Podcasts · Technology · Society & Culture

The Last Invention

Longview

18 episodes · in order

The AI revolution has begun – the product of a seventy-year quest by scientists, mathematicians, and visionaries who set out to build machines that could think. But what began as a fringe idea has now become one of the most powerful forces of the 21st century. This is the story of that journey: its rivalries, its competing visions of utopia and apocalypse, and the race to build what may be humanity’s last invention.

Episodes

  1. Introducing: The Last Invention

    · 2:03 · Trailer

    For over seventy years, technologists have dreamed of building a true “thinking machine.” An artificial intelligence so powerful it would reshape every aspect of human life. Would it unlock unimaginable abundance? Or…

  2. EP 1: Ready or Not

    · 36 min · S1 E1

    A tip alleging a Silicon Valley conspiracy leads to a much bigger story: the race to build artificial general intelligence — within the next few years — and the factions vying to accelerate it, to stop it, or to…

  3. EP 2: The Signal

    · 54 min · S1 E2

    In 1951, Alan Turing predicted machines might one day surpass human intelligence and 'take control.' He created a test to alert us when we were getting close. But seventy years of science fiction later, the real threat…

  4. EP 3: Playing the Wrong Game

    · 51 min · S1 E3

    What if the path to a true thinking machine was found not just in a lab… but in a game? For decades, AI’s greatest triumphs came from games: checkers, chess, Jeopardy. But no matter how many trophies it took from…

  5. EP 4: Speedrun

    · 1 h 02 min · S1 E4

    Is the only way to stop a bad guy with an AGI… a good guy with an AGI? In a twist of technological irony, the very people who warned most loudly about the existential dangers of artificial superintelligence—Elon Musk,…

  6. EP 5: Contact

    · 52 min · S1 E5

    In the strange months after ChatGPT’s release, the world made contact with something new. A tech CEO begged to be regulated, a chatbot seemed to fall in love, and the godfathers of AI became frightened by the…

  7. EP 6: The AI Doomers

    · 57 min · S1 E6

    What happens when some of the most idealistic techno-optimists come to believe that superintelligence poses a threat to humanity's survival? Today, the best case for the worst case scenario. We sit down with Nate…

  8. EP 7: The Scouts

    · 55 min · S1 E7

    A decade ago, the leading minds in AI gathered to make sure this technology would benefit everyone. Today, those hopes are colliding with the reality of an AI arms race. Today, game theorist Liv Boeree and philosopher…

  9. EP 8: The Accelerationists

    · 54 min · S1 E8

    Meet the accelerationists: a rising movement that believes expediting AI development is not only inevitable but morally necessary – humanity’s best chance at transcending its limits. What happens when the world’s most…

  10. Ezra Klein on the Uncertain Politics of A.I.

    · 1 h 02 min · S1 E9

    Ezra Klein – New York Times opinion columnist and an influential voice on the American left – joins us at a hinge moment in the A.I. revolution. As artificial intelligence accelerates, Klein examines what’s at stake…

  11. “Build the AI Wall” with Steve Bannon

    · 52 min · S1 E10

    Today, Andy interviews Steve Bannon and his War Room tech editor, Joe Allen. They make the populist right-wing case for breaking up Big Tech, forcing transparency on frontier AI labs, and blocking “AI amnesty” efforts…

  12. The AI Skeptics

    · 1 h 16 min · S1 E11

    In this episode, we dive into the views of the people who think the AGI race is being oversold, misunderstood, or misframed. As you’ll hear, we break them down into three distinct camps: “AI Is Grift” (a tech-industry…

  13. Wetwear

    · 40 min · S1 E12

    This episode was originally reported on our podcast Reflector. You can hear this story and many more by visiting us here What if the next great leap in computing wasn't made of silicon — but of living human brain…

  14. Sam Altman’s Attacker, In His Own Words

    · 21 min · S1 E13

    In this episode we talk with Daniel Alejandro Moreno-Gama, the man who was recently arrested and charged with attempting to kill Sam Altman. Several months before the attack, our team contacted a young man posting on…

  15. Presenting: Book Keeper

    · 53 min

    Today we are sharing with you the first episode of a new series we’ve made here at Longview, called Book Keeper. In our first episode of this series, host Megan Phelps-Roper, more than 10 years after leaving the…

  16. Street Fight Part I: Hobos, Bums, and the Homeless

    · 43 min

    What we call “homelessness” is a relatively modern phenomenon. Today, we tell the story of its emergence and why, in the 1980s, one woman fought so fervently for her right to live on a New York City street corner. You…

  17. Street Fight Part II: Cruel & Unusual

    · 38 min

    Homelessness today looks very different than it did in the 1980s, when American cities first woke up to this crisis. Today, we explore the legal battles that turned survival outside into a constitutional question. You…

  18. Street Fight Part III: Can We End It?

    · 51 min

    Everyone agrees that street homelessness is a problem to solve. But that’s where the agreement ends. Today, we explore the two camps that think they’ve found an answer — one that argues for more resources and the other…

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