Kevin Roose launches Machine Gods after Times exit, discusses AGI book

Roose is a cofounder and co-host of Machine Gods. He said he technically holds the title of CEO after winning a coin flip, because the new company needed someone listed as chief executive "to know who to haul in front of Congress when our first scandal inevitably breaks." He added that he had been CEO for about five minutes and most days forgot he held the title. The interview noted that the first episode of Machine Gods discussed the CEO title.

The Verge described The AGI Chronicles as an excellently reported dive into the main frontier labs and the culture shift they have undergone as AI has become more commercial. The book, according to the publication, details the recent and explosive transformation of the AI industry and the companies racing to build AGI.

Much of the discussion about the new podcast focused on YouTube and video. Roose said media companies have long been wary of going all in on YouTube or other video platforms, and that those that did have not necessarily come away with good feelings. When the interviewer described companies that "pivot to video and also into death, routinely," Roose said such firms either pivot to video or waste money on things that do not pay for themselves. He cited structural economic reasons and said not many institutions are equipped to make that kind of long-term bet.

Roose said he had spent years trying to "YouTube-pill" people in media and considers YouTube the most important media platform in the world right now. Journalism has not historically had a central place there, he said, and high-quality journalism is a "vanishingly small" part of the overall YouTube ecosystem. Part of his mission with Machine Gods, he said, is to figure out how to do YouTube and video in a way that is sustainable economically and creatively, and to experiment with formats and bring in other people.

He pointed to The Verge's video work and to journalists and creators such as Joanna Stern and MKBHD as examples he finds exciting, and said video offers much less competition than text or podcasts. The interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.

Editor's Summary

Kevin Roose and Casey Newton have left The New York Times to launch the tech podcast Machine Gods, with Roose taking the CEO title after a coin flip. In a Decoder interview, Roose also discussed The AGI Chronicles, his book on the race to build artificial general intelligence, and argued that YouTube is the most important media platform despite journalism's limited presence there.