More or Less

When you’re listening to the news, you will often hear words that are meant to communicate the probability of something happening. A terrorist attack is “a realistic possibility”, the spread of a certain strain of virus is “highly likely", the relegation of your favourite football team is “possible”.But when you hear these terms, do you really know what kind of probabilities they’re trying to convey? Do you know how likely “likely” is? Or what probability “probable” is meant to get across?In some cases, it seems you probably don't.Professor Adam Kucharski, author of Proof, the Uncertain Science of Certainty, designed a quiz to work out the actual probabilities of the language we use to convey risks.The data he got back shows how sometimes these words mean very different things to different people.If you want to try the quiz for yourself, head over to https://probability.kucharski.io/Email the More or Less team: [email protected] CREDITS:Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Gareth Jones Editor: Richard Vadon

As Artificial Intelligence continues to expand rapidly, some people have raised concerns about its potential environmental impact - in particular its use of water, which is used to cool both data centres and the power generators that supply them with electricity.One recent book on AI contained the alarming prediction that AI could consume between 4 and 6 trillion litres a year by 2027. Could this eye-popping figure be right? If not, what is the correct figure, and is it a big number?The devil, as ever, is in the detail, and with the help of expert Alex de Vries-Gao, the More or Loss team has taken a deep dive to get to the truth about AI and water consumption.If you’ve seen a number in the news and you think More or Less should take a look, email the team on [email protected]: Charlotte McDonald Producer / Reporter: Nathan Gower Series Producer: Tom Colls Programme Coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Mix: Dave O’Neil Editor: Richard Vadon

Paul Ehrlich’s bestselling book The Population Bomb opens with an apocalyptic paragraph. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” it states. “In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”Professor Ehrlich, who died last week, made a simple argument. The global population was outrunning our capacity to produce enough food to feed everyone. Famine, disease and nuclear Armageddon would follow if the population was not controlled.The book made him a celebrity, and he regularly spoke in public, warning of the imminent threat to humanity. Sometimes his warnings were quite vague in terms of the timescale, but other times not - he was reported as saying in 1968 that if current trends continued, by the year 2000, the UK would be a “small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people". "If I were a gambler," he was quoted as saying, "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000".But the UK did not collapse, the global death rate did not increase, and we have more food per person now than when he wrote the book. So, what went wrong with Paul Ehrlich's predictions of a population apocalypse?If you’ve seen a number or claim that you think More or Less should look at, email [email protected] CONTRIBUTORSVincent Geloso, Assistant Professor of economics at George Mason UniversityDarrell Bricker, global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs and co-author of Empty Planet, the Shock of Global Population DeclinePeter Alexander, Professor of Global Food Systems at the University of EdinburghCREDITS:Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Dave O’Neil Editor: Richard Vadon

In most sports, men compete against men and women compete against women. That is generally considered fair, because men are faster, more powerful and have greater endurance.But there is an ongoing controversy about transgender women - people who were born male and now identify as women. Is it fair for them to compete in the women’s sport category or do they have an advantage?A study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine recently added to the debate with an analysis that found the strength and fitness of transgender women is “comparable” with that of women.More or Less looks into the research to explain what it does, and does not, say.Contributors:Professor Alun Williams, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityCredits:Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Reporter: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Mix: Gareth Jones Editor: Richard Vadon

On Saturday 28th February, the US and Israel launched a military attack on Iran, targeting the country's missile infrastructure, military sites and leadership.In response, Iran launched a wave of strikes across the region, including on Israel and the Gulf states.Iran has a stockpile of ballistic missiles, which it’s firing at neighbouring countries. These countries in turn are using interceptor missiles to try and shoot them down.But is it clear who will run out of missiles first?Contributor:Kelly Grieco, senior fellow at the Stimson CenterCredits:Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Mix: Tom Brignell Editor: Richard Vadon

Have a million new species just been discovered?That’s the claim made by Dr Oliver Vince, co-founder of a company called Basecamp Research, who are collecting genetic data to train AI systems. The hope is that they’ll be able to use this to discover new medicines.But is this number a good one? Rob Finn, from the European Bioinformatics Institute, explains what is being counted and how you go about counting them.Credits: Presenter and producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Dave O’Neill Editor: Richard Vadon

AI can make mistakes – and AI chatbots like ChatGPT warn you about that whenever you ask them anything.These mistakes sometimes involve making up entirely fictitious, factually false statements known as “hallucinations”.Whether these hallucinations matter depends on what you’re using AI for, and whether they are spotted and corrected.The team on More or Less were slightly surprised to read a headline in Fortune magazine, claiming that a top academic AI conference accepted research papers which contained 100 AI-hallucinated citations.You might think that the top AI researchers in the world would be careful about using AI to write their research papers.Alex Cui, CTO and co-founder of GPTZero – whose company discovered the hallucinations – explains what’s going on.CREDITS: Presenter and producer: Tom Colls Sound mix: James Beard Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Editor: Richard Vadon

Modern sport can seem awash with money, but it’s been claimed that the richest sportsperson of all is an ancient Roman Charioteer from the second century AD called Gaius Appuleius Diocles, with career winnings that stood at 35 million sesterces. One calculation has translated that into an astonishing $15 billion dollars today, and it’s a figure that’s stuck. But should we believe it? Duncan Weldon talks to ancient historian Professor Mary Beard from the University of Cambridge to learn more about the big business of chariot racing, and how we should think about money and wealth in the economies of the past. Presenter: Duncan Weldon Producer: Nathan Gower Series Producer: Tom Colls Editor: Richard Vadon Programme Coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Engineer: James Beard