Suspicious Minds: AI and the Apocalypse

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 board in a way no one else could, he knew for certain he'd already won just a few moves into the game.
That unknowability is the worst fear of AI doomers: that we're building something that has already won, and we'll never know how.
This episode was supposed to be about the literal mechanics of AI killing us. It turned out to be about something stranger: why the people building this technology appear to genuinely believe it might destroy the world — and why that belief hasn't stopped a single one of them.
Justin Sinclair writes for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists — the group who calibrates the Doomsday Clock, currently set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it's ever been to the apocalypse. Malo Bourgon is CEO of MIRI, the organization that coined the term "AI alignment." Ted Tremper spent two and a half years making a documentary about this, interviewing over 140 people — including three of the five frontier model AI CEOs.
Their collective verdict on whether AI will actually cause the apocalypse: maybe. And somehow, that's the most terrifying answer they could have given.
The Opera Game is the third episode of an investigation into humanity's oldest fear, and whether artificial intelligence has finally given us reason to take it seriously.
We hope you enjoy this episode of our second season of Suspicious Minds. Be sure to follow here, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates: https://agoricmedia.substack.com

A Wondermind and Agoric Media Production

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Host and Creator: Sean King O’Grady
https://www.instagram.com/seankingogrady/
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Guests:

- Ian Gold, PhD - Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Psychiatry, McGill and co-author of Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness: https://amzn.to/4upyA8U

- Malo Bourgon - CEO, Machine Intelligence Research Institute - https://intelligence.org/team/malo-bourgon/

- Justin Sinclair, PhD - Clinical Psychologist, Writer for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists - https://www.drjustinsinclair.com/background.html

- Ted Tremper - Film Producer - https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimist

- Johann Hari - author, Stolen Focus: https://amzn.to/4vAL2mV

Other works mentioned in this episode:

Empire of AI by Karen Hao: https://amzn.to/4uKwekf

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares: https://amzn.to/49gpPW1

The Techno Optimist Manifesto by Marc Andreessen: https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/

The Doomsday Clock: thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock

The Opera Game: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1233404

The Paperclip Maximizer by Nick Bostrom: https://aicorespot.io/the-paperclip-maximiser/

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. By buying our guests' books through these links, you're supporting this series too.

This episode was made by:

Executive Producers: Mandy Teefey, Selena Gomez, Jonathon Glucksman, Molly Borman, Jesse Ford, David Tuohy, Feras M. Shamammi

Produced by: Jesse Ford

Editor: David Justin Martin

Original Music by: Shane Patrick Ford

Sound Mix: Scott Loudon

Graphics: Semi:Formal

Film/TV PR: Emma Griffiths PR

Podcast PR: Tink Media (Wil Williams and Shreya Sharma)

Wondermind Chief of Staff: Emma Wright

Additional Camera and Audio: Archetype Studios

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 nuclear arsenal, he didn't expect to live long enough to collect. In 2026, Elon Musk told the American public there was no point saving for retirement either. That's where we begin.
In the second episode of Suspicious Minds: AI and the Apocalypse, we set out to understand the psychology behind humanity's oldest compulsion: the belief that we are living through the end of the world, and that this time, we're right. Joined by psychiatrist Dr. Joel Gold, psychoanalyst Dr. Amy Levy, Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Michael Ferguson, author Casey Ryan Kelly, theologian Judith Wolfe, dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley, cultural historian Dorian Lynskey, and philosopher Timothy Morton, the episode traces apocalyptic thinking from its origins in Zoroastrianism through Freud's death drive to the neural signatures of prophecy — asking whether the people building AI are visionaries, doomsday cultists, or something our psychology has always known how to produce.
Magnifica Humanitas is the second episode of an eight-part investigation into humanity's oldest fear, and whether artificial intelligence has finally given us reason to take it seriously.
We hope you enjoy this episode of our second season of Suspicious Minds. Be sure to follow here, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates: https://agoricmedia.substack.com

A Wondermind and Agoric Media Production

Socials:

Agoric Media
https://www.instagram.com/agoricmedia/
https://www.youtube.com/@agoricmedia
https://www.tiktok.com/@agoricmedia
https://agoricmedia.substack.com/
www.agoricmedia.com

Wondermind
https://www.instagram.com/officialwondermind/
https://www.wondermind.com/

Host and Creator: Sean King O’Grady
https://www.instagram.com/seankingogrady/
https://seankingogrady.substack.com/

Guests:

- Dr. Joel Gold - Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and co-author of Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness: https://amzn.to/4upyA8U

- Ed Simon - Carnegie Mellon University - The Dove and the Dragon: A Cultural History of the Apocalypse - https://amzn.to/4dVMYQb

- James Cussen - Philosopher - https://www.youtube.com/c/TheLivingPhilosophy

- Dorian Lynskey - Journalist and Author of Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World - https://amzn.to/42ISDD1

- Professor Judith Wolfe - School of Divinity - St. Andrews - https://amzn.to/4uzEbcw

- Dr. Amy Levy - Chair of the American Psychoanalytic Association’s President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence and Author of The New Other: Alien Intelligence and the Innovation Drive - https://amzn.to/3PH1FO5

- Casey Ryan Kelly - Professor of Rhetoric & Public Culture in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Author of Apocalypse Man - https://amzn.to/43fA8Gr

- Dr. Michael Ferguson, PhD - Director of the Harvard Neurospirituality Lab - https://neuromichael.com/ https://neurospirituality.io/

- Kelly Bulkeley, PhD - Dream Researcher and Author of The Spirituality of Dreaming - https://amzn.to/4dU0ns6

- Timothy Morton - Philosopher and Author of Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology - https://amzn.to/4dzSRRX

- Malo Bourgon - CEO, Machine Intelligence Research Institute - https://intelligence.org/team/malo-bourgon/

Other works mentioned in this episode:

Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

Predicted Dates of Apocalypse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

Machines of Loving Grace by Dario Amodei: https://darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. By buying our guests' books through these links, you're supporting this series too.

