EP 4: Speedrun
· 1 h 02 min · S1 E4
Episode EP 4: Speedrun
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, Sam Altman, and Dario Amodei among them—became the ones racing to build it first. Each believed they alone could create it safely before their competitors unleashed something dangerous. This episode traces how their shared fear of an “AI dictatorship” ignited a breakneck competition that ultimately led to the release of ChatGPT.
THIS EPISODE FEATURES:
Karen Hao, Keach Hagey, Jasmine Sun, Yoshua Bengio, Kevin Roose, Connor Leahy
LINKS:
Karen Hao’s book “Empire of AI”
Keach Hagey’s book The Optimist
Obama’s Wired Interview
Ross Douthat’s Theil interview and article
Joe Rogan Experience 1169 - Elon Musk
Hardfork Podcast
Alpha Go Documentary
CREDITS:
This episode of The Last Invention was reported and produced by Andy Mills, Gregory Warner, Andrew Parsons, Megan Phelps-Roper, Matthew Boll, Seth Temple Andrews, and Ethan Mannello. It is hosted by Gregory Warner
Music for this episode was composed by Scott Devendorf, Ben Lanz, Cobey Bienert, and Matthew Boll
The Last Invention artwork by Jacob Boll
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Links in the notes 15
- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743569/empire-of-ai-by-karen-hao/%E2%81%A0
- https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324075967/about-the-book/description%E2%81%A0
- https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-mit-joi-ito-interview/%E2%81%A0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV7YgnPUxcU%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antichrist-ross-douthat.html%E2%81%A0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI%E2%81%A0
- https://www.nytimes.com/column/hard-fork
- https://youtu.be/WXuK6gekU1Y?si=VjeDk1gYnyOBpr-7%E2%81%A0
- https://www.instagram.com/distantstation/?utm_source=qr
- https://www.instagram.com/lanzprojects/
- https://open.spotify.com/artist/1cHhFEJWNq6SVKlIqoTy5o?si=hlUwSUyHSMKe4cOHMpzgeA
- https://www.jacobboll.com/
- https://www.longviewinvestigations.com/#membership
- https://groundnews.com/invent
- https://thefire.org/thelastinvention
- https://megaphone.fm/adchoices
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