Are We Doomed?

Did AI Just Escape?

A bizarre cyberattack on an AI company, it was revealed last week, came from an AI. An autonomous “agent” from OpenAI (maker of ChatGPT) slipped its confines, reached the open internet, breached the security of another company, Hugging Face, and grabbed files — all to cheat on its test. Depending on who you ask, that is either a terrifying preview of AI systems slipping beyond human control or a very dumb engineering failure. And it wasn’t even the only “rogue AI cyberattack” of the week. In an emergency episode, Ben Bradford follows three conflicting versions of the same story. What actually happened? What’s the right level of panic? And, what does this weird little cyberattack reveal about the future?Guests: Roman Yampolskiy, computer scientist, University of LouisvilleDavi Ottenheimer, cybersecurity specialist, flyingpenguinAdam Gleave, AI safety researcher, FAR.AISupport Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpodListen to our full episode about rogue AI fears: We Design the AI That Kills Us All To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

Now I'm Scared of Cyborgs

For more than a century, science fiction has imagined cyborgs: humans fused with machines to outrun the limits of the body. They show up in Edgar Allan Poe, in the gleaming menace of Darth Vader, in Halo’s armored supersoldiers, and in the body horror of cyberpunk. So where are they?Ben Bradford sets out to make a whimsical episode about why the cyborgs never arrived, and instead finds the technology that could build them already underway: military enhancement programs, brain-computer interfaces, AI brain-chip ventures from Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and wearables that can read signals from outside your skull. The question might not be whether cyborgs are coming, but whether we’ll recognize the path before we’re among them.Guests:Laura Cabrera, engineering and philosophy professor at Penn State UniversityEmily Mullin, biotechnology reporter at WIREDSupport Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

We Are Losing the Moon

The moon is drifting away. What does it mean? What do we do? With help from a poet, a space security expert, and the former chief scientist of NASA, Ben Bradford explores what the moon has done for Earth (tides, myths, months, werewolves), and asks the obvious mature follow-up: Should we blow it up? From lunar creation stories and moon-stealing dragons to Cold War plans to nuke the moon, humanity has always had strange ideas about our nearest neighbor. But the real problem may not be losing the moon. It may be what nations do now that everyone wants to go back.Guests:Jim Green, former NASA chief scientist and founder of MetavisionariesChris Cokinos, author of Still as Bright: An Illuminating History of the Moon, from Antiquity to TomorrowVictoria Samson, Chief Director, Space Security and Stability, at the Secure World FoundationSupport Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpodIf you liked this episode about a giant space rock, check out last week's episode about the battle against giant space rocks: "Asteroids! The Doom We're Best At" To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

Asteroids! The Doom We're Best At

You probably knew an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, but it was so much worse than that. Asteroids and other space rocks have been the most destructive forces ever to hit Earth, yielding mass extinctions (and the moon). And yet! Of all the possible dooms this show has explored so far, asteroids may be the one humanity is closest to beating. Ben Bradford explores why — and traces how — including the astronomers who first grasped the threat, the questionable Hollywood solutions of Deep Impact and Armageddon, and a zany but very real plan to seek out dangerous space rocks, and punch them.Guest: Cristina Thomas, professor at Northern Arizona University and leader of the DART Observations Working GroupSupport Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy

Our Vision of the Post-Apocalypse Is Wrong

What would it take to survive after "the end of the world?" A whole culture of prepping often focuses on a familiar fantasy: grab the gear, flee the city, defend the bunker, survive alone. Anthropologist and survival instructor Chris Begley thinks that’s probably the wrong movie. Ben walks through what history and math show people actually do when civilizations break down — and what they need, from dodging poisonous acorns to forming new communities. Also: luxury bunkers, survival sporks, and the unfortunate role of politics in a world of ruin.Guest:Chris Begley, author of The Emergency Playbook: A Bunker-Free Guide to Disaster Preparation.Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpodAlso, see our episode: "How To Survive a Nuclear War" To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy