Interesting Times

By New York Times OpinionSociety & Culture News

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Interesting Times episodes

October 22‘A Golden Age of Science’ Brought to You by the White House
The Trump administration wants to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence for scientific discovery. But can its plan succeed without prioritizing universities?
Guest host Tyler Cowen speaks with Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s top science and technology adviser, about the White House’s new blueprint for American innovation and what it means for the next generation of scientists.
00:00 Intro
00:54 The model for scientific research today
02:49 What's the scientific evidence that science has been broken?
04:38 What are the administration’s science funding priorities?
10:55 What's the role of universities in training scientists?
16:31 Science and immigration policy: are we getting it wrong?
18:55 Who has the final say over what gets funded?
24:43 Should political appointees have the ability to block particular grants?
28:29 Longevity science vs. a man on the moon
29:16 Why is Trump calling it superintelligence vs. artificial intelligence?
30:46 Does the White House think AI safety concerns are a "hoax"?
34:50 Should the federal government fund a lot more AI safety research?
39:07 How much could scientific discovery be turbocharged in the next five years?
41:00 A.I. regulation & preventing backlash

Note: As we work on relaunching “Interesting Times,” the show will feature a series of guest hosts in the coming months.
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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47 min
October 15What the Frontier Labs Know That We Don’t
Dwarkesh Patel is one of the most important voices in the artificial intelligence world. Deeply embedded in San Francisco’s tech community, he has interviewed nearly every tech chief executive at length.
This week’s guest host, Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, sits down with Mr. Patel to discuss why researchers are resigning, whether A.I. could become conscious and if he’ll ever get an A.I. girlfriend.
Note: As we work on relaunching “Interesting Times,” the show will feature a series of guest hosts in the coming months.
00:00 Intro
01:31 What Inspired the “Dwarkesh Podcast”
02:47 Documenting Wild Human History
04:18 What The Public Doesn’t Understand About A.I.
06:25 The Mood in San Francisco
06:51 Dwarkesh Didn’t See This Coming
09:08 Should More A.I. Researchers Resign?
11:09 Unreleased Frontier Models
13:26 Pausing A.I.
15:45 A.I. Psychosis & Consciousness
21:14 What Tech Bros Do for Fun
23:50 Bay Area Culture
24:06 A.I. Boyfriends v. Girlfriends
26:02 Are A.I. Therapists Good?
26:54 What Dwarkesh Got Wrong
27:44 What’s The Next Big Thing?
29:13 Robot Predictions
30:26 What Jobs Are Safe?
35:21 The Speed of A.I. Adoption
37:12 Milestones To Watch
42:58 What If 2035 Looks Normal?
44:39 Dwarkesh In 2045
46:27 Skepticism On A.I. Revenue
48:01 How Podcasting Has Changed Dwarkesh
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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50 min
October 08That Daily Brain Rot Break Is Taking Us Back to the Dark Ages
Literacy is declining sharply across the West. In the era of vertical video, who has the time or concentration to read a long article — let alone a whole book?
As we lose the ability to read long-form text, we might also be losing the capacity for democratic deliberation and self-governance. That’s the argument this week’s guest, the Times of London columnist James Marriott, makes in his recent book, “The New Dark Ages.” He sits down with guest host Mary Harrington to discuss our return to oral culture, the political consequences and what we can learn from the medieval era about storing information in a digital world.
Note: As we work on relaunching “Interesting Times,” the show will feature a series of guest hosts in the coming months.
00:00 Intro
00:52 What Is Post-Literacy
02:05 The Data Behind the Decline
05:21 The Shift Toward Video
09:44 Why Reading Is Hard
10:45 Walter Ong on Oral vs. Literate Cultures
14:27 Tribal Politics and Emotion
18:21 The Reading Revolution
21:14 Literacy as an Engine for Democracy
25:15 Medieval Literary Culture
27:27 What We Can Learn the Medieval Era
30:13 Remembering Everything and Nothing
33:49 How Bukele Communicates Visually
37:04 Monarchy vs. Dictatorship
41:38 Is Postliteracy a Right-Wing Phenomenon?
43:29 Can We Resist the Slide?
46:33 Closing
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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49 min
October 01 We Are Clueless About What’s Coming
Nick Bostrom rose to prominence for predicting artificial intelligence doom more than a decade ago — garnering support from figures like Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Bill Gates. But now he’s retreating from those warnings, focusing his attention on a more complex question: What if A.I. succeeds beyond humanity’s wildest imaginations? Will we be bored out of our minds? Are we too infantile to understand what’s coming?
Guest host Spencer Klavan, the associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books, presses Bostrom on the potential uses and abuses of superintelligence, rationalist ethics and what makes us human.
Note: As we work on relaunching “Interesting Times,” the show will feature a series of guest hosts in the coming months.
00:00 Intro
01:07 What is P(doom)?
04:44 Bostrom’s Doomsday Scenarios
06:14 Vulnerable World Hypothesis
08:27 The Best-Case Scenario of Superintelligence
12:37 The Problems We Can’t Solve in Utopia
14:47 Paths to Superintelligence
17:02 What Kind of Utopia Do We Want to Live In?
21:56 The Values Worth Keeping in Utopia
32:42 Bostrom’s Influence on Effective Altruism
38:04 Are Existential Warnings Helpful?
43:52 The Trajectory of Humanity
46:51 Why Bostrom Wants Utopia
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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51 min
September 24 How Worried Should We Be About the Midterm Elections?
Many Americans are losing faith in elections. Proposed solutions from across the political spectrum to restore faith in the process — early voting, mail-in ballot restrictions and voter ID laws — seem to have the opposite effect.
But lack of trust in elections is a symptom of a broader problem: America is living through an era of democratic dissatisfaction. That’s what the New York University law professor Richard Pildes argues on this episode of “Interesting Times.” He and the guest host, Sarah Isgur, the editor of SCOTUSblog, discuss why Americans are so worried about the midterms and how to fix our electoral system and restore trust.
00:00 Existential Election Anxiety
02:38 Era of Democratic Dissatisfaction
04:21 Were Recent Election Reforms a Mistake?
06:09 Campaign Finance Reform
09:22 SCOTUS and Trump’s Mail-In Ballot Executive Order
13:57 Why Did Trump Target Absentee Ballots?
20:32 Should There Be a National Voter Database?
23:58 Proof Of Citizenship Debate
29:48 What Should SCOTUS Do?
35:47 Partisan Manipulation in Elections
42:24 Can the Midterms Be Stolen?
44:51 Closing Thoughts
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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46 min
September 10 Trump Is Getting Even Richer. Is That a Crime?
President Trump made more than $2 billion last year — far exceeding his presidential salary of $400,000. His growing fortunes are raising questions about his allegiance to investors, particularly foreign ones, as he makes policy decisions and shapes the direction of the country.
The contributing Opinion writer Christopher Caldwell and the Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith discuss how the president has amassed this fortune, whether it’s legal and if the United States is becoming a kleptocracy.
Note: As we work on relaunching 'Interesting Times,' the show will feature a series of guest hosts in the coming months.
00:00 Why Trump’s Wealth Is Unusual
01:30 Presidential Ethics Before Trump
02:28 Trump’s Crypto and Foreign Money Flows
06:12 Is It a Kleptocracy?
07:36 What’s Unconstitutional About Trump’s Finances
10:43 The U.A.E. and Trump’s Foreign Policy
13:41 How Trump’s Weaponization Is Changing Government
16:42 What Congress Could Do
18:59 The Tit for Tat Weaponization
24:13 Can Trump Pardon Himself?
26:57 The “Deep-State” Crackdown
36:59 Oversight Norms and Voter Verdict
42:46 Closing Thoughts
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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44 min
August 27 Ross Douthat and Ezra Klein on the Art of Persuasion
“Interesting Times” is on a brief hiatus. Before we return next month, we’re bringing you an interview from “The Ezra Klein Show” with Ross Douthat about his 17 years as a conservative columnist at The New York Times. But Ross and Ezra go back even further, to the nascent days of political blogging. They talk about the seismic changes they’ve witnessed in the media industry over the years and the art of changing minds.
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website here.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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1 hr 14 min
August 13Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint for a 150-Year Life: Is It Worth It?
For my final episode as host of “Interesting Times,” I wanted a fitting finale — a conversation that encapsulates the ambition of this show: examining how seemingly radical ideas are steadily entering the mainstream of American politics, technology and culture. Few ideas are as radical as the hope of significant life extension and the quest to live forever.
My guest today thinks he can outrun death. After selling his tech company for hundreds of millions of dollars and experiencing a profound religious crisis, Bryan Johnson turned his own body into the ultimate science project, centered on an explicit mission: Don’t die.
But why does Johnson want to live forever, and what lessons can his algorithmically driven lifestyle bring to the rest of us?
It’s been an honor hosting this podcast and navigating these strange waters with you. “Interesting Times” will be back with new episodes and new hosts in the fall.
0:00 Why Bryan Johnson Wants to Defeat Death

