and medicine tell us why some countries are so much richer than others and what a worm tells us about how complex life emerged. this is nobel minds 202a. nobel laureates, welcome to the royal palace in stockholm. we're also joined by some of your family and friends, as well as students from here in stockholm. before we start, let's just give them a really big round of applause. renewed congratulations to all of you. applause

ok, so let's start with economics. and let's see briefly the research which was behind the award for this year's recipients of the nobel prize in economics. this year's prize in economics touches on historical injustices and cruelties, as well as current events, too. the question of how economic development is connected to individual rights, equality and decent political leaders. when large parts of the world were colonised by european powers, their approaches varied. daron acemoglu, simonjohnson and james robinson have shown that prosperity rose in places where the colonial authorities built functioning social institutions, rather than simply exploiting the locals and their resources. but no growth or improvements

in lifestyle were created in societies where democracy and legal certainties were lacking. the laureates�* research also helps us understand why this is the case, and could contribute to reducing income gaps between nations. so, daron, when you're both talking about the importance of democratic institutions, what kind of institutions are you talking about? the label that we — simon, jim and i — use is inclusive institutions, meaning institutions that distribute political power and economic power and opportunity broadly in society. and that requires certain political institutions that provide voice to people so that they can participate, their views are expressed. and also constraints

on the exercise of that power. so, are you just talking about, really, the checks and balances we see, you know, set down in constitutions — like an independent legislature, a free judiciary, freedom of speech with, you know, the media being able to operate as it wishes? absolutely. but that's not enough. partly because what you write in a constitution is not going to get enforced unless there is a general empowerment of the people. so constitutions are sometimes changed just like shirts, and it doesn't mean anything unless it becomes enforced. but you have also seen countries prosper economically which have been governed by fairly authoritarian governments, haven't you? i mean, often we talk about lee kuan yew in singapore, mahathir mohamad in malaysia, for instance. yeah, i think that's not the general pattern. imean... so, there are examples like that, of course. but for every example

like that, there's far more examples of autocratic societies that have not flourished economically. you know, if you can create inclusive economic institutions, even under a politically kind of autocratic society, you can flourish economically — at least transitorily. you know, that's what happened in china. you know, starting in the late 19705. it was the movement towards a much more inclusive economy, giving people the right to make decisions, making them residual claimants on their own efforts. you know? so that's what generated economic growth. but our view is that, you know, you can't sustain an economy like that under an autocratic political system. it can be there for a transitory period, but it's not sustainable. a lot of your research is based on countries which have been colonised, and there's been a lot of debate, of course, particularly in the united kingdom — because of their historical, you know, great british empire — and whether it was good or bad for the countries that were colonised, practically all of africa. but you say that colonisation

often brought about a reversal in economic fortunes of the colonised people. so just unpack for us why you say that. because it sounds like you're saying colonisation was bad for the people. i think colonisation was a disaster. absolutely. but of course, it did create prosperous societies in parts of the world, in north america and australasia. but for the indigenous people, it was a catastrophe. you know, diseases wiped out 90% of the population of the americas, people were exploited, they had their lands and livelihoods destroyed, their communities destroyed. i mean, absolutely. yes. so, you know, i don't think there's much debate about that, in my view. i think this notion of reversal, you know, it's very clear in the americas. you know, at the time, if you go back 500 years, where were the prosperous parts of the americas? central america, the central valley of mexico, andean, the inca empire. you know, the mexicas,

the valley of oaxaca. you know, there you had writing, you had political complexity, you had economic organisations, sophistication, whatever. the southern cone of latin america and north america — far behind, you know? and then this gets completely reversed during the colonial period and the places that were relatively poor then become relatively prosperous. so there you see the reversal in a very clear way. right. i want to bring you in, demis, because your mother is singaporean — or singaporean born. you were brought up in britain, of course. but what do you think when you hear about this kind of thing, about democracy and prosperity and institutions? well, i mean, it's very interesting. obviously, i've heard from my mother the sort of economic miracle that lee kuan yew brought to singapore, and he's rightly revered for that. i don't know... obviously this is not my area, but how do you try and...? you know, how are these institutions going to be built in the places where they aren't? is there external...? is it going to be external encouragement? or it has to happen internally?

