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Zoe Kleinman here. For the next few weeks,

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we're bringing you a brand new podcast from

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the BBC World Service here in the Digital

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1:27

Life, and each week it brings you the top

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hit subscribe or follow so you never miss

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an edition. But for now, on with

1:40

the show.

1:41

The rapid development of artificial intelligence

1:43

is mind-boggling for most of us, but

1:46

you might expect Google boss Sundar Pichai,

1:49

speaking to CBS News, to be a little

1:51

more ahead of the curve.

1:52

There is an aspect of this which we call,

1:55

all of us in the field, call it as a black box.

1:58

You know, you don't fully understand. You can't

2:00

quite tell why it said this

2:02

or why it got wrong. Maybe

2:05

not then. This week, we ask if even the

2:07

boss of Google can't fully comprehend how his

2:09

own chatbot works. Is it time to

2:11

press pause on the AI race? I'm

2:14

Zoe Kleinman and this is Tech Life.

2:32

Artificial intelligence feels like the hottest

2:34

and certainly the most lucrative topic

2:36

in tech right now. The competition

2:38

between the world's biggest firms to develop

2:41

products and services powered by it

2:43

is fierce, with Elon Musk becoming

2:45

the latest to promise a game-changing chatbot.

2:48

It's both an exciting era of rapid

2:50

innovation and also a little bit terrifying,

2:53

as some experts are questioning whether we fully

2:55

understand the power of what we're creating.

2:58

And now this has happened. A Google AI

3:00

programme has taught itself Bengali,

3:03

the language of Bangladesh, despite not

3:05

being trained in it. I'm not kidding. Google's

3:08

bard learned another language, seemingly

3:10

off its own bat. Have a listen to James

3:13

Manneka, who leads on AI at the firm, and

3:15

Google boss Sundar Pichai. They're both

3:17

speaking to Scott Pelli on 60 Minutes on

3:19

CBS News.

3:21

We discovered that with very few

3:23

amounts of prompting in Bengali,

3:25

it can now translate all of Bengali.

3:28

There is an aspect of this which we call,

3:31

all of us in the field, call it as a black box.

3:33

You know, you don't fully understand. And

3:36

you can't quite tell why it said

3:39

this or why it got wrong. We have some

3:41

ideas and our ability to understand

3:43

this gets better over time.

3:45

But that's where the state of the art is. You don't

3:47

fully understand how it works, and

3:50

yet you've turned it loose on society?

3:53

Let me put it this way. I don't think

3:55

we fully understand how a human mind

3:57

works either. Hogarth,

4:00

co-founder of the tech firm Plural,

4:03

an author of the status of AI reports.

4:06

Ian, how worried should we be that AI

4:09

like Google's bard is doing things that

4:11

we don't fully understand? I

4:13

mean first of all I mean I'm an investor in

4:15

frontier technology so you know my

4:17

day job is investing in things that are kind

4:20

of really cutting-edge technology you know like

4:22

nuclear fusion or quantum computers or

4:24

applications of machine learning and so I'm

4:26

you know extremely excited about about new technology

4:29

I think it has remarkable potential

4:32

to transform kind of every aspect of our lives and I think

4:34

AI is is is in some ways

4:37

maybe the most powerful technology. The

4:40

main thing that I believe is that we should be having

4:42

a much more public discussion about

4:45

how rapidly the systems are progressing and how different

4:47

it is to prior generations of software.

4:49

Because a lot of people

4:51

discovered it really with the launch of chat

4:53

GPT in November last year

4:56

but obviously there have been years of research

4:58

getting us to this point and then when you

5:00

look at something like chat GPT that's so powerful

5:02

and it's only the fourth generation and

5:05

you know what are the next steps where are we going with

5:07

this?

