The Terminator from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

Elon Musk has claimed that AI is humanity's "biggest existential threat." Paradoxically, Musk is also working to create artificial intelligence. Why? Jill Lepore tours through a century of imagined robot rebellions, and argues that these stories are never only about robots. So what's Elon Musk really afraid of when he wrings his hands over AI? In this final episode, Lepore argues that while Musk may be a visionary, "every piece of Muskism has origins in a future foretold in science fiction, long, long ago, as a cautionary tale."

You can listen to The Terminator from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Terminator from X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story is an episode from The Last Archive by Pushkin Industries.

This episode is 27:47 long.

This episode was published on Mar 30, 2025.

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