or how is that going to evolve? or you just have to be lucky with finding the right leader, like a lee kuan yew? yeah. i mean, ithink, you know, the success stories, they all come from within. people build the institutions in their own contexts. i mean, there are... you know, ithink lee kuan yew is a sort of fascinating person. he's not the only person in the world like that. you know, you had seretse khama in botswana. you know, you have other kind of outstanding leaders. but i think, on average, the evidence suggests autocratic regimes don't do as well as democratic ones. and sure, you know, people matter. individuals matter. having good leaders matter. where do you find lee kuan yew? well, that's what i was going to ask you. so, then, if it has to come from within, you know, what...? so, you're pointing out with your great work what the issues are, but other than wait for the right, you know, mandela or lee kuan yew to come along, which is very rare, as you say, what else can be done to encourage those institutions to be built? yeah, but there's lots of institutions that are built without famous leaders.

i think the track record of external imposition of institutions is not very good. there are a few cases where you can point to. but generally, institutions are built organically. but there are influences out there. so, one of the cases jim already hinted at — seretse khama, botswana. you know, an amazingly successful democracy in sub—saharan africa. an amazingly successful country in terms of economic growth. very rapid growth on the whole. and it was all existing, actually, pre—colonial institutions that were the basis of more democratic. but leadership there mattered, too. so you need the combination. so i think facilitating institution—building domestically, providing tools for them and getting rid of our hindrances — often, you know, western and russian powers, or sometimes chinese powers interfering in other countries�* domestic affairs is not conducive to better institution building. but at the end of the day, institutions are going to be built bottom up.

mm—hm. ok, so, look, a majortheme of this year's nobel prizes has been artificial intelligence. so, james, let me ask you, then, if you think technology, ai, could help africa develop? but africa has not been benefitting from all this technology. but could it, i'm saying? it could. but to do that, many things have to change. many things have to change. institutions have to change. politics has to change. you know, people's trusts. all sorts of things have to change. and what about the impact of technology — ai, for instance — on democracy, really? i'm talking about the impact onjobs. to what extent there'll be displacement of human activity and jobs by machines. yeah, i mean, ithink that's a huge risk. i believe that humans would have a very difficult time building their social systems and communities if they become majorly sidelined and they feel they don't have dignity or use or a way to contribute to the social good.

from your perspective, i mean, there have been a lot— of advances in technology over the last 100 years. _ have any of them really caused massive displacement ofjobs?| i mean, already, you know, there's a lot of these - technologies out there, but have they reduced i the number of jobs? yeah. it has happened. i mean, the early phase of the industrial revolution, where it was all about automation, there were huge displacements, huge wage losses. one third... people's wages within 20 years, in real terms, fell for some people to one third of what it was. that's just a tremendous change. yes, but, daron, in the end, it became better. it became better because technology changed. yes. so, in my view, there will be a lot of disruption, like the industrial revolution... also, 90 years. it took 90 years. i don't think that's what we want to put up with. yeah. but there could be i new classes ofjobs. yes, exactly. that's what happened. but those new classes ofjobs, they're not automatic. so there are, like, two ways of thinking on this beyond the artificial general intelligence. one is that you introduce these

disruptive technologies and the system automatically adjusts. nobody needs to do anything. no policymaker, no scientist, no technologist. the system will adjust. i think thatjust is contradicted by history. the way that it works is that we all have to work in order to make things better, including technologists. so that we actually use the scientific knowledge to create new tasks, more capabilities for humans, ratherthan just sidelining them. i mean, we've seen... you talk about the lessons of history, but we saw with the printing press revolution, people who were writing books were put out of business. but then lots of newjobs were created through publishing and so on. but look at the last a0 years. the us is an extreme case, but roughly speaking... i'm exaggerating a little bit. but about half of the us population — those who don't have college degrees — have had almost no growth in their real incomes until about 2015, from 1980. mm. so no newjobs of import were created for them.

there were a lot of newjobs in the 1990s and 2000s, but they were all for people with postgraduate degrees and specialised knowledge. 0k. geoffrey hinton, do you think that this increase in productivity, essentially, that will come with automation and so on and so forth, is a good thing for society? well, it ought to be, right? i mean, it's crazy. we're talking about having a huge increase in productivity. so there's going to be more goods and services for everybody. so everybody ought to be better off. but actually it's going to be the other way round, and it's because we live in a capitalist society. and so what's going to happen is this huge increase in productivity is going to make much more money for the big companies and the rich, and it's going to increase the gap between the rich and the people who lose theirjobs. and as soon as you increase that gap, you get fertile ground for fascism. and so it's very scary that we may be at a point where we're just making things worse and worse.

