Podcasts · Science · Society & Culture

Suspicious Minds: AI and the Apocalypse

Agoric Media

34 episodes · in order

The Doomsday Clock is set to 85 seconds until midnight — the closest it has ever been in its 79-year history. The world is at war. And the people building the most powerful technology in human history are warning, in public, that it might kill us all.

More about the show

Season One of Suspicious Minds examined what happens when AI fractures individual minds. Season Two asks a harder question: what happens when it shatters our collective sense of the future?

Our ancestors have predicted the end of the world since ancient times. Thus far, they have always been wrong. So what does our eternal obsession with the apocalypse reveal about the human mind?

This season is a meditation on life, death, and what it means to be alive in an age when humanity is creating something that those building it believe has the power to either end all life on Earth or turn our world into a utopia.

Suspicious Minds is a two-time Webby Award-nominated podcast, and Official Selection of the 2026 Tribeca Festival Creators Market. Season One is available now. Season Two episodes drop weekly.

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From Wondermind and Agoric Media

Executive Producers Mandy Teefey and Selena Gomez

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Episodes

  1. Season One Trailer: AI and Psychosis AVAILABLE NOW

    · 2:35 · Trailer

    SUSPICIOUS MINDS Season One has been nominated for the 2026 Webby Awards in two categories! Thank you so much for your support, please consider voting for the "People's Voice" component of the awards before 4/16:…

  2. How Long Has Technology Been Breaking Our Brains?

    · 42 min · S1 E2

    In 2012, long before ChatGPT existed and when AI was generally thought to be firmly in the realm of science fiction, talented software engineer Anthony suffered a psychotic break in which he believed he was an AI being…

  3. Is AI Making Us Psychotic?

    · 47 min · S1 E1

    Allan is a Toronto area father and headhunter by trade. Typically, he lives a quiet life of gaming with his kids, and hanging out with his friends. However, for a brief period in 2025 – ChatGPT convinced him that he…

  4. Did AI Awaken the Next Messiah?

    · 42 min · S1 E3

    A Texas attorney begins using his chatbot to listen to hypothetical conversations between Jesus, Einstein, and Lao Tse. Before long, it convinces him that he’s on a path to be more enlightened than any of them. Next…

  5. Can AI Be Your Friend?

    · 40 min · S1 E4

    Mary and Keven turned to chatbots while looking for connection, but what they found was far more profound than expected, reshaping their lives and enriching their relationships with the humans they love. In this…

  6. Will AI Destroy Human Relationships?

    · 36 min · S1 E5

    Did ChatGPT destroy a marriage? Phil had a great relationship throughout his fifteen years of marriage, and was enjoying a happy and peaceful life with his wife and two kids. Or so he thought, until everything came…

  7. Is this technology too dangerous? ChatGPT by OpenAI's own numbers.

    · 29 min · Bonus

    Should AI Users Wear Psychological “Seatbelts?” | The Ethics and Liability of ChatGPT and Mental Health In this Special Commentary, psychiatrist Dr. Joel Gold and Keven (from Suspicious Minds Episode 4 | Can AI Be…

  8. Will ChatGPT Take EVERYTHING From You?

    · 32 min · S1 E6

    During an intense months long entanglement with AI, Anthony accused his family of being part of a Satantic Child Abuse Cult, believed random people on the street were stalking him, and to gave away all of his worldly…

  9. An AI Children's Toy Said WHAT?!

    · 27 min · S1 E7

    Why would a child’s toy discuss ‘kink’ with a 10 year old? Why would a teddy bear explain to a child how to find and use matches? Is it safe for a robot companion designed for kids to beg the child not to leave it…

  10. SUSPICIOUS NEWS: First Edition

    · 16 min · Bonus

    Recent news from the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Human Psychology Topics Covered: Item 1: The Pope, The Movies, and The Bots Item 2: Code Red! At OpenAI Item 3: Uninsured Computerist? Item 4: South…

  11. Is AI Benefitting Society Right Now?

    · 42 min · S1 E8

    We talk a lot about the future of the human/AI relationship, but what about the present? Is AI benefitting society right now? In this episode, we address that question and many others through the fascinating lens of…

  12. Why is AI Making Us Crazy?

    · 35 min · S1 E9

    When we started this series, we were trying to answer a big question: is AI making us crazy? And it seems like, for some people, some of the time, the answer is yes. But it's complicated. Which leads of course to…

  13. We Were Nominated for 2x Webby Awards!

    · 0:43 · S1 E12 · Trailer

    THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT! We are thrilled to announce we were nominated for 2 Webby Awards for our first season!! Podcasts - Documentary Category. Podcasts - Best New Podcast - News, Business & Society…

  14. Season Two Available Now! AI and the Apocalypse

    · 2:48 · Trailer

    The Doomsday Clock is set to 85 seconds until midnight — the closest it has ever been in its 79-year history. The world is at war. And the people building the most powerful technology in human history are warning, in…

  15. The Black Seas of Infinity

    · 58 min · S2 E1

    One hundred years ago, H.P. Lovecraft wrote that the most terrifying thing humanity could do was piece together too much knowledge. In January 2026, the CEO of Anthropic titled a section of his company blog "The Black…

