scientific research into

4:31

two-way communication with animals. I

4:33

spoke to chair of the prize,

4:35

Professor Yossi Yovell of Tel Aviv

4:37

University, whose own research uses AI

4:40

to help understand how fruit bats

4:42

communicate. Imagine thousands of bats

4:44

all roosting. These are fruit bats roosting

4:46

in their cave. And most of the

4:48

communication is about they're pushing

4:50

each other and they're fighting for space

4:52

or one individual is trying to take

4:54

a banana out of the mouth of

4:56

another individual. And we show

4:59

that using AI, you can actually decipher

5:01

a lot of the different contexts. So

5:03

we've shown that statistical tools can do

5:05

this. But in order to really win

5:07

the competition, you would have

5:10

to show a response of the bat. For

5:12

example, you could play back the sounds and

5:14

show that the bats are responding accordingly. And

5:17

it would be even better if you

5:19

could have a real two-way conversation. So,

5:21

you know, you have, let's say, a

5:23

machine, a speaker playing sound and the

5:25

bat responding and then the speaker responds

5:27

accordingly. And that's the that's

5:29

the dream. That would be like

5:31

a winning proposal. So

5:34

you're you're really talking about

5:36

two-way communication, not just listening.

5:39

Yeah, so exactly. So we're not talking

5:41

about we're definitely not talking about training.

5:44

OK, so training your dog to

5:46

respond to your own human signals

5:48

that's not considered a

5:51

communication or it's not the type of

5:53

communication we're aiming for. world-class

12:00

tabler player and music producer, Kooljit

12:02

Bhamra and his team, have given

12:04

these gorgeous hand drums an electronic

12:06

makeover. It took them five

12:09

years to work out exactly how. Once

12:14

a prototype was available during COVID lockdown in

12:16

2020, I was

12:18

treated to an online music lesson with Kooljit

12:20

to test it. There we go. I

12:23

was fascinated. That's

12:25

incredible. One

12:27

look at his memorabilia-laden studio

12:29

shows just how much Kooljit

12:31

relishes both the traditional and

12:33

futuristic. And four years

12:36

since our virtual jam session, I finally got

12:38

to catch up in person and find out

12:40

how he's been getting on. Hi.

12:43

Hello. How are you doing? Yeah, really good, thank you. I

12:46

feel bad interrupting. No, no, no, please don't feel bad at all.

12:48

Can we talk technical for a second? Yeah, sure. Because

12:51

I can, I'm very happy to talk about

12:53

the music side forever, but it's a technology

12:55

program. Oh, yes, I must remember that. Yes,

12:57

we should probably talk about the technology behind

13:00

it. Has anything changed on this since

13:03

I touched the prototype four years ago?

13:06

Now, there's a sensing technology, obviously,

13:08

underneath these. Each

13:11

drumhead has an array of sensors. I can't talk

13:13

about it too much, because it's all patent. Well,

13:15

it is patented, but it's sort of, it's got

13:17

an array of sensors. And

13:22

the sensors are working at a very

13:26

high level of sensitivity. So just to give

13:28

you an example, if I strike this drum

13:30

here, I get that

13:32

sound, obviously. Now,

13:34

if I just rest my other finger there and

13:36

then strike it, I get a different sound. I'm

13:41

not pressing that hard at all, it's just resting. So

13:47

I think when you saw it, it was more

13:50

sort of zone based, like maybe an electronic drum

13:52

kit. But you can imagine

13:54

if you've got sticks, you're

13:56

sort of hitting one point. But

13:59

with this. and

18:00

then the more Ghanaian

18:02

languages come on Wikipedia, it

18:04

becomes easy for the indigenous to also

18:07

have something to hold onto. Costanza

18:09

Shuba-Canelia is the anti-disinformation

18:11

strategy lead at the

18:13

Wikimedia Foundation. I asked

18:16

her what Wikipedia wants to come out

18:18

of the global digital compact. We

18:20

would like the compact to protect

18:23

communities online that try to create

18:25

content that is available for everybody.

18:27

Like for example, Wikipedia, but Wikipedia

18:30

is just an example. There are

18:32

many other websites to do this.

18:35

We would also like the

18:38

compact to make an open

18:40

commitment to respect

18:43

and protect human rights online. And

18:46

then we would also like

18:48

the compact to promote

18:50

and protect digital public goods like

18:53

Wikipedia. So in other words, websites

18:55

and products in general goods

18:58

that are useful for everybody around the

19:01

world. Yeah, and Wikipedia is useful for

19:03

lots of people around the world, isn't

19:05

it? You translated it, I think, into

19:07

300 languages, is that right? 300

19:09

different languages that have their own version of

19:11

Wikipedia, if you like, with

19:14

their own articles and versions of other

19:16

articles. And there's also some stuff

19:18

about AI as well, artificial intelligence.