and it's crazy because we're doing something that should help everybody. and obviously it will help in health care. it will help in education. but if the profitsjust go to the rich, that's going to make society worse. so, ok, let's look at the last award, and that's the nobel prize for medicine or physiology. and this is why it was awarded this year. our organs and tissues are made up of many varied types of cells. they all have identical genetic material but different characteristics. this year's medicine laureates, gary ruvkun and victor ambros, have shown how a new form of gene regulation, microrna, is crucial in ensuring that the different cells of organisms, such as muscles or nerve cells, get the functions they need. it's already known that abnormal levels of microrna increase the risk of cancer, but the laureates�* research could lead to developing new diagnostics and treatments. for example, it could map how

microrna varies in different diseases, helping unlock prognoses for the development of diseases. so, gary, your research was based on looking at mutant strains of the roundworm. actually, it should have its own nobel prize, shouldn�*t it? it�*s featured so much in research that�*s led to nobel prizes. butjust tell us, what does your work with roundworms tell us about genetic mutations in humans? doing genetics is a form of doing what evolution has been doing for four billion years. our planet is a genetic experiment that has been generating diverse life from primitive life over four billion years by inducing variation to give you the tree of life that goes,

you know, to bats and to plants and to bacteria. and we do that on one organism. and the reason it works so well is that evolution has evolved a way to generate diversity by mutating. that�*s what. .. all around us, you know, when you see a green tree, it�*s because photosynthesis was developed two billion years ago. the reason we can breathe oxygen is because photosynthesis evolved. and it wasn�*t there beforehand. and so what we�*re doing is that process, and that�*s why it works so well. so the reason the worm has gotten four nobel prizes, and it�*s the worm that got it — you know, we�*rejust the operators — is... laughter it should be here with us. yeah. yeah, it�*s very tiny. little chair. it�*s very tiny. it�*s a millimetre long. you know, it has 959 cells. that�*s different

from us, right? every one of our cells does not have a name, you know? but every cell in a worm has a name. and that attracted a kind of cohort of people who like names. names are important. and we were thinking about, "well, we can learn a lot about how biology works "by sort of following cells. "what�*s their history? "what do they become? "how much do they talk to each other?" but we figure it out by breaking it. i mean, it�*s extraordinary that a human has about 20,000 genes... yes. ..and a worm has 20,000 genes. yes. that�*s why we really are too self—important. we�*re just not... laughter you know, humans are just not that great, you know? we�*re fine. i�*m happy to be a human. i don�*t want to be a worm. but, you know, a bacteria has 4,000 genes. that�*s not very different from 20,000, i�*m sorry. you know, people say, "oh, geez, if you look for life on other planets, "it�*s bacteria, how boring." you got it all wrong, folks! bacteria are totally awesome!

yeah, so what you�*re saying, essentially, is that mutations obviously can be bad — because they can lead to all sorts of genetic illnesses and so on — but they�*re not always bad. and some are quite, actually, relatively insignificant. you�*re colour—blind, aren�*t you, for instance? i mean, that�*s a genetic mutation, isn�*t it? it is. it�*s a debilitating mutation for me... in the days of black and white publishing, i was king. things were fine. and then everything became colour, you know? and i have to say... so, like, our little worm... i�*ll go to a seminar and people are presenting graphs with red and green. and i come out going, "geez, that wasjust "complete horse. and people say, "no, it was fantastic. "you didn�*t see... ?" i wrote to google maps and said, "you guys, traffic is red and green means things are fine. "i can�*t see it. "and you�*re losing