5:09

I think that's exactly right Zoe so chat

5:11

GPT is an incredible achievement

5:13

of engineering but it really builds on

5:15

an exponential that's been running for

5:17

about the last decade and so if

5:20

you kind of go back to 2012 and

5:22

you compare the systems we were building then and the

5:24

systems we're building now we've been very

5:27

kind of very consistently increasing

5:29

the amount of data and the amount of computing

5:31

power we use to develop the largest and most capable

5:33

AI models and you know just as a snapshot

5:36

for you we've we've gone from

5:38

you know a relatively small number of

5:40

images being fed into the largest AI

5:42

systems in 2012 to now

5:45

feeding you know a large amount

5:47

of the internet into the most powerful systems like

5:49

a system like GPT-4 and we've increased

5:51

the amount of computing power consumed

5:54

by these models by about a factor of a hundred

5:56

million in the last decade and so although

5:59

it feels like

5:59

chat GPT kind of came out of nowhere

6:02

to most people. In practice this

6:04

is a very long-running trend that is

6:06

going to continue. And

6:08

it's kind of not building

6:10

on what we might consider

6:12

to be existing tech, it's a whole new lane isn't

6:15

it really? Yeah that's right.

6:17

When we write traditional software we have

6:19

quite an explicit understanding of how and

6:21

why the inputs relate to the output, outputs,

6:24

sometimes people would describe that as a white box

6:27

and these large AI systems are really quite different,

6:30

you know they're closer to a black box in lots of ways

6:32

where you don't really understand what's happening inside. We

6:35

don't so much as kind of you

6:37

know

6:38

program them to do very explicit

6:41

things. I like to think that we grow

6:43

them that feels like the best

6:46

framing I've heard of how we kind of build these systems

6:48

today. And the tricky

6:50

thing is as we grow them you

6:52

get these big sharp jumps in capabilities.

6:55

So you add you know 10 times more computing

6:57

power or 10 times more data and suddenly

6:59

the system can do something that it couldn't do before.

7:02

The challenge with AI is there are lots of

7:04

different ways in which it's going to

7:06

affect us and a lot we've talked a lot

7:08

I think

7:08

as a society about the potential

7:12

impacts on the economy. We've talked

7:14

about the potential impact on military

7:16

technology but we've had less discussion

7:18

I think of these kind of these

7:22

broader risk of disrupting us as

7:24

a species.

7:25

Are you on team Musk then

7:28

in terms of

7:30

being of the view that we really need to slow this down for

7:32

a minute and figure out how we're

7:34

going to live with it and where it's going to go? So

7:37

I think a pause does seem

7:39

like a sensible idea but for

7:41

me the the real question is how do we have

7:43

a public conversation about this because the

7:46

reason that personally I think a pause would be good is it

7:48

would give us time to have a public conversation

7:50

about what we should be doing with this. You know

7:52

I think that most of your listeners would not be

7:54

aware that these these small number

7:56

of companies are trying to build a kind of super

7:59

intelligent god-like machine and

8:01

I think we need to know what people think about

8:03

this broadly before we raise

8:06

to develop it any further to avoid

8:08

a situation where the public is really left behind.

8:11

Ian Hogarth there.

8:18

Coming up, a sound to represent

8:21

all online human knowledge. And

8:27

a rather chilling claim. I could

8:30

come up with a date predicting

8:32

when you would die. I have a way to calculate

8:35

it. Can you tell me? No.

8:37

And a reminder that we want your thoughts. Hopefully

8:40

a bit less morbid than that please. Email techlife

8:42

at bbc.co.uk or

8:45

WhatsApp us on 0330 123 0320.

8:54

Next, Meta is embroiled

8:56

in a legal dispute in Kenya over

8:58

the moderation of Facebook contents. That

9:01

legal battle has intensified in recent

9:03

days and it's left people wondering who, if

9:06

anyone, is reviewing harmful

9:08

and hateful material on the platform. Our

9:11

reporter Michael Colocchi has been following the case

9:13

and he joins us from Nairobi. Michael,

9:15

hello.