19:21

Yes, and we would also

19:24

like all of AI products

19:26

to have a human

19:28

check. In other words,

19:31

to build artificial intelligence and

19:33

machine learning to support and

19:35

empower and not replace

19:38

the people who create the content

19:41

and make decisions in the public

19:43

interest. So that means, what,

19:46

for example, if you've got

19:48

an AI making decisions, there

19:50

should be a human reviewing those decisions, that sort

19:52

of thing. I mean, there's lots of different uses

19:55

of AI. Are there any particular

19:57

to Wikipedia that you think about? Yes,

20:01

we take this from our own

20:03

model and we understand that it

20:05

will have to be changed depending

20:07

on the different type of AI

20:09

we're talking about. So it is

20:11

more of a principle. But

20:14

for example, on Wikipedia, there

20:16

are many bots that are used

20:18

to check on the content and

20:21

check against harassment and check against

20:23

bad edits. For example,

20:26

all of these bots are, first

20:28

of all, they clearly labeled, so

20:30

they say they are bots, and

20:33

their decisions are always reviewed

20:36

by editors. So

20:38

Wikipedia itself uses AI to check

20:40

that the things aren't going wrong

20:43

on the site. Yes,

20:45

absolutely. But there is human oversight of

20:48

that. And you think that's important generally?

20:52

Yes, yes, exactly. Do you fear that there

20:54

are people who don't actually want there to

20:56

be the kind of internet that you're pushing

20:58

for? I mean, there are a lot of

21:01

powerful companies, there are authoritarian governments. Are

21:03

you worried that you might not get all

21:06

you're asking for in this compact, that it

21:08

might not protect sites like Wikipedia? We

21:10

are pretty optimistic with

21:13

the draft that we have seen so

21:15

far. However, this is

21:17

a large discussion, even larger

21:20

than the Global Digital Compact,

21:22

many other internet regulation processes

21:24

are coming to be re-discussed

21:27

between this year and next

21:29

year. And absolutely,

21:31

there are interests that

21:34

want to take more

21:36

top-down control of the internet. And

21:38

if this happens, let's

21:40

focus on your site, and it

21:43

becomes difficult to operate because the rules

21:45

of the game change, the internet changes.

21:48

What will people lose? I mean, we've got listeners all

21:50

around the world. How important

21:52

to their lives is Wikipedia?

21:55

What's at stake here? Yeah,

21:57

they might lose access to

21:59

Wikipedia. Wikipedia, which is

22:02

one of the top 10 websites

22:05

most visited in the world, and

22:07

the only nonprofit website

22:10

in that list. One thing to

22:12

note is that Wikipedia is also

22:15

used by search engines, is used

22:17

by digital assistants,

22:19

and it's used by AI, as

22:22

we said, to create

22:25

content. So all of this would

22:27

be lost, not just accessing Wikipedia

22:29

per se, but all of the

22:31

information that sometimes we access every

22:33

day and we don't even realize

22:35

it comes from Wikipedia, we

22:38

would lose all of that. That's

22:41

Costanza Schuber-Canelia from the

22:43

Wikimedia Foundation. You're

22:48

listening to Tech Life. We started today's

22:51

edition with news of a competition designed

22:53

to encourage innovation, and we'll end with

22:55

news of another one. Here's

22:57

Tech Life's Shona McCallum. When

23:04

you think of plastic pollution, it might

23:06

be images of bottles and netting washed

23:08

up on a beach that comes to

23:10

your mind. But have you

23:12

ever heard of microplastics? Well,

23:14

I've been speaking to two teenage students

23:16

from Texas in the US who can

23:18

explain all about it. They

23:21

have just won a competition prize

23:23

of $50,000 for creating

23:25

a microplastic filtration system

23:28

using ultrasound technology. Here's

23:31

the moment they found out they had won. The

23:34

recipients of the Gordon E. Moore Award

23:36

for Positive Outcomes for Future

23:38

Generations are in the

23:40

category of Earth and Environmental

23:43

Sciences Victoria Wu and Justin

23:45

Yeun-Tuk-Wong. I

23:47

caught up with them both. Tell

23:49

me about microplastics and what issues they

23:52

can bring. Microplastics

23:54

are any plastic debris that are

23:56

less than 5mm in length, and

23:58

ingesting them can have consequences

24:00

for both humans and aquatic organisms.