4% of the users. "and it�*s the best 4%." oh, well. i mean, you actually wanted... they did not respond. you wanted to be an electrical engineer originally, didn�*t you? well, yes, i did electronics as a kid, because i loved electronics and i built kits. i built a short wave radio with a $39 kit, made with vacuum tubes. this is before, you know, transistors. but the resistors have a colour code, right? and so... and it tells you how many ohms it is and that�*s how much resistance it has. and so i didn�*t know it. i didn�*t know i was colour—blind at the time. so i put it together. and the test for how well you are... whether it�*s going to work is you turn it on and, if it doesn�*t smoke, that�*s good. and my electronic assembly didn�*t pass the smoke test. well, we�*ve got some students in the audience here, and i know that some of them want to pose a question

to you laureates. jasmina kocanovic. what do you want to ask professor ruvkun? was microrna an unexpected find, orwas it a part of your hypothesis while conducting your research? oh, no hypothesis on that. no, no, no, no. it was a complete surprise. and i love surprises. and, really, you know, that�*s the beauty of doing genetics, is that what comes out is what teaches you. right? you know, you do a mutagenesis. you get an animal that looks like what you�*re looking for. part of the search is saying, "what am i going to look for?" that�*s the art of it. how did your research, along with victor ambros, go down when you first published it in the early 1990s? it was in a little corner of biology, this worm. and there was a sense when you would deliver a paper, go to give a talk about it, that, well, it�*s a worm, who cares? you know? and it�*s a weird little animal.

until we discovered that it was in human genome and then many other genomes, and it�*s been embraced. and what was especially sort of empowering to it was it intersected with rna interference, which is an antiviral response. and people really care now, of course, about antiviral responses. of course. i mean, how did you all find doing your research? i mean, just listening to what gary�*s saying, did you encounter setbacks? can you define particular moments when your research really felt that you were on a winning streak? did people discourage you from what you were doing? daron: all of the above. really? i mean, you know, academia is really hard at some level. you know, you work sometimes three years on a project, and then somebody anonymously destroys it. so that�*s very, very difficult to get used to.

so i do a lot of coaching with my graduate students to get them ready for that. but on the other hand, i�*ve found academia to be quite open—minded as well, you know? whenjim, simonjohnson and i, for example, started doing our work, you know, i think there was not much of this sort in economics. and people could�*ve said, "no, this is not economics." and some people did. and people could have said, "this is crazy." and some people did. but there were a lot of people who were open—minded, especially young researchers. you know, they�*re hungry for new angles. so i found academia to be quite open—minded as well, but a tough place. demis hassabis, david — i think you�*ve both said that research in proteins is kind of seen as, at the time, being on the lunatic fringe of science. i mean, how did you cope with that kind of perception, that you were doing something that was a bit out there? well, i think when we started trying to design proteins, -

everyone thought it was a crazy way to try and solve _ hard problems. the only proteins we knew - at the time were the ones that came down, you know, - through evolution — the ones in us and in all living things. so the idea that you could make completely new ones _ and that they could do - new things was really seen as, you know, lunatic fringe — as you said. i but i think the way you deal with that is you work- on the problem and you make progress _ and, you know, now it's got. to the point where every other day there's another company saying they're joining - the protein design revolution and they're going to be... i so you can go from the lunaticl fringe to the mainstream faster than you might expect. utterly vindicated, weren�*t you? yeah, it's very, very similar with... you know, i think if you're fascinated enough and passionate enough about the area, you're going to... you know, i was going to do it no matter what. you know? and actually, i can't think of anything more interesting to work on than the nature of intelligence and the computational principles underpinning that. and when we started

deepmind in 2010, nobody was working on al pretty much. there was some... yes, except for very few people. very few... the godfather here. ..foresighted people in academia. and then now, fast—forward 15 years, which is not very much time, and obviously the whole world's talking about it. and certainly, in industry, no—one was doing that in 2010. but we already foresaw, building on, you know, the great work of people like professor hinton, that this would be one of the most consequential, transformative technologies in the world — if it could be done. and if you see something like that, then it's worth doing it in of itself. i mean, you, professor hinton, along with your co—recipient of the physics nobel prize, professorjohn hopfield, who is 91, a real pioneer in this field of technology also. i mean, does what you�*ve just heard here resonate with you? that work that at one stage was seen as being on the lunatic fringe, and then here you are, years later, vindicated ? yes.