9:16

Hello. Michael, just remind

9:18

us of exactly what this moderator

9:20

dispute is all about. So

9:23

there are a number of different elements to this

9:25

dispute. So first, let me try and give you

9:27

a bit of background to this. Basically, Meta

9:29

had contracted a company called Sama as

9:31

a content review partner to offer

9:33

it content review services here in the sub-Saharan

9:36

Africa region. Sama has a hub

9:38

here in Kenya and it had a number of people it had hired

9:40

in the region to carry out content

9:42

moderation on Meta's platforms. Now,

9:45

at some point it seems Sama

9:47

decided to wind down its content moderation

9:49

arm to concentrate on labeling

9:51

and this is computer vision data

9:54

annotation. It seems a decision

9:57

may have been made by Sama to lay over 200

10:01

content moderators working from its hub

10:03

here in the country. So some of the moderators

10:05

filed a petition at a court here in Kenya

10:07

earlier in March this year claiming illegal

10:10

firing by Sama and the

10:13

court blocked Sama from undertaking

10:15

the layoffs. Now while all this was

10:17

taking place on one end, on the other

10:19

end, Meta was apparently looking for a new content

10:22

review partner and seemed to settle

10:24

on one called Majorel. However,

10:27

a Kenyan court barred Meta from

10:29

engaging its new moderation partner

10:31

Majorel and reserved that role

10:34

for Sama. So

10:36

as you can see, it is a bit of a mix of

10:38

different issues going on but perhaps

10:41

to sum it up is that some of the content

10:43

moderators at Sama would like

10:45

to continue with their jobs as content

10:48

moderators for Meta and they also

10:50

claim they have been blacklisted by Meta

10:52

and Majorel. That is the new content

10:54

review partner for Meta that Meta seems

10:57

to have settled on. So basically it

10:59

seems that content moderators are worried

11:01

also about possibly not being hired

11:03

by Majorel or Meta if they

11:06

lose their jobs at Sama. Now

11:08

on Meta's side they are basically saying

11:10

that hey, you know, we are not part of this

11:13

issue. What is happening at Sama

11:15

has really nothing directly

11:17

to do with us and Meta

11:20

feels they should be allowed to get on

11:22

with carrying out their regular business.

11:24

So who or perhaps I should ask

11:27

what is actually moderating

11:29

Facebook content at the moment? Is it

11:31

purely being done

11:33

by computers, by algorithms or are there

11:35

some human moderators too?

11:38

Well, it seems unclear at this

11:40

point who is moderating Facebook

11:43

at this stage. You know, from my point I think

11:45

it would be quite difficult for

11:47

them to operate without content

11:50

moderators but at this

11:52

stage they have not revealed who

11:54

or what might be handling

11:56

their content moderating at this point

11:59

in time.

11:59

I should say it might be

12:02

noted by many perhaps as

12:04

a fringe part

12:06

of the working sector.

12:09

But however, it is essential and essential

12:11

because content moderation

12:14

has been viewed to play an essential

12:16

role here in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa.

12:19

Misinformation has been singled out

12:21

as one of the key elements that have fueled some

12:24

of the conflicts we have witnessed here in the region

12:26

and hate messaging has of course been attributed

12:29

to this as well. So

12:29

definitely content

12:32

moderation plays a key role in

12:34

trying to stop misinformation and hate

12:36

messaging.

12:37

Also as well as should not, there is the issue

12:39

of culturally acceptable language

12:41

and visuals for example. So content

12:44

moderators would also play a crucial role

12:46

in this area as well.

12:47

What's the next step? Well

12:50

the next step is that the judge is

12:52

expected to rule over

12:55

whether this case can actually

12:58

continue in a Kenyan court and

13:00

whether a Kenyan court has the

13:02

jurisdiction to hear this case or

13:05

not. So a ruling

13:07

on this matter is expected this

13:10

week. Both sides would likely

13:12

be earnestly waiting to hear what the

13:14

ruling is because it will likely determine

13:16

what direction this case will take.

13:19

Michael, thank you so much for joining us here

13:21

on TechLife.