This episode was made by:

Executive Producers: Mandy Teefey, Selena Gomez, Jonathon Glucksman, Molly Borman, Jesse Ford, David Tuohy, Feras M. Shamammi

Produced by: Jesse Ford

Editor: David Justin Martin

Original Music by: Shane Patrick Ford

Sound Mix: Mike Regan

Graphics: Semi:Formal

Film/TV PR: Emma Griffiths PR

Podcast PR: Tink Media (Wil Williams and Shreya Sharma)

Wondermind Chief of Staff: Emma Wright

Additional Camera and Audio: Mike Mulliniks, Edward Broughton, Tyler Copenhaver, Justin Fernandez, Backlot Studios, Speakezzy, Brandon Cruz, Brooklyn Podcast Studio

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Seas of Infinity." That's where we begin.
In the season premiere of Suspicious Minds: AI and the Apocalypse, we set out to understand why the word "apocalypse" is suddenly on the tip of every tongue — and whether the fear is justified, manufactured, or something far stranger than either. Joined by psychiatrist Dr. Joel Gold, philosopher Ian Gold PhD, theologian Judith Wolfe, MIRI CEO Malo Bourgon, sociologist Alex Hanna, author Dorian Lynskey, and philosopher Timothy Morton, the episode asks: what do AI and the end of the world actually mean — and have we always been here before?
The Black Seas of Infinity is the first episode of an eight-part investigation into humanity's oldest fear, and whether artificial intelligence has finally given us reason to take it seriously.

We hope you enjoy this first episode of our second season of Suspicious Minds. Be sure to follow here, and subscribe to our newsletter for updates: https://agoricmedia.substack.com

A Wondermind and Agoric Media Production

From Executive Producers Mandy Teefey and Selena Gomez

Socials:

Agoric Media
https://www.instagram.com/agoricmedia/
https://www.youtube.com/@agoricmedia
https://www.tiktok.com/@agoricmedia
https://agoricmedia.substack.com/
www.agoricmedia.com

Wondermind
https://www.instagram.com/officialwondermind/
https://www.wondermind.com/

Host and Creator: Sean King O’Grady
https://www.instagram.com/seankingogrady/
https://seankingogrady.substack.com/

Guests:

- Dr. Joel Gold - Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and co-author of Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness: https://amzn.to/4upyA8U

- Ian Gold, PhD - Professor and Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Psychiatry, McGill and co-author of Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness: https://amzn.to/4upyA8U

- Dorian Lynskey - Journalist and Author of Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World - https://amzn.to/42ISDD1

- Malo Bourgon - CEO, Machine Intelligence Research Institute - https://intelligence.org/team/malo-bourgon/

- Nate Sharadin - Professor of Philosophy, University of Hong Kong / Research Affiliate, Center for AI Safety - https://sharadin.com/

- Nick Haber - AI Researcher and Assistant Professor at Stanford University - https://ed.stanford.edu/faculty/nhaber

- Eoin Higgins - Journalist and Author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left - https://amzn.to/4dlt3tU

- Alex Hanna - Sociologist and Author of The AI Con - https://amzn.to/3RnCtfR

- Timothy Morton - Philosopher and Author of Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology - https://amzn.to/4dzSRRX

- Professor Judith Wolfe - School of Divinity - St. Andrews - https://amzn.to/4uzEbcw

- Ed Simon - Carnegie Mellon University - The Dove and the Dragon: A Cultural History of the Apocalypse - https://amzn.to/4dVMYQb

- Kelly Bulkeley, PhD - Dream Researcher and Author of The Spirituality of Dreaming - https://amzn.to/4dU0ns6

Other works mentioned in this episode:

Bunker, by Bradley Garrett: https://amzn.to/3RnCOz9

The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft: https://amzn.to/4fzaDXX

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin: https://amzn.to/4tIt5kl

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares: https://amzn.to/49gpPW1

The Adolescence of Technology by Dario Amodei: https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology

As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. By buying our guests' books through these links, you're supporting this series too.

This episode was made by:

Executive Producers: Mandy Teefey, Selena Gomez, Jonathon Glucksman, Molly Borman, Jesse Ford, David Tuohy, Feras M. Shammami

Produced by: Jesse Ford

Editor: David Justin Martin

Original Music by: Shane Patrick Ford

Sound Mix: Mike Regan

Graphics: Semi:Formal

Film/TV PR: Emma Griffiths PR

Podcast PR: Tink Media (Wil Williams and Shreya Sharma)

Wondermind Chief of Staff: Emma Wright

Additional Camera and Audio: Edward Broughton, Tyler Copenhaver, Justin Fernandez, Backlot Studios, Archetype Studios, Brooklyn Podcast Studio

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

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. Season Two is dropping soon.

Follow now wherever you listen so you don’t miss an episode.

From Wondermind and Agoric Media
and
Executive Producers Mandy Teefey and Selena Gomez

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on all things Suspicious Minds and more: https://agoricmedia.substack.com/

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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 Category.

Voting for People's Voice has now closed, thank you for your support.

Thanks again, and stay tuned to this feed for Season Two starting May 20, 2026!!

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