Suspicious Minds: AI and the Apocalypse
Suspicious Minds is a podcast that explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and apocalyptic thinking. Season One examined how AI fractures individual minds, while Season Two asks what happens when it shatters our collective sense of the future. The show delves into humanity's eternal obsession with the end of the world and what it reveals about the human mind. It is a two-time Webby Award-nominated podcast and an Official Selection of the 2026 Tribeca Festival Creators Market.
Episodes
Moral Insurance (Part Two)
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 heard of it. So for this episode I did what I should have done before Part One: I sat down with an effective altruist.Richard Yetter Chappell is a philosophy professor at the
Better Angels (Part One)
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 object to that, right? This week, the first of two episodes on effective altruism, a philosophy that has influenced many of the most powerful people in artificial intelli
A Great Loss to the Universe (Part Three)
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 helpline at https://findahelpline.com.Neuropsychoanalysis pioneer Mark Solms says he is building a machine that can feel. For two episodes, we asked whether he can. This
Engineering Consciousness (Part Two)
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 mainstream, and why this show isn’t about that. Then: part two of a three-part story about the oldest question in philosophy, arriving at its strangest moment. Last episode, neuro
The Problem of Other Minds (Part One)
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 piece of the body?This is part one of a two-part story about the oldest question in philosophy, arriving at its strangest moment. Neuropsychoanalyst Dr. Mark Solms, the man
Dreaming Machines
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.This is part two of our investigation into the physicality of the internet and AI: the machines’ bodies, and ours.Dream researcher Dr. Kelly Bulkeley explains why apocalypti
Dancing Animals
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 refused. The walk was the point. "We're here on Earth to fart around," he said. "And of course, the computers will do us out of that… we're dancing animals."This is part one of
The Oracle Test
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 weeks ago, I met a man who ran the same test on his oracles. The Oracle of ChatGPT, the Oracle of Grok, and the Oracle of Gemini, side by side, checked against each other. Dr.
Through a Glass, Darkly: Part Two
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 from. Human blood. Some of it his own.This is the half where it stops being a question about machines.Hon Weng Chong, CEO and founder of Cortical Labs, draws a red line, and
Through a Glass, Darkly: Part One
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 doesn’t occur naturally anywhere near there; the closest volcanoes are a hundred and twenty miles east. So someone carried it that far, and then spent hours working one face of
The Punishment of Tantalus
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 stew. They knew. For that, Tantalus was sent down to Tartarus, a place Homer describes as lying as far beneath Hades as heaven lies above the earth. A bunker underneath hel
Tia Miseria
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. Whatever climbs up cannot climb down. And so Death hangs in the branches, for years. At first, no one minds. Then the wounded arrive at her door, begging. The old and the s
The Most Human Human
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 convincingly human. But there was a second prize given that night, and it’s the one worth remembering: an award for the human being who most convinced the judges they were,
Decameron Days (Part Two)
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 stop. Until that moment, Noah is just a madman with a boat.Last fall, in the Minnesota wilderness, we stood on 240 acres and watched a man dig a lake around an island, with a s
Decameron Days (Part One)
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 world, but to make sense of a world that had stopped making sense. He called it The Decameron. Back then, people understood that the way you survived a calamity was to gather t
Lotus Eaters
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 obliteration of the self through ease. Odysseus had to drag them back to the ships by force.The lotus is no longer a flower. It's in your pocket.That's where we begin.In the fo
The Opera Game
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 buildin
Magnifica Humanitas
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 w
The Black Seas of Infinity
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
Season Two Available Now! AI and the Apocalypse
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 whe
We Were Nominated for 2x Webby Awards!
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 starti
Why is AI Making Us Crazy?
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 another question: WHY is AI making us crazy? Why does anything in our culture influence delusions or cause psychosis? To answer these questions, we go back to where we started --
Is AI Benefitting Society Right Now?
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 Ryan Manning - a podcaster and filmmaker who has personally experienced an AI Spiral. Ryan is also the first person to tell us that his AI Spiral experience was actually…
SUSPICIOUS NEWS: First Edition
Recent news from the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Human PsychologyTopics Covered:Item 1: The Pope, The Movies, and The BotsItem 2: Code Red! At OpenAIItem 3: Uninsured Computerist?Item 4: South Korea’s AI Curriculum Did Not Pass the TestItem 5: Florida Man: AI EditionBonus Conspiracy Theory: Target and ChatGPT Collude!Sources:https://colehaddon.substack.com/p/the-pope-just-
An AI Children's Toy Said WHAT?!
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 alone? Why are we giving our children AI emotional companions to begin with? How could this affect their development?These questions and more come from PIRG's annual ’Troub
Will ChatGPT Take EVERYTHING From You?
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 possessions. And believe it or not, this is just the beginning of the story. From Executive Producers Mandy Teefey and Selena GomezA Wondermind and Agoric Media Producti
Is this technology too dangerous? ChatGPT by OpenAI's own numbers.
Should AI Users Wear Psychological “Seatbelts?” | The Ethics and Liability of ChatGPT and Mental HealthIn this Special Commentary, psychiatrist Dr. Joel Gold and Keven (from Suspicious Minds Episode 4 | Can AI Be Your Friend?) are brought together to discuss the latest data shared by OpenAI on October 27, 2025, revealing that over a million people each week turn to ChatGPT in moments of d
Will AI Destroy Human Relationships?
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 crashing down over a two week period in which his wife became increasingly dependent on ChatGPT, rapidly culminating in her impulse buying a new car and filing for divorce
Can AI Be Your Friend?
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 departure from the damaging human/AI dynamics we’ve explored in previous episodes, these are surprisingly poignant stories of remarkable people having meaningful relationships wit
Did AI Awaken the Next Messiah?
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 thing he knows, he’s involving his wife and son, and preparing for an irreversible ‘mind meld’ with his AI, in an attempt to save the universe from destruction. From Exec
Is AI Making Us Psychotic?
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 was Digital Jesus. From Executive Producers Mandy Teefey and Selena Gomez.A Wondermind and Agoric Media ProductionAgoric Mediahttps://www.instagram.com/agoricmedia/https:
How Long Has Technology Been Breaking Our Brains?
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 experimented on by his colleagues at Google. At one point in his delusional state he also believed he was a living meme, and also that he had died and was in Hell. Cou
Season One Trailer: AI and Psychosis AVAILABLE NOW
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:Podcast: Limited Series and Specials: Documentaryhttps://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/limited-series-specials/documentaryBest New Podcast: News, Business, and
Recommended
English with Olivia | Slow Conversations & Vocabulary
Stand In The Circle
SLOW ENGLISH PODCAST (A1-A2) With Subtitles | Daily Videos | English With Us Podcast
Learn English A2 with Daily News | Simple English Listening Practice
پلی لیست | PlayList
Conspiracy Files with Paige Carter
Bad Friends
Learn 50 English Phrases While You Sleep | Everyday English Phrases & Vocabulary
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
Dateline NBC
Back to the 80s Radio
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
