Hannah Fry: 'AI can do some superhuman things - but so can forklifts' Mathematician Hannah Fry travels to the front lines of AI in her new BBC documentary AI Confidential with Hannah Fry. The chances are that you think about artificial intelligence far more today than you did five years ago. Since ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, we have become accustomed to interacting with AIs in most spheres of life, from chatbots and smart home tech to banking and healthcare. But such rapid change brings unexpected problems - as mathematician and broadcaster Hannah Fry shows in AI Confidential With Hannah Fry, a new three-part BBC documentary in which she talks to people whose lives have been transformed by the technology. She spoke to New Scientist about how we should view AI, its role in modern mathematics - and why it will upend the global economy.

Hannah Fry is getting exercised about a domestic appliance. The refrigerator in question was in perfect working order, but "it had a sticker on it that said: 'This fridge is AI ready.' I just don't know what on Earth that means." If she can't understand that claim, there won't be many people who can. Fry, a professor in the mathematics of cities at University College London, is a seasoned public speaker and broadcaster who won the prestigious Zeeman Medal in 2018 in recognition of her work to improve the public's understanding of maths.

If you want to impress your children with your mental prowess, you might want to give escape rooms a miss and pull out the scrabble board instead. Twentysomethings may have the sharpest minds -- but over-70s have a superior way with words, the Great British Intelligence Test has revealed. The BBC's online test -- developed in tandem with neuroscientists from Imperial College London -- has been taken by more than 250,000 people from across the UK. Researchers found that our ability to solve problems appears to peak in our twenties -- and then declines steadily as we get older. As a result, the experts say that forty-year-old adults have the same problem solving capacities as their twelve-year-old children.

For your friends and family, the right book will endure even when the latest gadgets go out of style. As for you -- well, the fact that books are easy to wrap doesn't hurt. Check out our guide to the best gifts for people with with an attention span longer than a tweet. Best for: Parents who have no idea why their Gen Z kids talk the way they do. For every criticism you hear from a grammar Nazi online, there's a Gretchen McCulloch theory to counter it.

We all need to talk about AI. We need a big conversation, one that involves everyone, not just because this technology is changing our future but also because we need to inspire more people from diverse backgrounds to guide its development. We need a national conversation because the most important conversations of all take place between experts and the public, not between experts, whether ethicists, academics or coders. But, as companies such as Samsung do more to engage with audiences, and new industry initiatives emerge, the trigger for the biggest public conversations is often when a new science or technology makes the headlines, often when things go wrong. Few people were interested in infectious proteins called prions until BSE, or'mad cow disease' (a phrase coined by a colleague of mine at The Daily Telegraph) became a threat to a national herd and then, through vCJD, to people.

Robert Jones was driving home through the pretty town of Todmorden, in West Yorkshire, when he noticed the fuel light flashing on the dashboard of his car. He had just a few miles to find a petrol station, which was cutting things rather fine, but thankfully his GPS seemed to have found a short cut – sending him on a narrow winding path up the side of the valley. Robert followed the machine's instructions, but as he drove, the road got steeper and narrower. After a couple of miles, it turned into a dirt track, but Robert wasn't fazed. After all, he thought, he had "no reason not to trust the satnav".