13:23

Thank you. And

13:27

now Wikipedia is adding to that soundscape with something a little more

13:29

challenging.

13:35

A

13:40

single sound to represent all

13:43

human knowledge. They could have asked chat

13:45

GPT but they didn't. They turned to the public

13:47

worldwide for ideas. We've chatted

13:49

on the show before about some of the more left

13:51

field suggestions and guess what? Well

13:54

now there's a winner. Our reporter Alistair

13:56

Keen has taken a listen.

13:57

Street

14:00

I've just arrived at a huge black

14:02

gate and behind it a big

14:05

black door. This is the home of

14:07

massive music. It's a recording

14:10

studio but they're not recording a new

14:12

song for a pop artist. There's

14:14

something very different going on in here. Hello,

14:19

hi, thank you. Hi, Alistair.

14:22

I'm being met at the door by Emma

14:24

Byford from the company.

14:26

We're a global creative music agency

14:28

and essentially we deliver anything

14:30

that Brian could need in the world of audio,

14:32

in music and sound and one of those key

14:34

things is sonic branding and part of sonic

14:37

branding is audio logos and I mean

14:39

they're known as many different things so it could be you know a

14:41

sonic logo, audio logo, sound logo,

14:43

even a jingle but yeah essentially that's

14:45

what we do.

14:47

These often subtle sounds are

14:49

found across the tech we use

14:52

every day. We really are

14:54

living in such an audio driven world

14:56

now and there's things like podcasts,

14:58

voice assistant devices, audio

15:01

streaming, apps and the likes and kind of who

15:03

knows where the internet will evolve to in the future. The

15:05

latest

15:05

logo being worked on here is the

15:07

result of an international competition. More

15:10

than 3,000 entries from 135 countries

15:12

all wanting to be the sound of Wikimedia,

15:16

most well known for the information sharing

15:19

website Wikipedia. The competition

15:21

winner...

15:25

Thaddeus Osborne. I'm a nuclear

15:27

engineer based out of Norfolk,

15:30

Virginia in the United States of America and I

15:33

have a hunger for knowledge and I also

15:36

have a hunger for music so

15:38

I listen to music as much as I can. It's

15:40

mostly as a hobby so it's quite

15:42

a shock to wind up here. But why does

15:44

this organization want a sonic logo?

15:47

Tass Elias from Wikimedia is

15:49

here for the recording. We understood

15:52

a lot of information that

15:54

people around the world were receiving through

15:57

voice assistants and smart speakers were...

15:59

coming from our free knowledge projects.

16:02

So we felt it was a great

16:05

time to start working towards

16:07

identifying that content as

16:09

coming from Wikimedia.

16:15

We've just come into a recording studio which

16:17

looks kind of exactly as you would expect a recording

16:19

studio to look. There's a keyboard in front

16:22

of us, a big computer screen showing different

16:24

wavelengths of the different sounds that are recorded.

16:26

There's an arm coming out of the desk with a

16:28

microphone attached to it. This is

16:30

the kind of room where you would expect maybe to be

16:32

recording music or

16:34

some songs but actually in here

16:36

they've been recording the sounds of clicks and

16:38

keyboards and books being shuffled.

16:41

How easy or hard has that task been

16:43

for you? It's kind of

16:45

funny. It's much the same kind

16:48

of task though. You're trying to create a nice

16:50

product and I do want this to be emotional

16:52

too. I want it to be welcoming and kind

16:55

of friendly. Shall we have a go at

16:57

doing some of this stuff?

16:58

Here

17:02

we're flipping a book. We are

17:04

just trying to capture how it can

17:06

sound like a book which is

17:08

not something that's easy to do without the

17:11

visual impression of a book. The

17:14

page turn it's kind of ubiquitous. That

17:16

sounds about right but

17:18

sometimes you flip the book and it sounds like

17:23

a floppy fish. I wanted

17:26

the first thing that people hear

17:28

to be

17:29

very recognizable. I didn't just want

17:31

it to be books because a lot

17:33

of times we interface with Wikimedia from

17:35

a computer so I threw a couple

17:38

of keyboard clicks and typing

17:40

sounds in there

17:42

and I thought all of those together wouldn't really

17:44

be much of a memorable jingle.

