Are We Doomed?

In 1859, the sky turned blood-red, telegraph machines sparked and chattered, and some of their batteries exploded. Then humanity responded by building a civilization that runs on electricity, satellites, GPS, internet cables, credit cards, and cellphone towers.Great work, everyone.Ben Bradford investigates the Carrington Event — the massive solar storm that fried the technology of its time — and asks what would happen if something like it hit our much more wired world today. Was Carrington a one-off? Are modern power grids, satellites, and internet infrastructure any safer than an 1859 telegraph? And if the sun does cough another piece of itself at us, is there anything we can actually do?Guests:Jim Green, former chief scientist of NASA and founder of MetavisionariesElizabeth Butler at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction CenterFor more threats from space, check out our episodes:"Asteroids! The Doom We're Best At""We Are Losing the Moon" (also with Jim Green)Also mentioned in this episode:"We Try and Kill the Internet"Support 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

A dark blue wound across the bottom of the world — that’s what NASA images showed in the 1980s. It was a hole in the ozone layer, eight million square miles across. Human activity and convenience had quietly, but rapidly, eaten away Earth’s crucial shield against the sun, one that likely helped make life on land possible in the first place.Ben Bradford goes back to re-examine the story of the ozone hole: how people discovered it, how they fought over what to do, and what finally happened. It’s a tale of hairspray, human progress, exploding refrigerators, scientists balancing on icy Antarctic rooftops, and Ronald Reagan’s ranch. And from it, maybe, we can find a map for building consensus on our most pressing environmental challenges today.Guest:Susan Solomon, MIT atmospheric scientist and one of the key figures in solving the ozone crisis.Support 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

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

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

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

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 InstituteThis episode was edited by Annie Russell.Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ Watch earlier episodes on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@arewedoomedpodListen to our episode about rogue AI: We Design the AI That Kills Us AllAnd our episode about nuclear oopsies: How to Start 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

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/@arewedoomedpodCheck out Ben’s previous series, Landslide. 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

People have been predicting the end of the world forever. They’ve always been wrong. Maybe we’re wrong today, too. So, we’re looking back at three past dooms predicted in the 20th century, none of which arrived as advertised. Why not? What can we learn? Does it mean that the current biggest end-of-the-world fears may be overblown, misunderstood, or — with effort — preventable? Along the way: failed utopias, dystopias, and the animal Ben fears most: the mini-hippo.Guest: Matt Novak, journalist at Gizmodo and long-time author of the Paleofuture blog.Support 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

Mosquitoes are little jerks. They suck your blood to make more mosquitoes, spread deadly diseases like malaria and dengue, and have killed more humans than any other creature in the history of Earth. But now, we can fight back. Gene-editing technology (CRISPR, gene drives) could temporarily wipe out disease-carrying mosquitoes in whole regions — potentially saving millions of lives. A miracle, but with an unsettling question of its own: Who gets to decide when humanity rewrites nature?Also: radiation-blasted flies, Australian rabbit smoothies, and … Mosquito Jurassic Park.Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ 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

Maddeningly, even some researchers building artificial intelligence see it as a potential existential threat on par with nuclear war. Ben Bradford follows three simple steps that could lead an AI to turn on humanity and attempt to wipe us out. From autonomous agents with misaligned goals to hacked infrastructure, bioweapons, and a real story of AI blackmail, a nerdy apocalypse thought experiment starts to feel a little too plausible. So, then we try to dismantle our rogue creation.Support Are We Doomed?, get bonus episodes, and more: https://doompod.com/support/ 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

Grin at the apocalypse and find out with this curious, irreverent weekly podcast exploring the biggest dangers to our society and our species. From nuclear war and societal collapse to rogue AI and the moon drifting off … which “dooms” are real? What can we do? What does history tell us? And do you need to learn wilderness survival? Each week, acclaimed journalist Ben Bradford investigates the threats that haunt humanity with curiosity and only a little panic behind his eyes. The result: Gripping true stories, thoughtful guests, darkly funny insights, and an unexpected amount of hope. We’ve survived every "end of the world" so far, and let’s figure out why. So we can do it again. 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