Tech Life
This week's Tech Life from the BBC World Service explores whether artificial intelligence can help reduce aviation's environmental footprint, focusing on contrails – the cloudy white trails left by aircraft engines that contribute to climate warming. The programme features a discussion with Google about its involvement in Operation Blue Skies, a project using AI to predict and minimise the formation of these harmful trails, highlighting how tech companies are applying machine learning to real-world environmental challenges.
The episode also covers two further topics: an examination of three contrasting approaches taken by phone manufacturers to encourage healthier relationships with mobile devices among children and adults, and an explainer on how AI detection tools work. The 26-minute episode is presented by Shiona McCallum and produced by Tom Quinn.
- AI project Operation Blue Skies aims to cut aircraft contrails
- Google discusses its role in the initiative
- Episode also covers phone habits and AI detectors
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Aircraft contrails form when water vapour from engines meets cold air, creating thin clouds that can persist and trap heat. Their effect on the climate depends on where and when they form, so predicting them may help airlines adjust flight paths.
Operation Blue Skies uses artificial intelligence to forecast conditions linked to contrails, with Google involved in the project. AI systems learn patterns from data, but their predictions depend on the information used to train and check them.
The programme also looks at how phone makers try to encourage healthier device use, and how AI detection tools identify material that may have been generated by AI. These topics reflect wider questions about how technology affects daily life and how reliably it can address problems.