What Do the People Building AI Believe?

Silicon Valley runs on hype cycles, and the AI boom is generating a new one—part gold rush, part ideology, and part quasi-religious devotion to building an alien intelligence. On this week’s “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel explores the culture of this boom with the writer Jasmine Sun, who’s been chronicling San Francisco’s AI scene. Sun describes what this moment feels like on the ground, including a subculture of massive salaries, and a weird pride in leaning into tech’s strangeness. Together, Warzel and Sun unpack two major factions shaping the industry: the AI “doomers,” and the accelerationists. The conversation also traces Silicon Valley’s rightward drift—the “founder mode” backlash against regulation and employee activism and the rise of “Trump style” provocation-first tech marketing. Finally, Sun and Warzel address the jagged reality of today’s models, which are brilliant at some tasks and weak at others. Subscribe to the “Galaxy Brain” newsletter: https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/sign-up/galaxy-brain/?utm_source=podcast-warzel Subscribe to the “Galaxy Brain” podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/galaxy-brain/id1378618386 Subscribe to the “Galaxy Brain” podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/542WHgdiDTJhEjn1Py4J7n Follow The Atlantic on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theatlantic/?hl=en Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at https://accounts.theatlantic.com/products/?utm_medium=cr&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=apple_podcasts 00:00 Tech Hype Cycles and Culture 04:26 Jasmine Sun Joins 04:48 San Francisco Gold Rush Mood 06:44 Doomers vs Accelerationists 09:59 Why Doomerism Is Shifting 13:48 AGI Timelines and Jagged AI 19:54 Silicon Valley Turns Right 26:00 Vice Signaling and Trump Marketing 28:29 Is Writing Still a Future? 32:53 Conclusion