24:03

It's been discovered to also increase

24:05

the risk of a cardiovascular event.

24:07

So that's kind of why the

24:10

issue of microplastics is important. The

24:13

average Americans follows a credit card's

24:15

worth of microplastics per week. I

24:18

just wondered what implications that might have

24:20

on our health. A lot of the

24:23

long-term effects of microplastics, actually

24:25

we still have yet to research and

24:27

see since plastics have only recently

24:29

kind of been introduced to us in

24:31

the past couple decades. And microplastics also

24:33

take a long time to break down

24:35

so they just eventually accumulate within our

24:37

body. And so what inspired

24:40

you guys to find a solution to

24:42

this? A lot of

24:44

current solutions to remove microplastics

24:46

from the water are

24:49

not very effective. They're too expensive,

24:51

kind of inefficient, or sometimes they

24:53

add in harmful chemicals, which might

24:55

be bad for humans to consume.

24:57

So we wanted to explore a

24:59

more non-invasive method to removing microplastics

25:02

from water, so not having to

25:04

add in anything. And we kind

25:06

of found ultrasound as an option.

25:09

You're using an ultrasound filtration system.

25:11

Can you explain that to me?

25:13

Essentially how it works is you

25:15

can imagine the ultrasound that's generated

25:17

creates an acoustic radiation force and

25:19

more importantly an area of higher

25:21

pressure within the steel tube that

25:23

pushes back microplastics and blocks the

25:25

microplastics from continuing to flow. So

25:27

whenever you have water that has

25:29

microplastics in it, the water will

25:31

be able to pass through the

25:33

pipe, but all the microplastics will

25:35

be blocked by the acoustic radiation

25:38

force. And what waters are we

25:40

talking about when we're looking at

25:42

areas that are badly affected by

25:44

microplastics? First, we wanted to definitely

25:46

stop microplastics from reaching the water

25:48

we use. So that would be

25:50

water treatment plants, but we were

25:52

also thinking of using it to

25:54

prevent further microplastics from entering back

25:56

into our environment, for example laundry

25:58

machines, because we We

26:00

found that 35% of primary microplastic

26:03

pollution comes from synthetic textiles that

26:05

are washed out with your laundry.

26:07

So by implementing our

26:09

device at laundry machines or even textile

26:12

plants in the future, we could definitely

26:14

help prevent further microplastic pollution from occurring.

26:16

And Justin, how energy efficient and cost

26:18

efficient is this technology? The amount of

26:21

power that the system actually uses is

26:23

only 2 watts. And if we go

26:25

by that measurement and 15 cents per

26:27

kilowatt hour, which is kind of a

26:30

standard convention, then we can filter about

26:32

40 liters of water with one cent

26:34

of energy using this. Victoria,

26:37

I just want to know

26:39

about your ambitions for this

26:41

technology. Yeah, so we definitely

26:43

hope to take our research

26:45

into next year and in the future by

26:47

working maybe with professors

26:49

or other institutions who I'd be willing

26:51

to. That's Justin Huan

26:53

and Victoria Ooh in Texas

26:56

speaking to Shona McCallum. Well

27:04

that's the end of our jam-packed journey from

27:06

music to microplastics. Phew, I need to lie

27:08

down. But the conclusion of

27:10

one show is the start of another

27:12

and we'd love to include your thoughts.

27:15

TechLife at bbc.co.uk is our email

27:18

address or you can WhatsApp us

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on plus 44330 1230320. Please

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tell us who you are and where you

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live. You can also send a voice message.

27:31

Today's TechLife was produced by Tom

27:34

Quinn, edited by Monica Soriano and

27:36

presented by me, Chris Valance. Hi,

27:52

I'm Daniel, founder of Pretty Litter. Cats

27:54

and cat owners deserve better than any

27:56

old fashioned litter. That's why I teamed

27:58

up with scientist and veterinarians to create

28:00

Pretty Litter. It's innovative. Crystal Formula has

28:02

superior order control and ways up to

28:04

eighty percent less than clay litter. Pretty

28:06

Litter even monitors health by changing colors

28:08

to help detect early signs of potential

28:11

illness. It's the world's smartest kitty litter.

28:13

so of. litter.com and use Code A

28:15

cast for twenty percent off your first order

28:17

and a free cat toy. Terms and conditions

28:19

apply see site. For details. The

28:32

joy they brought to the nation.

28:34

You're free completely. No one is

28:36

there to destroy you. The danger

28:38

they endured. They said my head

28:40

should be cut off. I'm

28:43

John Legend. Listen to Afghan

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Star on the iHeartRadio app or

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wherever you get your podcasts.