Imagine a friendly assistant that can help you build a bioweapon. Or a chatbot in the nuclear weapons chain, cheerfully hallucinating an attack. AI national security expert Hamza Chaudhry worries this is the biggest threat right now — not “killer robot,” but humans being humans. Because whether AI becomes dangerously smart or confidently dumb, people will find face-palming ways to abuse it. From deranged cultists and rogue states, to stockbrokers and the most evil version of Ben’s little cousin, handing everyone a powerful technology with few guardrails could end badly. Or, is there a path to convince companies to add their own?

Guest:

Hamza Chaudhry, AI national security expert, Future of Life Institute

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Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod

Listen to our episode about rogue AI: We Design the AI That Kills Us All
And our episode about nuclear oopsies: How to Start a Nuclear War

Are we living through the end times or the best moment in human history? Novelist and internet veteran Jason Pargin argues you have spent your life inside a “literal reverse apocalypse” — and if you don’t see it, he knows who to blame. Ben Bradford talks with Pargin about doom-scrolling, child mortality, processed donuts, murderous Toyota drivers, and how humanity’s greatest problems may be side effects of its greatest successes. So how do we tell if the world is really ending — or if the internet has trapped us inside a giant doom machine?

Guest:

Jason Pargin, author of I’m Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom, TikTok: @jasonkpargin

Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/
Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod

Earlier episodes mentioned:
Are We Going the Way of the Roman Empire?
Past Dooms That Didn't Arrive

Historically, societies fall. Civilizations collapse. But is that what’s happening now in the United States? With the help of historians, a former CIA-funded researcher on political instability, and one grumbling dad, Ben Bradford looks at the warning signs that can precede collapse — from polarization and political division to outside shocks and cascading crises. How much of that is visible in America right now? What would collapse actually look like in modern life? And if the alarms are blinking, is there still time to turn back?

Guests:

Ian Morris, historian, archaeologist, Stanford University professor, author: Why the West Rules—For Now.

Monty Marshall, former senior consultant for the U.S. Political Instability Task Force.

Annalee Newitz, science journalist, author: Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age.

Ben's Dad.

Ben's Mom.

Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/

Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpod

Check out Ben’s previous series, Landslide.