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A former extremist returns to the stories that shaped her - to ask what's worth keeping. Megan Phelps-Roper was raised inside one of the most infamous religious communities in America. More than a decade after she left, and now a mother herself, she's returning to the Bible - not to reclaim belief, but to ask a harder question: What's worth keeping? Let's talk about this... Sign up with Longview and comment on the episodes you just have to talk about.

Our new series The Last Invention continues with Episode 3: Playing the Wrong Game. For decades, the quest to build intelligent machines played out on game boards and TV sets - Tic-Tac-Toe, chess, Jeopardy. Each time, the machines won. Each time, many believed that we had arrived at a turning point, that the age of AI was finally on the horizon. And each time, they were wrong.

Earlier this year, we received a tip from a former Silicon Valley executive: that there was a conspiracy in progress to overthrow the United States government, in what was described as "a slow-motion, soft coup." The twist was that it wouldn't be a strongman replacing the American government. It would be artificial intelligence. This eventually led us to creating our new series: The Last Invention .

Welcome back to The Last Invention. In the strange months after ChatGPT's release, the world made contact with something new. A tech CEO begged to be regulated, a chatbot seemed to fall in love, and the godfathers of AI became frightened by the implications of what they'd spent their lives building.

Hey all, it's Gregory here. When Andy first pulled me in to work on The Last Invention, I thought my old friend had gone off the deep end. He was telling me about some truly sci-fi scenarios of our AI future, and he was asking serious people questions as wild as "What percentage do you put on the chance of AI causing human extinction?" (For no one was the answer near zero.) Then I started doing my own reporting, and I found myself going right off the deep end, too.

Welcome back to The Last Invention. Today: The case for uniting the world behind the project of building an AGI that doesn't lead to our demise. In Episode 7, game theorist, professional poker player, and science educator Liv Boeree, along with philosopher and co-founder of the Effective Altruism movement William MacAskill, make the case for the position of the AI Scout.

Welcome back to The Last Invention. Today we're excited to be joined by New York Times columnist, best-selling author, and influential podcast host Ezra Klein. We discuss his views on the promises and risks of A.G.I., what role he sees for government regulation, what he makes of the current political landscape around A.I., and how he draws his conclusions in this moment of rapid and accelerating technological change.

Welcome back to The Last Invention. Today: What happens when some of the most idealistic techno-optimists come to believe that superintelligence poses a threat to humanity's survival? In Episode 6, we sit down with Nate Soares and Connor Leahy, who explain how modern AIs are "grown, not built," why the mysterious black-box quality of AI makes control slippery, and why they think we must stop the development of AGI before it's too late.

Hello, dear listeners. Megan Phelps-Roper here - proud friend and colleague of Longview co-founders Andy Mills and Matt Boll. You may have heard my name in the credits on projects like The Last Invention, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, and previous episodes of Reflector. Today, we come to you with a bit of an experiment. It's something of a story within a story, and a return to something that I had long felt was verboten, off-limits, a no-man's-land for someone like me.

Welcome back to The Last Invention. Today, Andy interviews Steve Bannon and his War Room tech editor, Joe Allen. After our last episode with Ezra Klein on the uncertain politics of A.I., some listeners asked to hear from the other side of the political divide - and it was interesting to note the parallels across the aisle. Like Klein, Bannon has been tracking the race to build AGI for more than a decade, while advocating for what he believes lawmakers must do to prepare society.