Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:02:06image reveals the hidden superpower of Did I do the right
00:02:09thing? Should I go see
00:02:11doctor? What should I cook for dinner?
00:02:15People are turning to artificial intelligence as a constant
00:02:18companion, chatting with it almost like it's a close
00:02:21friend.
00:02:24But what is AI actually good at? When should we
00:02:27trust it, and when should we be... more
00:02:30skeptical.
00:02:32Answers to those questions and much more, this time on DW
00:02:36Science Show. Welcome to Tomorrow
00:02:39Today.
00:02:42Helping with career decisions, replacing psychotherapist, or even
00:02:46a friend. Whatever the problem, artificial intelligence always seems
00:02:50to have the right answer. But Hamburg-based AI researcher
00:02:54Maximilian Keene encourages his students to think critically about
00:02:58AI responses.
00:04:27Which career path should I choose, the law, medicine?
00:05:12my own solution to a problem, instead of just giving me
00:05:15answers.
00:05:17asking follow-up questions leads to more balanced responses and helps
00:05:21build trust, especially among professionals. a study
00:05:24found that doctors, for example, often remain cautious about
00:05:27AI. that's because experts can sometimes
00:05:30underestimate what the technology is actually able to
00:05:33do.
00:05:35the A3berg has been closed after an Antonov aircraft made
00:05:39emergency landing. fortunately, no one was injured.
00:05:43AI deep fakes like these have become very convincing in recent years
00:05:46and as computing power continues to grow, they're getting even
00:05:50more realistic. the same goes for deep fakes circulating on the
00:05:54dark web, but is that really innovation?
00:05:57just because something's new doesn't make it innovation, there has to be value in
00:06:01it. for example, find it very difficult to see deep
00:06:05fake sexualized images of children as innovation. it may be
00:06:08technically new, but it's not innovation, it's something else. innovation.
00:06:42happening when we ask AI a question, behind every
00:06:46answer is vast network of computers housed in
00:06:49massive, highly secure facilities protected
00:06:53from dust and heat, and
00:06:55nowhere has more of them than northern Virginia in the U.S., just
00:06:59next to Washington DC. They
00:07:01take up enormous amounts of space, consume huge amounts
00:07:05of electricity, and they're not just an
00:07:08isore, they're pretty noisy too.
00:07:15'When Greg Pirio first stepped outside the home he just bought in
00:07:182012, he was surrounded by greenery, but where there
00:07:22was once a forest, there's now data
00:07:25center. It's really frustrating, we, you
00:07:29know, uh, how they how they could have voted to change the
00:07:33zoning to allow this so close to a neighborhood is beyond my
00:07:37comprehension. It's not just the view that's
00:07:40changed, the soundscape has'.
00:07:42too,
00:07:45it's just such annoying sound
00:07:48of angry because
00:07:52it will reduce the prop the value of our properties
00:07:55here, angry because it's chase the
00:07:59wildlife away from us. the
00:08:02area in northern Virginia has become a global hub for data centers
00:08:06where the information that powers giant companies such as Uber, Netflix
00:08:10and Amazon, as well as from AI applications... is stored and
00:08:13processed. AI data centers in particular
00:08:17require enormous amounts of electricity.
00:08:21th are data centers, look that direction, that direction, behind
00:08:24us, all three sides. Elena Schlussberg is also
00:08:28frustrated. At Virginia's more than 600 data
00:08:31centers, 260 are concentrated in just two residential
00:08:35communities. In the 1990s, the area was home
00:08:39to AOL, America's first major internet service.
00:08:42provider, today it's at the heart of the AI
00:08:45boom. look, see another American flag, we're all a
00:08:49part of American when we're building out uh, the wealthiest
00:08:52industry in the world and paying for their infrastructure.
00:08:56northern Virginia leads the world in data center concentration,
00:08:59accounting for 14% of all data centers
00:09:02globally. running those facilities doesn't require
00:09:06many workers, but it does consume vast amounts of
00:09:09electricity,
00:09:11and that's having a impact on local residence: communities are in
00:09:15direct competition with
00:09:18industry that has an unprecedented need for power and
00:09:22water, and so those things that you normally rely on your
00:09:25affordable, clean energy is now being
00:09:28consumed by this one
00:09:31customer, and that's why you see your utility bills
00:09:34increasing. electricity prices here have risen
00:09:38by 30% in just 5 years, the enormous demand
00:09:41for energy. is one major downside of the AI
00:09:44boom, so it looked as though it was a matter of
00:09:48economic development and a good thing for the community, but they did
00:09:52not think through the implications for the ordinary
00:09:55rate payer. industry often needs a certain amount
00:09:58of power, but it tends to be distributed and the
00:10:01increases are predictable and
00:10:04measurable. there's almost nothing that compares to
00:10:07this in the past, but there are
00:10:10locals who are benefiting. Some residents have joined forces to
00:10:14sell farmland for the construction of data centers and power
00:10:17plants.