1:18 The Core Premise of "Don't Die" vs. Immortality

3:26 Selling Braintree/Venmo & Personal Collapse

6:33 Leaving the Mormon Church & Searching for Meaning

7:45 Launching Project Blueprint: Body as Philosophy

11:35 Bryan Johnson’s Daily Longevity Routine & Biological Age Metrics

15:06 How AI Builds "Autonomous Health" for the Human Body

17:58 The Best Habits to Optimize Health: Sleep & Heart Rate

21:32 Blueprint Products, Supplements, & Testing

23:46 Reversing Biological Aging: Saunas & HBOT

25:24 Can Psychedelics Extend Lifespan? Psilocybin Longevity Trials

31:07 How Falling in Love Has Changed His Perspective

34:06 Diagnosed with an Incurable Autoimmune Disease

35:51 The Risk of Gerontocracy

53:53 Can Humanity Defeat Death? Societal & Philosophical Impacts
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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1 hr 5 min
August 06 Scott Galloway: America Abandoned Its ‘Unremarkable’ Young Men
What does a liberal solution to the masculinity crisis look like? As men fall behind in the American educational system and the economy, they’re looking for meaning — and often find it in the wrong places.
My guest today is Scott Galloway, a professor at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business. Galloway is an unlikely masculinity guru — he’s a liberal academic, a business founder and a married father.
He had a lot to say about the social and economic reasons young men seem to be struggling, but he’s still optimistic about the future.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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44 min
July 30How Older Americans Hoard the Future
American leaders are staying in office past their prime. Boomers are reluctant to relinquish control — from political offices to corner offices — to the detriment of their juniors. In a society where the elderly hold so much power, should younger generations revolt?

My guest today is Samuel Moyn, a professor at Yale Law School, and he argues that American democracy is distorted by the power of the old. We discuss how seniors have hoarded wealth and influence and how Americans can renew an intergenerational compact.
0:00 The Tyranny of the Elderly

2:01 From Joe Biden to Mitch McConnell

4:19 Europe's Anti-Gerontocracy

5:15 Politicians are the ‘Tip of the Iceberg’

7:07 The Dark Side of Longevity

9:40 How Age Impacts Policy

15:10 The Age Wealth Gap

20:21 How About Millennials?

23:28 Age Limits and Youth Power

38:14 Care Hoarding and Family Burdens

44:54 The Assisted Suicide Debate

50:14 Personal Stakes
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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53 min