The Scientists Studying the End of the World
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.2 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The New Yorker staff writer Rivka Galchen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss a class at the University of Chicago with a tantalizingly dark title: Are We Doomed? It’s in the interdisciplinary field of existential risk, which studies the threats posed by climate change, nuclear warfare, and artificial intelligence. Galchen, who spent a semester observing the course and its students, considers how to contend with this bleak future, and how to understand the young people who may inherit it.
This episode originally aired June 5, 2024
This week’s reading:
- “Donald Trump, Zohran Mamdani, and Posting as Politics” by Kyle Chayka
- “Do We Need Another Green Revolution?,” by Elizabeth Kolbert
- “What Therapists Treating Immigrants Hear,” by Geraldo Cadava
Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choicesTranscript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey listeners, it's Tyler. |
| 0:09.2 | The political scene is off this week for the 4th of July. |
| 0:12.1 | But given everything that's been happening in the world right now, we thought it might |
| 0:15.8 | be a good time to revisit a conversation I had last year with New Yorker staff writer Rivka |
| 0:20.6 | Galchin. Rivka and I discussed a piece she had just year with New Yorker staff writer Rivka Galtgen. |
| 0:21.7 | Rivka and I discussed a piece she had just written about a University of Chicago course |
| 0:25.6 | dedicated to studying the world's various existential threats, from AI to nuclear war to climate |
| 0:31.5 | change, and which one might actually bring about the end of the world. Here it is. |
| 0:41.1 | Just like AI was able to come up with an antibiotic we'd never come up with, it would be able to do the same thing for a pathogen. Like, |
| 0:45.5 | I'll take the transmissibility of this and the virulence of this and put them together. And |
| 0:51.1 | it's like a home crisper kind of. |
| 1:03.5 | New Yorker staff writer Rivka Galtchen has a story in this week's magazine that looks at the world around us and asks, |
| 1:05.0 | Are we doomed? |
| 1:10.5 | Tonight is stark warning that artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of humanity. Russia says that it has begun tactical nuclear weapons drills close to Ukraine. |
| 1:15.6 | Ocean temperatures are warming at an unprecedented rate with 40% of global oceans currently |
| 1:20.6 | experiencing a heat wave. |
| 1:22.6 | Rivka often covers offbeat science stories for the magazine. |
| 1:26.6 | Most recently, she wrote about the field of existential risk, |
| 1:30.6 | a discipline that examines the threats to life on Earth, |
| 1:33.6 | from climate change to nuclear warfare. |
| 1:36.4 | I wanted to speak with her about how we can think through something as unfathomable |
| 1:40.5 | as the end of the world. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.