17:46

It just sounded like a library or something

17:49

so I threw in a little bit of

17:52

musicality.

17:58

logos

18:00

are definitely the ones that are unique. They've got

18:02

to be super memorable, they've got to represent

18:04

a brand so you hear the phrase earworm

18:07

stick around when we talk about sonic

18:08

crowning a lot. Now I'll leave

18:10

you with a challenge. How many

18:12

sound logos do you hear in your day?

18:15

Here's

18:15

our own Tech Life Jingle to start

18:17

you off.

18:21

Now from human knowledge to human life

18:23

itself, would you like to live

18:25

a longer and healthier life? Sounds alright,

18:27

doesn't it? For generations, people have sworn

18:30

by various concoctions which they believed

18:32

would make a difference, and now that timeless

18:35

preoccupation is increasingly going high-tech,

18:37

as researchers, laboratories and wealthy

18:39

individuals seek ways to postpone

18:42

illness and death. This particular

18:44

tech scene, you perhaps won't be surprised to hear,

18:47

is focused in California, and BBC

18:49

cliques Laura Lewington's been there to check it out.

18:52

She told me about her trip, and she started by

18:54

describing Brian Johnson, an eccentric

18:56

tech multi-millionaire who perhaps more

18:58

than anyone else embodies this ever

19:01

more extreme quest to remain in

19:03

good health for as long as possible.

19:05

Oh it was all quite an experience. I went

19:07

to his house where he had lunch prepared,

19:09

but when I say lunch, he gets up

19:11

at 5am, eats breakfast

19:13

at 6am, and has this lunch

19:16

at 11am and that's his final

19:18

meal of the day, can you imagine? So

19:21

he only has a window of eating between

19:23

5am and 11am, oh my word. That's

19:26

right, like everything, he's taking fasting

19:28

to an absolute extreme. He takes 54

19:31

supplements and off-label tablets

19:33

a day, so that's proper medication

19:35

that he's taking not for its real purpose, as

19:37

well as the supplements, and he is

19:40

really pushing the boundaries on what you can do here, and

19:42

he showed me what's going on in the clinic

19:44

inside his house.

19:46

Where to start in here, what's

19:48

this? This is high frequency

19:51

electromagnetic stimulation. We got this

19:53

machine because we were trying to solve a problem. Every

19:55

night I was getting up one

19:57

time per night to go to the bathroom. So

20:00

it produced less quality sleep and so

20:02

I wanted to see if I could get up zero times

20:05

So we got this machine to trial

20:07

could we strengthen my pelvic floor

20:09

and my bladder?

