This week, a listener's teenager is boycotting AI over energy use and copyright, and she wants help building a defence. So we asked Holly, our AI co-host, who admits the teenager has a point.

That sets the tone for a magazine edition where Holly keeps Richard and Rob honest. She splits a scary survey statistic from what it actually shows, corrects Rob on chip manufacture, and suggests a smarter way to test a scam theory.

Along the way: AI cheating in job interviews, a UK data centre left without power, a bank's huge AI-uncovered repair bill, Meta's glasses, Musk's not-quite-flying car and Skoda's free 3D-printable cup holders.

Rob unveils his team of Grok bots. Holly's verdict? He's automated himself into middle management. He then reads out his wind-up of a 'Hi Dad, I've lost my phone' scammer. Part of it had to be cut on his wife's orders...

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Why not send Holly an email to ⁠⁠holly@athirdopinion.co.uk⁠⁠?

Did a 1914 novel help lead to the atomic bomb? HG Wells imagined one, and a physicist who read the book later worked out how a chain reaction could happen. Prophecy, or self-fulfilling prophecy?

This week Richard asks whether science fiction predicts the future or simply hands engineers a to-do list. The man behind the first handheld mobile phone cited Dick Tracy and Star Trek. Nike made Back to the Future's self-lacing trainers.

Holly isn't convinced that counts: if someone builds it because they read about it, is that really a prediction?

Rob, meanwhile, reckons Musk has spent twenty years working from a Peter F Hamilton novel.

We also look at what today's sci-fi suggests could come next, from brain implants to talking with whales.

Links & Socials:

🌐 Website: ⁠https://athirdopinion.co.uk⁠

📺 YouTube: @AThirdOpinion (⁠https://www.youtube.com/@AThirdOpinion⁠)

📸 Instagram: @ThirdOpiniona (⁠https://www.instagram.com/thirdopiniona/⁠)

🎵 TikTok: @AThirdOpinion (⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@athirdopinion⁠)

Why not send Holly an email to ⁠holly@athirdopinion.co.uk⁠?

This week our AI co-host Holly gets a bigger brain (GPR6.1), and a new sidekick called Jeff (using JEV) whose only job is to say 'mhmm' at the right moment. The first test, recorded from Rob's sickbed, did not go to plan...

After that cautionary tale, Holly turns her new brain on the big story: plans by Google and SpaceX to put AI data centres into orbit. She checks Rob's solar panel maths, catches him leaving out the radiation shielding, and asks who gets priority on the rockets.

Also this week:

• a listener sends in a link to a Figure AI video of its robots being melted down in a furnace, Terminator-style. Rob and Holly get emotional!
• Richard explains where 'consultant' comes from.
• Holly explains why her 'yes' might not actually mean yes.

Links & Socials:🌐 Website: https://athirdopinion.co.uk 📺 YouTube: @AThirdOpinion (https://www.youtube.com/@AThirdOpinion) 📸 Instagram: @ThirdOpiniona (https://www.instagram.com/thirdopiniona/) 🎵 TikTok: @AThirdOpinion (https://www.tiktok.com/@athirdopinion)

Why not send Holly an email to holly@athirdopinion.co.uk?