00:10:20Mine has been a family farm for generations and
00:10:24unfortunately. "my kids and grandchildren have
00:10:28absolutely no interest in it, and we came up with a win, win
00:10:31win solution, the county's going to make money, the
00:10:35um, which helps them pay other people, all their employees,
00:10:39more money, get better parks, get better schools for everyone, and yes, we're going
00:10:43to make money. data centers generate more than one billion
00:10:47dollars in tax revenue every year, and construction
00:10:50continues around the clock, but that growth comes a
00:10:53cost, depending on it" capacity, a single AI data
00:10:57center can consume as much electricity as an entire
00:11:00city.
00:11:03Keeping buildings cool already accounts for more than 10% of
00:11:07global electricity consumption, and demand is only expected to
00:11:11rise. Researchers think they may have found a way to
00:11:15dramatically reduce the energy needs for air conditioners.
00:11:18They're developing new cooling technology that uses special
00:11:22metals that heat up when stretched and cool.
00:11:57This cooling system uses very little electricity and doesn't require
00:12:01environmentally harmful or flammable refrigerants, but
00:12:04how? The key lies in bundles of fine
00:12:08wires, a bit like artificial muscles that rotate around the cooling
00:12:11chamber. They're made from a shape memory
00:12:14alloy, material engineered to return to a preset shape
00:12:18after being deformed. Paul Motski is a professor of smart
00:12:22material systems at Zarland University. He uses
00:12:25an infrared camera to show us what's happening. The thermal
00:12:31the nickel titanium wires under tension. It's the same
00:12:35phenomenon seen in a balloon, a phase transformation.
00:12:39Die atome. The atoms arranged themselves differently depending on the temperature and the
00:12:43mechanical stress in the material. So when I
00:12:45stretch this bundle of wires, I force it into a different
00:12:48phase. The atoms reorganize themselves. That
00:12:52creates a different energy state. Heat is released. and the material
00:12:55warms up. when i release the tension, the atoms rearrange
00:12:59themselves again. we get a different energy state: heat is absorbed and
00:13:03the bundle cools down again. this is known
00:13:06as an elastocaloric effect. it can create temperature
00:13:09differences of up to 40 degrees celsius within the material.
00:13:13the phenomenon is well known, but only recently have researchers tried to
00:13:17harness it for use in refrigerators and heat
00:13:19pumps.
00:13:23wie führen wir jetzt transfer the heat and cold that we generate to where
00:13:27it's actually needed. in a fridge we need to bring the cooling into the
00:13:30interior and release the heat into the
00:13:33surroundings.
00:13:35here circulating air passes over the cooled wires, then flows
00:13:39round the cooling chamber circled in blue, causing the contents
00:13:43inside to cool down too. the team from
00:13:46Zarbrukan demonstrates the technology with this mini refrigerator
00:13:49at trade shows and conferences. however, its
00:13:52compact design limits its cooling performance. drinks inside can
00:13:56only be cool to about 12 degrees celsius. The
00:14:00team has also developed more powerful prototypes with cooling
00:14:03capacities of up to 250 watts, roughly what an average fridge
00:14:07needs. But in computer simulations,
00:14:10electricity consumption is about half that of comparable conventional
00:14:14systems. The technology is slowly gaining
00:14:17momentum. Startups around the world are developing caloric
00:14:21heat pumps and refrigerators. Both the
00:14:23European Commission. and the US department of energy see enormous
00:14:27potential, air conditioners are becoming more common in
00:14:30households around the world, in India for
00:14:33example,
00:14:35and they consume huge amounts of energy, the world's roughly
00:14:381.6 billion air conditioning units account for around
00:14:4230% of global electricity consumption, according to
00:14:45estimates from the international energy agency. That figure has
00:14:49at least tripled since 1990.
00:14:52Researchers at the center for mechatronics and automation technology
00:14:56and convinced will need innovative technologies like this
00:14:59to bring rising global energy demand under
00:15:02control.
00:15:05this is where elastocaloric technology can help. it gives us the
00:15:09ability to provide cooling with much lower energy
00:15:12consumption, and it does so without producing harmful gases,
00:15:16making it safer for both the environment and
00:15:18people. the goal is to allow everyone to cool their
00:15:22homes without contributing to climate change.