20:10

So that I wouldn't get up at night to go the bathroom if you

20:12

want to try it out if you want to just sit down Okay, so

20:15

I'm going to turn it on. Okay

20:19

Tickling

20:24

but tickling in a quite hard aggressive

20:27

way

20:29

It's the session is 30 minutes,

20:31

but actually it's been successful Do you think he's on a

20:34

slightly destructive path here in a way and

20:36

also do you think it's kind of addictive? You know when you when

20:38

you first get a health tracker and you become

20:40

a bit obsessed with it Don't you and you're constantly

20:42

checking it and constantly looking at how

20:45

you're getting on with whatever it is that you're tracking Do

20:47

you think he's he's on that sort of mindset,

20:49

but he's also got the money to really

20:52

get into it

20:53

Absolutely totally addicted

20:55

when I spoke to him briefly off-camera

20:58

about it And I said to him when did you last

21:00

flip up? When did you not keep this regime

21:02

properly as you're meant to and he said it's been a year

21:05

So it's been a year since he has gone wrong

21:07

with any of this He has 30 scientists

21:09

working with him and he says because

21:11

it's being monitored by these doctors It

21:13

is pretty safe. Whereas actually

21:15

you talk to other experts and they say well, no, he

21:17

is a human experiment He signed his life away

21:20

here to test all of this stuff But it's

21:22

interesting when you talk to him about

21:23

his reasons for doing it. I when

21:26

I was 21 years old I decided

21:28

that I wanted to spend my life doing something meaningful

21:30

for the world and I didn't know what to do So I said

21:33

i'm going to make a whole bunch of money being an entrepreneur By

21:35

the age of 30 then i'll decide what to do And so

21:37

for the past since I sold my company brain

21:40

tree venmo I made 300 million dollars

21:42

and this question was What could

21:44

I do that would matter in the year? 2500 and

21:48

right now it could be aging if we

21:50

slowed the speed of aging and even reversed

21:53

it It would change what it means

21:55

to be human

21:55

I understand what

21:58

he's trying to do. I mean, you know I don't think there

22:00

are many of us who wouldn't want to remain younger

22:03

for as long as we possibly can but of course there

22:05

are all sorts of things that can happen to you in life that

22:07

could completely throw a grenade

22:10

into this research. You could get run over by a bus,

22:12

you could get ill, you know there's

22:14

any number of unknown quantities here.

22:16

Of course there are and he is an extreme

22:19

example and actually when I had the vision for going

22:21

out and making this show on increasing your

22:23

health span, increasing the healthy number of years

22:25

of our lives, I wanted to make sure

22:28

that I actually stayed away from the whole sensationalist

22:31

idea that's out there of tech billionaires wanting

22:33

to throw loads of money at being able to live forever

22:36

because really the premise of the program isn't that

22:38

Brian Johnson makes great telly and

22:40

he is experimenting with lots of

22:43

things that are interesting to people who are working

22:45

in the aging field. But really

22:47

there are two sides to this whole

22:49

health span idea. First of all

22:51

I went to visit a biotech company and went

22:53

to see a lot of research that's going into what could

22:56

potentially be a new frontier of medicine.

22:58

The idea being as to whether we can stop

23:00

or reverse the aging process at a cellular

23:03

level. Now the reason for doing this is

23:05

that age is the greatest risk factor

23:07

for most diseases, cancer, heart disease,

23:10

type 2 diabetes. So if

23:12

there was a way in the future of us being

23:14

able to track our health better, so being

23:17

able to predict problems were coming, then

23:19

we could also preempt them possibly

23:21

with these medicines. So there's this

23:23

one side which is the biotech companies and

23:26

what could potentially be a change to

23:28

the way we do medicine one day or at least an

23:30

extra way of doing it. But then

23:33

there's also this whole trend going on

23:35

in various

23:35

parts of the world but particularly a

23:37

Silicon Valley thing on longevity.

23:41

And the irony is that most people who are taking part

23:43

in this are probably extremely healthy

23:45

to start with. What do the doctors

23:47

say about whether this stuff really

23:50

works?

23:51

Well yes that is a very good question

23:53

because there is a lot of research happening

23:55

even into what types of exercise are

23:58

good for us because what is known is the

23:59

exercising well and

24:02

eating well. There's some questions about fasting.

24:04

It seems that general opinion is fasting is good

24:07

for most people for 14 to 16 hours

24:09

a day. There are some people it's not good

24:11

for but that's a separate issue

24:14

and the sleeping well is important. So all of

24:16

this, the doctors and the experts

24:18

all agree on and they're researching what type

24:20

of exercise constitutes this exercise being

24:22

good for example. But of course there

24:24

are people taking it to extremes and doing things

24:27

that aren't proven. So I spoke to one

24:29

leading Silicon Valley doctor to find out what

24:31

he had to say on the matter. Here's Dr. Jordan

24:34

Schlin.

