The Artificial Human - Are Large Language Models a Dead End?

Download Are Large Language Models a Dead End?

Chat GPT, Gemini etc are most people's idea of artificial intelligence. But are the limitations of the large language models (LLMs) that underpin them an obstacle to achieving Ai that understand the world beyond what its learnt from the internet. That's increasingly the opinion of leading researchers who despite the industries fixation with LLMs are voting with their feet and setting up their own research labs to look at other ways to achieve Ai.

Aleks and Kevin talk with Michael Woolridge, Professor of the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Oxford to understand why he thinks LLMs are a hack, before speaking with long time tech innovator Jeff Hawkins about his why his 1000 brains Ai project could produce models that actually understand the world much more like we do.

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong
Producer: Peter McManus
Research: Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Minnie Harrop
Sound: Steve Greenwood and Sean Mullervy

Published on Wednesday, 25th February 2026.

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