The Dan Leibrandt Show

Is your phone making you a slave? Is AI making us dumber? Brett McCracken joins Dan Leibrandt to talk about phone addiction, brain rot, AI girlfriends and sycophantic chatbots, and how Christians can stay wise and human in the age of AI.

Brett McCracken is a senior editor at The Gospel Coalition and has written for The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He is the author of The Wisdom of Sleep (Zondervan Reflective, 2026) and The Wisdom Pyramid, and co-editor of Scrolling Ourselves to Death (Crossway, 2025), a 40th anniversary follow up to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Dan and Brett start with the youth mental health crisis that took off after the iPhone arrived in 2007. They talk about what Neil Postman would say about today's technology, why endless scrolling is a form of gluttony, and why brain rot is real, drawing on Nicholas Carr's The Shallows and Brett's Wisdom Pyramid.

Then they turn to AI. They cover cognitive offloading to ChatGPT and Claude, Mark Zuckerberg's vision of AI friends, Elon Musk's Optimus robots, and why chatbots are built to flatter you, plus Dan's story of ChatGPT getting the northern lights in Iceland badly wrong. They finish with the post truth era, vibes over arguments from Lincoln to Trump, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and why sleep teaches us that limits are a gift.

The Dan Leibrandt Show is about navigating the future as a Christian and what it means to stay human. Subscribe for more conversations like this.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro

00:33 Smartphones and the youth mental health crisis

03:26 What Neil Postman would say about today

10:34 Is endless scrolling a form of gluttony

13:10 The Wisdom Pyramid explained

17:29 Is brain rot real

18:47 Why AI will make us dumber

26:08 AI girlfriends, friends and therapists

30:24 Elon Musk's Optimus robots and AI companions

30:57 Is AI more dangerous than social media

34:59 Why ChatGPT is so sycophantic

42:28 What post truth means

49:21 How image took over politics from Lincoln to Trump

53:09 Christian hope in the age of AI

57:35 The Wisdom of Sleep and where to find Brett

FOLLOW BRETT MCCRACKEN

Website: https://brettmccracken.com

The Gospel Coalition: https://thegospelcoalition.org/profile/brett-mccracken

Instagram: https://instagram.com/bwmccracken

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-mccracken-b139837

X: https://x.com/brettmccracken

The Wisdom of Sleep: https://zondervanacademic.com/products/the-wisdom-of-sleep

FOLLOW DAN

X: https://x.com/danleibrandt

Website: https://danleibrandt.com

MUSIC

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#PhoneAddiction #BrainRot #ChatGPT #AI #Christianity

Peabody Award-winning journalist John Sherman thinks there's a 70% chance AI kills us all within 10 years. We talk about how superintelligent AI could end humanity, whether the AI CEOs racing to build it are evil, and why we need a ban on superintelligence.John Sherman is a Peabody Award-winning former TV news reporter from Baltimore and the founder of the video production company Story Farm. After reading Eliezer Yudkowsky's 2023 essay in Time calling for a total shutdown of AI development, he founded GuardRailNow and The AI Risk Network, hosts the For Humanity podcast, and co-hosts the weekly news show Warning Shots.John explains why the people building AI admit they don't understand how it works, how a superintelligence could wipe us out the way we pave over an anthill, and why recursive self-improvement could set off an intelligence explosion. We also get into S-risk and why extinction isn't the worst outcome, the AI alignment problem and the paperclip maximizer, whether AI will take every job, the AI race with China, P(doom) estimates from Geoffrey Hinton and Roman Yampolskiy, Jacob Coxon's resignation, whether Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Elon Musk are evil, the Lord of the Rings obsession behind Palantir and Anduril, the upcoming documentary Making God, and John's message to every parent.The Dan Leibrandt Show is about navigating the future as a Christian and what it means to stay human. Subscribe for more conversations like this.CHAPTERS00:00 Intro00:48 Why John changed his mind on AI01:57 Why no one knows how AI works04:48 How could AI kill us all?10:16 AGI vs artificial superintelligence14:41 Can we pause AI? The race with China21:31 What's worse than human extinction?24:54 What is the AI alignment problem?32:47 Will AI take every job?37:54 What's your P(doom)?40:34 Are AI CEOs evil?45:10 Peter Thiel, Lord of the Rings and Making God48:28 A message to parentsFOLLOW JOHN SHERMANThe AI Risk Network on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAIRiskNetworkX: https://x.com/ForHumanityPodFOLLOW DANX: https://x.com/danleibrandtWebsite: https://danleibrandt.comMUSICMusic licensed through Soundstripe.Code: Y34BJYEHDWQEIYEP#AIRisk #Superintelligence #PDoom #AISafety #AI

Pastor and author C.R. Wiley was in the room for Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures. We talk about what Thiel really believes about the Antichrist, whether we're living in the end times, and whether humans should merge with AI.C.R. Wiley is the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church, a senior editor at Touchstone Magazine, co-host of The Theology Pugcast, and author of Manmade: Saint Anthony's Guide to Surviving the AI Apocalypse (Canon Press).Chris was one of about 100 theologians, philosophers, and influencers invited to Thiel's lectures, which attendees were asked to keep confidential, and he got to respond to Thiel directly. He explains Thiel's unusual theology and the René Girard influence behind it, why Thiel names companies like Palantir and Anduril after The Lord of the Rings, and why AI is better understood as a golem than a mind. We also get into transhumanism and the tech elites who want to become gods (Ray Kurzweil, Sam Altman, Elon Musk's "summoning the demon"), AI girlfriends, postmillennialism and Bible prophecy, and how Christians can use AI without being used by it.The Dan Leibrandt Show is about navigating the future as a Christian and what it means to be human. Subscribe for more conversations like this.CHAPTERS00:00 Intro00:32 Inside Peter Thiel's Antichrist lectures07:38 Peter Thiel's Lord of the Rings obsession12:00 Are we living in the end times?18:49 Why AI is a golem21:56 Do tech billionaires think they're becoming gods?24:15 Is AI demonic?26:57 How to stay human in the age of AI35:56 An AI nightmare scenario44:45 A hopeful vision for AI53:25 When is using AI too much?56:54 Advice for young menFOLLOW C.R. WILEYGet Manmade: https://canonpress.com/manmadeX: https://x.com/crwiley1962The Theology Pugcast: https://thetheologypugcast.comFOLLOW DANX: https://x.com/danleibrandtWebsite: https://danleibrandt.comMUSICMusic licensed through Soundstripe.Code: 2ENMTLMHTDQFO9UZIMAGE CREDITProtein structure from the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database (AF-P42212-F1), CC BY 4.0#PeterThiel #Antichrist #EndTimes #AI #Christianity