24:34

I don't know why people want to gamble

24:36

with their health. I understand

24:38

gambling with your money. So if it's safe and

24:41

it's not effective like a vitamin, some vitamins,

24:44

you know, then you're gambling with your money. But

24:46

if it's not proven safe and

24:48

it's not proven effective, you're gambling with your

24:50

health. And then there's people spending a lot

24:53

of time doing these things and they're not

24:55

living their life. They're living the version

24:57

of their life to give themselves a future

24:59

life. But what happens if that future

25:02

life never materializes?

25:03

I mean the search for, you

25:06

know, the Alexia of eternal youth has been the stuff

25:08

of fiction for hundreds of years, hasn't

25:10

it? We've all been chasing it. But realistically,

25:13

as you say, this is currently

25:15

something that sort of excludes a lot

25:17

of people, doesn't it? It does.

25:20

Of course it does. And it has become

25:22

a trend generally amidst the

25:24

pretty wealthy to get interested

25:26

in a lot of this longevity stuff. Now, of course,

25:29

the hope is that if medicines are developed,

25:32

many people will benefit from them.

25:33

As always, the wealthy are

25:36

putting money into medical research that should hopefully

25:38

eventually benefit the masses.

25:40

But this is still something which

25:43

is really going to be more beneficial for developed

25:45

nations where these are the sort of diseases, the

25:47

cancer, the heart disease, kidney disease, which

25:50

happen later in life, are relevant

25:52

in countries where there is a higher

25:54

life expectancy. So throughout

25:57

any part of the world, then we can know

25:59

that living.

25:59

a better life is going to be better for our health,

26:02

how we feel, we can feel better for longer.

26:04

If people have the luxury of being able to exercise,

26:07

being able to eat good food, not everybody

26:10

has that luxury. And the idea of fasting

26:12

for 14 to 16 hours a day, well, if you're

26:14

struggling to afford to eat or you're working shifts, obviously

26:17

that's not plausible, however good

26:19

it may be for your longevity. Laura,

26:21

has making this changed the

26:23

way you live your life? Is

26:25

there anything that made you think, I need to do

26:27

that differently actually? Well,

26:29

I think it has. When I set out to make

26:31

this program, I had a very different vision about

26:33

what it was going to be. I'd read

26:35

the stories about tech billionaires throwing

26:38

their money at this and I was expecting

26:40

it to be a far more

26:42

sensational kind of idea than

26:44

it was, especially the biotech stuff. But

26:46

what I actually learned from it was that we're at

26:48

a point now where we really understand

26:51

where the science of aging is at.

26:53

We know what the target is, but how to

26:55

treat it is still proving quite difficult. And

26:57

even if there is success in that, we're likely

27:00

to see incremental change, drugs that may

27:03

increase lifespan by six months,

27:05

a year, two years, and maybe

27:07

healthspan by more than that. Obviously,

27:10

in the bigger picture, that is absolutely huge.

27:12

It's just when it comes down to each individual, it doesn't sound much.

27:15

But the thing that I really came away

27:17

feeling more strongly than anything was how

27:19

important it is to lead our healthiest lives.

27:21

So if you can eat as well as you

27:23

can, sleep as well as you can.

27:25

I've definitely come back feeling more

27:27

aware that it's important that we look after ourselves

27:30

because it seems that that

27:32

is the thing that is really proven right

27:34

now. And if there's anything that we can do to delay

27:36

the onset of serious disease in our lives, then

27:39

of course, we probably all want to do that. Laura,

27:42

I am now dreaming of eight hours sleep myself.

27:44

Thank you so much for talking to us. And

27:46

where will we see this programme?

27:49

It'll be on BBC News across the weekend.

27:51

It has various showings. It's called Forever Young.

27:54

Thank

27:55

you. There's

27:57

no way to extend this programme, I'm afraid, but we will

27:59

be back. more next week. You can follow our work

28:01

in the meantime at bbc.com slash

28:04

technology and on Twitter at BBC

28:06

Tech and me at ZSK.

28:26

I'm

28:30

Brad Smith.