How To Grow A Human
by Dr Philip Ball
Philip Ball has two brains… In 1818 Mary Shelley wrote the seminal work ‘Frankenstein’, an exploration of the consequences of rivalling God by building a human being using parts stolen from dead bodies. 101 years later, Philip Ball explored in his book ‘How to Grow A Human’ how science is moving us closer to a different possibility, unguessed in Shelley’s novel: not of building but of growing a human artificially. The book arose from Philip’s experience of having a "second brain" grown from his own cells in a lab in London. As a visiting scholar at Harvard, he takes us to Boston to speak to the foremost leaders in the fields of biotechnology, genetics and AI about whether it’s now possible, and desirable, to consider treading the path of Victor Frankenstein in creating our own artificial human.
Episodes
-
Living With Our Creation
Part Six. The final episode in this series looks forward into the future. If we are able to reach the point where we can create advanced AI ‘beings’, will we be able to live alongside them – especially if they are in some ways more intelligent than us, or hold our lives in their hands? Phil puts...
-
Artificial Intelligence
Part Five. IBM is one of the world’s biggest makers of “thinking machines” – computers. So what better place to find out about the prospects for machine alternatives to the human brain? Would a cyborg be more successful, for example, than a being made entirely from human parts? Can a machine be...
-
Helping It Learn
Part Four. Phil goes to Harvard University to speak to eminent psychologist Tomer Ullman about how humans think and to ask if (and how) we could teach an artificial mind to learn what it needs to become ‘sentient’ and behave like a human. Thanks to Philip Ball for original music and...
-
Giving It Life
Part Three. The essence of humanity is often considered to lie in the human mind. If we could grow a brain to put into an artificial being, would that make it human? Will it have a mind at all? Phil talks to Alan Jasanoff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about the difficulties…
more -
Finding The Parts
Part Two. Stealing organs, as Victor Frankenstein did, is one way of going about things, but perhaps it’s safer and more legal to grow them instead… Phil’s quest takes him to speak to Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about the advances in human organ growth and…
more -
Playing God
Part One. So how to start building an artificial human? Maybe by thinking about what some regard as the instructions: the human genome. Phil goes to Harvard Medical School to track down George Church, an expert in genome editing, and finds out about how this technology could be opening up ways of...
About this show
Philip Ball has two brains… In 1818 Mary Shelley wrote the seminal work ‘Frankenstein’, an exploration of the consequences of rivalling God by building a human being using parts stolen from dead bodies. 101 years later, Philip Ball explored in his book ‘How to Grow A Human’ how science is moving us closer to a different possibility, unguessed in Shelley’s novel: not of building but of growing a human artificially. The book arose from Philip’s experience of having a "second brain" grown from his own cells in a lab in London. As a visiting scholar at Harvard, he takes us to Boston to speak to the foremost leaders in the fields of biotechnology, genetics and AI about whether it’s now possible, and desirable, to consider treading the path of Victor Frankenstein in creating our own artificial human.
Hosted by
Dr Philip Ball