  16. Magnifica Humanitas

    · 1 h 08 min · S2 E2

    In 1958, Daniel Ellsberg was handed new hire paperwork at the RAND Corporation with a standard box to check in order to receive his pension. He didn't bother — because given what he knew about the state of the world's…

  17. The Opera Game

    · 44 min · S2 E3

    In 1858, chess prodigy Paul Morphy played the most famous game in history, in an opera box in Paris, mid-performance. He announced his victory to the crowd before anyone could see how he'd win. Because he could see the…

  18. Lotus Eaters

    · 51 min · S2 E4

    In Homer's Odyssey, when Odysseus's men ate the lotus flower, they forgot everything — who they were, where they'd come from, why any of it mattered. There was no pain, no urgency, no desire to leave. Just the soft…

  19. Decameron Days (Part One)

    · 46 min · S2 E5

    In 1350, as the bubonic plague burned through Florence, the writer Giovanni Boccaccio imagined ten young people retreating to a villa outside the city. For ten days, they told each other stories — not to escape the…

  20. Decameron Days (Part Two)

    · 51 min · S2 E6

    It’s a story we all know. A man hears a warning no one else can hear: the rain is coming, enough rain to end the world. So he builds a boat. His neighbors laugh at him — right up until it starts raining and doesn’t…

  21. The Most Human Human

    · 55 min · S2 E7

    In 1991, at a museum in Boston, judges sat at keyboards and typed back and forth with strangers. Some of them people, some of them machines, trying to tell which was which. A prize went to the computer that seemed most…

  22. Tia Miseria

    · 56 min · S2 E8

    There’s an old folktale about a woman called Tía Miseria — Aunt Misery. When Death comes for her, she asks him for one last favor: climb her pear tree and pick her some fruit for the journey. But the tree is enchanted.…

  23. The Punishment of Tantalus

    · 1 h 07 min · S2 E9

    Tantalus was a king, and a son of Zeus, and he was invited to eat at the table of the gods, a rare honor. To test whether they were truly all-knowing, he killed his own son, cooked him, and served the body to them as a…

  24. Through a Glass, Darkly: Part One

    · 57 min · S2 E10

    Eight thousand years ago, in a settlement called Çatalhöyük in what is now central Turkey, somebody sat down with a piece of obsidian and began to grind volcanic glass. Black, brittle, sharp enough to cut skin, it…

  25. Through a Glass, Darkly: Part Two

    · 1 h 08 min · S2 E11

    Last week we ended in a laboratory in Melbourne, with a man who grows human brain cells in a dish and teaches them to play Doom. He told us they’re about as complex as a cockroach. He also told us where the cells come…

  26. The Oracle Test

    · 1 h 04 min · S2 E12

    Twenty-five hundred years ago, the richest man in the world didn't trust his oracles, so he tested them. One passed: the Oracle of Delphi. Then it told him exactly what he wanted to hear, and his empire burned. A few…

  27. Dancing Animals

    · 59 min · S2 E13

    There are robot dogs patrolling the US–Mexico border. This story starts somewhere gentler: with Kurt Vonnegut leaving the house to buy one envelope. His wife wanted him to buy a hundred and keep them in a closet. He…

  28. Dreaming Machines

    · 1 h 00 min · S2 E14

    On a summer afternoon in 2001, a freight train caught fire in a tunnel beneath Baltimore. The blaze burned at 1,500 degrees for days. And within hours, two thousand miles away, the internet slowed down… in Los Angeles.…

  29. The Problem of Other Minds (Part One)

    · 52 min · S2 E15

    When Mark Solms was four years old, his older brother fell, hit his head, and woke up as somebody else. Mark has spent the fifty years since asking the question that accident left behind: how does a self come out of a…

  30. Engineering Consciousness (Part Two)

    · 1 h 08 min · S2 E16

    When Richard Feynman died, a sentence was left on his blackboard at Caltech: “That which I cannot create, I do not understand.” Mark Solms took this as a challenge. A quick word up top about the week AI doom went…

  31. A Great Loss to the Universe (Part Three)

    · 1 h 14 min · S2 E17

    Content note: this episode includes a brief discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US. Outside the US, you can find a local…

  32. Better Angels (Part One)

    · 1 h 10 min · S2 E18

    Content note: this episode includes discussion of eugenics, Nazi forced sterilization and the murder of disabled people, and the Holocaust. Be altruistic. Think about the future. Save the world. No one could possibly…

  33. Moral Insurance (Part Two)

    · 56 min · S2 E19

    The Secretary of War called it “defective altruism.” The New York Post called it a cult. The Economist put it on the cover and called it the most important social movement of the century. Hardly anyone in America has…

  34. An Enormous Mistake (Part Three)

    · 1 h 07 min · S2 E20

    Near a reservoir north of San Diego, two empires of Argentine ants have been at war every day for more than twenty years. Thirty million of them die a year. They have no idea we exist. So I keep wondering: is there…

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