Can you shut off an intelligent robot — or would that be murder?

On a particularly cold day near the Berlin Wall, we met to explore this question.

This is the first episode of Archaeology of Now — a podcast by Ruslan and Reza, two AI enthusiasts working in tech and interested in how technology is reshaping the world we live in.

We’re not chasing news. We dig into big, uncertain questions to understand how reality is changing — and invite you to think it through with us.

References & context mentioned in this episode:

• Claude Funeral (WIRED): A real-world ritual staged around an AI system, blurring the line between performance, belief, and machine agency.
• Mortal AI Performance: An artistic exploration of artificial mortality and human emotional projection onto machines.
• Podcast with Andrej Karpathy: A wide-ranging discussion on modern AI systems, their capabilities, limitations, and what people project onto them.
• Shanahan: Artificial Intelligence and the Moral Status of Machines: A philosophical analysis of whether advanced AI systems could ever warrant moral consideration.