so, people, students would apply to my department to work with me, and other professors in my department would say, "oh, if you work with hinton, that's the end of your career. "this stuff is rubbish." laughter how did that make you feel? i mean, did you still...? you were so sure? luckily, at the time, i didn't know about it. laughter time i think for another question from our audience, and manojj dhinakaran from the karolinska institute wants to ask this. what�*s your question? thank you, laureates. science is all about being - motivated when things don't go the way we expect them to. so what kept you all motivated when things didn't go the wayl you expected in times of hardship _ and helped you adapt? who�*d like to pick it up? james? that's the best bit. when it doesn't. . .. when what you expected to happen doesn't happen, then you really learn. that's when you really learn something. so that's the best bit. it's really crushing for the first couple of days. and then you're like, "oh,

now i learned something." like, "i didn't understand that." there is ascertainment bias here, because you have people who�*ve got winning hands in the poker game of life, you know? right, well, gentlemen, thanks to all of you. and renewed congratulations on your nobel prizes. that�*s all from this year�*s nobel minds from the royal palace in stockholm. it�*s been a privilege having this discussion with you. thank you to their royal highnesses, the crown princess victoria and prince daniel, for being with us. of course, everybody else in the audience. and you also at home for watching. from me, zeinab badawi, and the rest of the nobel minds team, goodbye. applause

hello there. high pressure continues to bring dry, settled weather to most of the country. i say dry — that is away from scotland, where we�*re likely to see further outbreaks of rain for boxing day. and indeed the next few days looks mostly settled thanks to high pressure and for most it will stay on the mild side for the time of year. it�*s dominated by this area of high pressure sitting over the near continent. we�*ve got this weather front pretty much stationary across the north of the uk and that�*s what�*s bringing the rain to parts of scotland, maybe northern ireland. to the north of this weather front, the air is quite cold and that will affect the northern isles, where it will be blustery with a few showers. but generally speaking, for much of the country for boxing day it�*s going to be cloudy, grey, misty and murky in places. outbreaks of rain in scotland, northern ireland, and a few luckier spots see some breaks in the cloud to allow for some sunshine. and generally those temperatures remaining in double figures for most, between 9 and 12 celsius.

as we head through tonight, it stays cloudy with further outbreaks of rain across scotland. it looks like the rain moves a little bit further northwards. i think northern ireland, southern scotland southwards should stay dry. again there could be a little bit of drizzle, some mist and fog with that cloud, and temperatures holding up between 4 and 8 celsius. little change as we head on into friday. it looks like we�*ll see that weather front still bringing outbreaks of rain across more northern and western parts of scotland. further south, though, it tends to stay dry, but again, like the last few days it will stay rather grey and gloomy for many, with some mist and fog too. a few spots seeing cloud breaks to allow for some sunshine. temperatures 9 to 11 or 12 celsius, so again fairly mild for the time of year. now, as we push into the weekend, we�*ll see that weather front start to sink southwards again. so again there�*ll be some rain and thicker cloud across parts of scotland. maybe that rain getting into northwest england, parts of northwest wales as we move through the day on saturday. could see a few breaks in the cloud further south, for the midlands southwards.

that will allow for some sunny spells, and we�*ll see some blustery showers pushing into the northwest of scotland, so it�*s quite a mixed day as we head into saturday. again on the mild side, and you can see the milder air hangs on as we head into the run up to new year, but there�*s a chance of some colder air spreading southwards. mixed in with areas of low pressure, we could see some disruption in the run—up to new year. so it will turn gradually, more unsettled, turn colder. there�*s a chance of some heavy rain and strong winds, and even some snow on the hills in the north, so stay tuned. take care.

live from london, this is bbc news. russia is accused of shooting down a plane over kazakhstan yesterday, killing 38 people.

the kremlin says it�*s wrong to speculate on what happened the new syrian authorities launch an offensive against fighters loyal to ousted leader bashar al—assad following clashes on wednesday. ceremonies are held to mark the twentieth anniversary of the indian ocean earthquake and tsunami. and gavin and stacey win the christmas day tv ratings battle here in the uk, with over 12 million people tuning in to see whether smithy accepted nessa�*s proposal. hello, i�*m lucy hockings. military bloggers and aviation experts have accused russia of shooting down the azerbaijan airlines plane which crashed killing 38 people in kazakhstan yesterday. they�*ve suggested the plane was mistaken for a ukrainian drone and attacked by russian air defences. no proof has been offered. the plane left baku for grozny but was diverted to aktau because of fog.

the kremlin has warned against promoting "hypotheses"