logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2023
41m 33s

118: Artificial Intelligence Out of Cont...

The Why Files: Operation Podcast
About this episode

The story of humans began a long time ago.

Three and a half billion years ago protein molecules floated around the ooze called the primordial soup. Then something happened and a molecule made a copy of itself.

And then another copy and another. Soon these molecules arranged themselves into something called a cell.

Then cells clumped together and multiplied. Organisms were created. Over the next three billion years, the organisms became more complicated and more diverse.

375 million years ago one of those organisms crawled out of the sea.

4 million years ago hominids emerged. Hominids had large brains and advanced cognitive abilities. They could reason, communicate and cooperate.

200,000 years ago, homo sapiens, modern humans appeared. They developed agriculture, organized into civilizations and became masters of the planet.

The story of humans began a long time ago. But all stories end.

And according to many leaders in business, science and technology: we're in the final chapter. The part of our story where we finally go extinct.

And there's nothing we can do to stop it.

--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support
Up next
Today
618: The First Earth Battalion: America's Strangest Military Experiment
<div>A Vietnam War hero with zero casualties wrote a manual about warrior monks who hug daily and use ESP in combat. Instead of dismissing it, the US Army turned it into Project Jedi—a decades-long experiment in psychic warfare. Generals tried walking through walls. <br> <br> Int ... Show More
32m 3s
Nov 17
617: Psyops: From Dead Babies to UFOs - The Same Pattern Every Time
<div>A behavioral expert who trains Navy SEALs and CIA operatives created a 20-point test that detects psychological manipulation with mathematical precision. Chase Hughes recently appeared on Shawn Ryan's podcast to discuss this system, and the same patterns appear in government ... Show More
37m 53s
Nov 3
616: The Devil's Bible and the Nazi Hole to Hell
<div>Sweden's National Library protects the Codex Gigas—165 pounds of vellum featuring the complete Bible and a terrifying portrait of Satan. Scholars estimate the work should've taken thirty years. Herman the Recluse finished it in one. <br> <br> The traditional story involves a ... Show More
31m 24s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2000
Human Origins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolution of the human species. Where did we come from - we being Homo Sapiens? Let’s not go back to the Big Bang or in search of Genesis, but sift through the evidence from biology, palaeontology, climatology and anthropology.The story of huma ... Show More
28m 6s
Jul 2018
a16z Podcast: The Scientific Revolution of Ancient DNA
<p>with Jorge Conde (@jorgecondebio), David Reich, and Hanne Tidnam (@omnivorousread)</p> <p>Trying to reconstruct the deep past of ancient humans out of present-day people has until now been like trying to reconstruct a bomb explosion in a room from bits of shrapnel, says David ... Show More
31m 38s
Apr 2021
Evolution: Animals, Aliens, and Ourselves
<p>The search for and conjecture about alien life has evolved, from science fiction to just plain science. On this episode, host Lauren Richardson talks to Arik Kershenbaum, Ph.D, author of the new book “The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Alie ... Show More
38m 38s
Apr 2023
Brian Villmoare, "The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Big History seeks to retell the human story in light of scientific advances by such methods as radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis. Brian Villmoare's book The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History (Cambridge UP, 2023) provides a deep, causal view of ... Show More
59m 36s
Jun 2023
Tom Higham, "The World Before Us: The New Science Behind Our Human Origins" (Yale UP, 2021)
Fifty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was not the only species of humans in the world. There were also Neanderthals in what is now Europe, the Near East, and parts of Eurasia; Hobbits (H. floresiensis) on the island of Flores in Indonesia; Denisovans in Siberia and eastern Euras ... Show More
41m 25s
Sep 2023
Our ancestors lost nearly 99% of their population, 900,000 years ago
In this episode:00:30 Early humans pushed to brink of extinctionAround 900,000 years ago the ancestors of modern humans were pushed to the brink of extinction, according to new research. Genetic studies suggest that the breeding population of our ancestors in Africa dropped to ju ... Show More
13m 34s
Apr 2022
The Extinct Human Species Discovered Deep Within A Cave System
Deep in the Rising Star Cave system lies a mystery of paleoanthropology: a chamber filled with the bones of Homo naledi. How this species evolved, how it’s related to us and other human relatives, and how it got so deep in the caves are among the many open questions researchers a ... Show More
22m 21s
Jun 2023
The beginnings of us
The origin of all complex life has been traced back 1.6 billion years as new molecular fossil records have discovered the fatty stains that our ancient single celled ancestors have left behind. Jochen Brocks, Professor of Geobiology at Australian National University, discusses th ... Show More
28m 40s
Jun 2023
Pandemics Cause Misery and Death, But They Also Created Agriculture and Put Humans on Top of the Food Chain
Three years into a global pandemic, the fact that infectious disease is capable of reshaping humanity is obvious. But seen in the context of sixty thousand years of human and scientific history, COVID-19 is simply the latest in a series of world-changing pathogens. In fact, the r ... Show More
49m 56s