You don't need to think of the 'potential' danger artificial intelligence poses because it's already here, warns MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini. She argues there's encoded discrimination embedded in AI systems — racial bias, sex and gender bias and ableism — posing unprecedented threats to humankind. Buolamwini has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence research. She encourages experts and non-experts to join in the fight for "algorithmic justice." Her book, Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines, uncovers the existential risks produced by Big Tech. She says, "AI should be for the people and by the people, not just the privileged few.”

International law is clear: warring parties cannot kill civilians. It's a war crime. But there is one exception. An attacker can justify killing them if they’re being used as a human shield, involuntarily. IDEAS explores the long history of humans as shields and how this legal loophole has become a norm.

Guests include Nicola Perugini, who teaches international relations at the University of Edinburgh. He is also co-author of Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire. And Dr. Mimi Syed, an American emergency medicine physician who served two medical missions in Gaza in 2024.

More than 2,000 years ago, someone sat down and wrote a travel bucket list for the ancient world — suggesting must-see places that we now call The Seven Wonders of the World. It was kind of a Lonely Planet guide of its time, and included the Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Temple of Artemis, among others. Historian Bettany Hughes brings monuments and archaeological discoveries back to life in her book, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.