The Word For Man Is Ishi

Elon Musk has claimed that AI is humanity’s “biggest existential threat.” Paradoxically, Musk is also working to create artificial intelligence. Why? Jill Lepore tours through a century of imagined robot rebellions, and argues that these stories are never only about robots. So wh ...  Show more

In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, and renamed it X. When asked why he wanted to own the social media network, Musk talked a lot about something he called the “woke mind virus.” Where does the idea of a mind virus come from? Jill Lepore looks to Cold War science f ...  Show more

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike — either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. D ...  Show more

Human history is absolutely riddled with cases of one person making a magnificent discovery -- only to be punished by the society in which they reside. In part two of this sadly continual series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the story of the legendary Alan Turing, who turned the tid ...  Show more

As Ben and Noel continue their conversation with novelist and art historian David Adams Cleveland, the group finds themselves going far beyond the world of Alger Hiss. In the second part of this two-part series, the guys learn more about David's award-winning work as an art histo ...  Show more

What if everything we think we know about the history of our species is wrong? That’s the provocative question at the heart of a new book by today’s guest, David Wengrow. Hailed as fascinating, brilliant, and potentially revolutionary, “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Hu ...  Show more