Kevin Roose is AGI-pilled. Why aren’t you?

A famous reporter goes independent

Kevin Roose used to be a reporter at The New York Times and host of the popular podcast Hard Fork. He and Casey Newton left the Times to start a new podcast called Machine Gods. In this interview with The Verge's Nilay Patel, Roose talks about his new book and why he made the jump to working on his own.

What the book is about

The AGI Chronicles is a book about the big AI labs. These are the companies trying to build AGI. The book describes how these companies have changed as AI has become a major product that makes money. Roose spent a lot of time reporting on the people and the culture behind this race.

Key facts from the article

• Kevin Roose was a longtime reporter at The New York Times.
• Machine Gods launched the week before this interview.
• Roose is the CEO of Machine Gods on paper. He says he won a coin flip to get the job.
• The interview is about 30 minutes of talk, lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why this matters

Top reporters leaving big newspapers to work on their own shows how news and media are changing. It also shows how much attention AI is getting. The book gives readers a look inside the companies that could shape the future of work and daily life. The interview also goes into big questions about where AI is headed.

What to watch

• How well Machine Gods grows as an independent podcast.
• What the book says about the AI companies in the years ahead.
• Whether the philosophical ideas Roose and Patel discuss at the end of the interview show up in future coverage.