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 powerful technologists treat AI progress as a duty rather than a danger?
THIS EPISODE FEATURES:
Olivier Oullier, Guido de Croon, Alex Williams, Reid Hoffman, Guillaume Verdon/“Beff Jezos”
LINKS:
Beff Jezos/Guillaume Verdon’s Twitter
David Sinclair’s website
Olivier Oullier’s Company
Alex Williamss is a contributor here
Reid Hoffman’s Personal Website
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
Listen to the soundtrack Music From The Last Invention by Devendorf Lanz
The Last Invention artwork by Jacob Boll
To become a Longview subscriber you can visit us here
Thank you to our sponsors Ground News and FIRE
GROUND NEWS: Go to groundnews.com/invent to get 40% off unlimited access to global coverage of the stories shaping our world.
FIRE
This is a paid sponsorship link
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53:04
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53:04
EP 7: The Scouts
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 William MacAskill lay out what they see as the “narrow path” between a future of limitless potential and one of irreversible loss.
THIS EPISODE FEATURES:
Max Tegmark, Nick Bostrom, Liv Boeree, William MacAskill
LINKS:
Max Tegmark’s book “Life 3.0, Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”
Nick Bostrom's book "Superintelligence"
Liv Boeree’s Website
Liv Boeree’s Podcast
William MacAskill’s book “What We Owe the Future”
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
To become a Longview subscriber you can visit us here
Thank you to our sponsors Ground News and FIRE
GROUND NEWS: Go to groundnews.com/invent to get 40% off unlimited access to global coverage of the stories shaping our world.
FIRE
This is a paid sponsorship link
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54:52
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54:52
EP 6: The AI Doomers
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 Soares and Connor Leahy and ask them to make their case for why we need to stop ASI, before it’s too late.
THIS EPISODE FEATURES:
Connor Leahy, Natasha Vita-More, Max More, Keach Hagey, Nate Soares
LINKS:
Nate Soares’s book (with Eliezer Yudkowsky) If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies
Connor Leahy’s AI safety startup Conjecture
Natasha Vita-More’s books
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
To become a Longview subscriber you can visit us here
Thank you to our sponsors Ground News and FIRE
GROUND NEWS: Go to groundnews.com/invent to get 40% off unlimited access to global coverage of the stories shaping our world.
FIRE
This is a paid sponsorship link
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56:56
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56:56
EP 5: Contact
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 implications of what they’d spent their lives building.
THIS EPISODE FEATURES:
Keach Hagey, Kevin Roose, Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton
LINKS:
Keach Hagey’s book The Optimist
Sam Altman testifies at Senate artificial intelligence hearing, May 16, 2023
Sam Altman testifies at Senate hearing on artificial intelligence, May 8, 2025
Kevin Roose’s article on Sydney
Kevin’s podcast: Hard Fork
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
To become a Longview subscriber you can visit us here
Thank you to our sponsors Ground News and FIRE
GROUND NEWS: Go to groundnews.com/invent to get 40% off unlimited access to global coverage of the stories shaping our world.
FIRE
This is a paid sponsorship link
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51:20
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51:20
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
To become a Longview subscriber you can visit us here
Thank you to our sponsors Ground News and FIRE
GROUND NEWS : Go to groundnews.com/invent to get 40% off unlimited access to global coverage of the stories shaping our world.
FIRE
This is a paid sponsorship link.
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.
UK