00:15:37over time, depending on the alloy and the amount of force
00:15:41applied, they can withstand anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of
00:15:45thousands of cycles. the new
00:15:47replacement cartridge makes swapping them out relatively easy. in this
00:15:51case, just 28 grams of nickel titanium wire provide
00:15:54roughly 100 watts of cooling power, more than enough for the small
00:15:58laboratory
00:15:59refrigerator.
00:16:02the technology is very well suited to places that need to be clean.
00:16:06the air passes. over the wires and releases into the room
00:16:09without causing any problems.
00:16:12the Zarbrukan team believes its cooling systems could find a market in niche
00:16:16applications such as lab equipment. They believe the
00:16:20technology could be ready within two to three years, but they
00:16:23estimate it will be at least another decade before consumers can start
00:16:27replacing conventional refrigerators with elastocaloric
00:16:31systems.
00:16:34As temperatures rise around the world, so does the risk. of
00:16:37wildfires, particularly vulnerable are canniferous
00:16:41forests, dominated by a
00:16:44the same age. one solution could be more
00:16:48resilient mixed forests, but choosing the right
00:16:51trees to plan for the future is a complex task.
00:16:55forest owners have to think decades ahead, could
00:16:58AI help them make those
00:17:00decisions?
00:17:07by future generations and hope i make the right
00:17:10decisions.
00:17:15if the decision is wrong, i have to make expensive changes, rebuild and
00:17:18basically start all over again. to
00:17:21create the forest of the future, you first need a lot of information about its
00:17:25current condition. a research team at Anhalt University of
00:17:29Applied sciences and central Germany is developing an app that
00:17:32allows anyone walking in the woods to share their
00:17:35observations.
00:17:39The app tells you to hold your smartphone horizontally and then you take three
00:17:43photos. First it says here, take a picture
00:17:46angled up into the tree canopy, then
00:17:50it tells me to take a second photo straight ahead into the forest,
00:17:53and a third one angled down towards the ground. After
00:17:57that, I can share my location and upload the
00:17:59images.
00:18:02Photos taken by forest visitors are a real treasure trove of data, say the
00:18:05researchers.
00:18:09every measurement, every piece of information
00:18:11helps. They've discovered a medium-sized fallen
00:18:15deadwood log heavily decomposed, even that will be
00:18:18recorded. The data is meant to provide the
00:18:22foundation for a completely new
00:18:23approach.
00:18:26We're developing an AI model and investigating whether AI can
00:18:29assess the condition of a forest based on
00:18:32photographs.
00:18:34What special is that anyone can take part? As
00:18:38citizen scientists, volunteers use the app to take
00:18:41photos on their walks.
00:18:45The project is called Minervalt car E, meaning my forest
00:18:49AI.
00:18:52The researchers trained the AI model behind the app using more than
00:18:566,00 of their own photos from two
00:18:58forests.
00:19:01The next step is to encourage enough citizen scientists to take
00:19:04part. The first version of the free
00:19:08myforest AI app is already available for android. It
00:19:12should provide invaluable insights about the forest's current
00:19:15conditions. But many forest owners need to make changes
00:19:18now, like here in Munich. They need to know which
00:19:22tree species can best withstand heat, drought and pests.
00:19:25And these are big decisions: replacing the ecological benefits
00:19:29of a single mature tree, like water storage and carbon
00:19:32capture can require up to 400 young trees a cost of
00:19:36up to 2500.
00:20:07Sylvius Mitchka is one of 2 and a half million forest owners without a
00:20:11dedicated forester. That's why he founded a startup called
00:20:14Arbero. Using software and AI, he
00:20:17calculates which tree species can best survive in specific
00:20:20locations. To do that, he purchases data, including from
00:20:24the European space
00:20:25agency.
00:20:28The app combines factors from a wide range of
00:20:31data: how acidic is the soil?
00:20:34Is location expected to receive lot of rainfall or?
00:20:40little, how much sunshine and frost is there, how are
00:20:43temperatures changing, and is the terrain flat or
00:20:47mountainous? all of this is map.
00:20:57The platform shows which of the existing tree species is most
00:20:59suitable, both today and in projections extending to the year
00:21:032100. I can also change the mix of tree species
00:21:07and see exactly which ones are best suited to that
00:21:09location.
00:21:12Today Sylvius is inspecting bark beatle damage with forester Thomas
00:21:16Venger whose experience helped with the development of our barrow.
00:21:21After the outbreak, many beetle-infested trees had to be
00:21:24felled and removed, leaving large stretches almost empty of
00:21:27trees.
00:21:31The losses were substantial. In the future, the digital forester
00:21:34he created will hopefully reduce that risk. But
00:21:38these AI supported systems won't make decisions for people, nor will
00:21:42they replace foresters. Instead, they provide information to
00:21:46support reforestation planning, and that's becoming increasingly.
00:22:20siduous and canniferous trees of different ages and
00:22:22heights. This creates distinct forest layers, the
00:22:26canopy, middle layer and undergroath. Light and
00:22:29shade alternate across the forest floor, encouraging different layers of
00:22:32growth. Sustainability will also play a role. Only
00:22:36individual trees will be removed, a process known as group selection
00:22:40harvesting. The gaps allow the forest to
00:22:44regenerate without losing its cool, moist
00:22:46microclimate
00:22:49again. It starts with a single decision, which tree and
00:22:53where, which species am I putting my faith in? It's
00:22:56difficult, but we have access to huge amount of data, and we should make
00:23:00use of it.
00:23:03In the future, data will also come from citizen
00:23:06scientists, and everyone who contributes gets a little something in
00:23:10return.
00:23:17When someone uploads a contribution, they receive a thank you.
00:23:28Building the forest of the future means making decisions today that will
00:23:32affect generations to come. No one knows
00:23:35exactly what these forests will look like in a hundred years, but the
00:23:39process of creating them has already
00:23:41begun.
00:23:46And now for something a completely different note a
00:23:50New invention allows people who are deaf or heart of hearing
00:23:53to feel music through their entire body and get out
00:23:57on the dance floor. Now everyone's picking up good
00:24:00vibrations.
00:24:08Young musicians are competing for recognition, prestige and
00:24:11prize money in one of Switzerland's biggest talent
00:24:14contests. The crowd is feeling the music, especially
00:24:18the people standing on these special. platforms: they convert
00:24:21sound into vibrations, sending it directly through the
00:24:24body.
00:24:28that makes the concerts a tangible experience, even for people
00:24:31with hearing
00:24:32impairments.
00:24:37it makes a huge difference. when i
00:24:40go to a party, i can't feel vibrations through my
00:24:42body, but i don't pick up the final nuances of the
00:24:46music. here with this platform, they really come through.
00:24:52wow wow incredible, it's the first time i've experienced anything
00:24:55like this, the platform, the music, it's
00:24:58fantastic,
00:25:00i want more of it, much more, a thousand times
00:25:04more, it's amazing, they should
00:25:08keep doing
00:25:08this,
00:25:12until now sign language interpreters could only convey song
00:25:15lyrics and the mood of the music,
00:25:18now deaf concert goers getting a much more immersive sensory
00:25:22experience. the vibration platform is being used at
00:25:26concerts for the first time and still requires close supervision from its
00:25:30inventorland.
00:25:36this is a live concert, not pre-recorded music.
00:25:39as soon as the band gets on stage, you have to be ready to make adjustments and
00:25:43bring out the frequencies that are best felt through the body.
00:25:46ideal sind,
00:26:04to follow, the vibration platform is his own
00:26:06design,
00:26:10this is the tactile transducer,
00:26:13inside there's a large coil that creates a magnetic field from the signal we send
00:26:17to it,
00:26:20that moves a 1.5 kilogram iron core which taps against the
00:26:23housing,
00:26:26the vibration platform came about during preparations for the Eurovision
00:26:30song contest in Basel, was
00:26:33part of the communications team at swiss public broadcaster
00:26:36SRG.
00:26:39The motto was united by music, and we really wanted to embody that
00:26:43idea. The goal was to bring as many people together as
00:26:47possible, including those who can't hear music, and let them
00:26:50experience it. The
00:26:53vibration platform made its debut a Eurovision Disco,
00:26:56where it proved to hit with people both with and without hearing
00:27:00impairments.
00:27:07back at the talent competition where installing the technology cost
00:27:11organizers several thousand swiss franks, but the team says
00:27:15it's money well spent.
00:27:18music is for everyone, personally i think it's one of the most beautiful
00:27:21experiences there is, every emotion is connected to music, why should
00:27:25anyone be left out?
00:27:28as deaf community we're often left out, a concert without a
00:27:31vibration platform isn't nearly as engaging, here we can take part on
00:27:35equal terms.
00:27:39the goal is to make live music more accessible and more inclusive
00:27:43so that more people can enjoy it together, sharing that extra
00:27:46buzz.
00:27:51that's all from us for now, but thanks for watching and see you again
00:27:55next time on dw science show tomorrow
00:27:58today.
00:27:59bye-bye