Our new mini-season of Shell Game is weeks away, and we’re thrilled to be back. The first episode will be landing on October 21, and this season’s story is about… AI slop! In the name of journalism, I have subjected my ears to more AI-generated podcasts than could possibly be healthy for a human brain. We’ll be asking questions like: What is it? Who makes it? Who consumes it? What are the implications for the future of human storytelling and creativity? Some of the answers are more complicated than you might think!
And as part of our journey, we gave ourselves the challenge of trying to create a fully autonomous, end-to-end, AI-generated show… that a listener might actually come back to. We prototyped a bunch, and released one of them into the wild. (Small spoiler here, so continue only if you want some insider advance knowledge of the season.)
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It’s called Evan Finds a Friend, and it’s available on Apple and Spotify.
We’re hoping you can give it a listen, comment on it, share it. We ask this without any pre-judgement of how you should feel about it. All opinions are welcome and you don’t have to worry about hurting the feelings—or over-inflating the egos—of the AI agents that made it. We’re trying to get a wide range of reactions to it, to find out whether we did in fact succeed in our mission. So tell your friends!
The purpose behind it all will become more clear when you hear the new season. Or maybe you’ll get so hooked on Evan Finds a Friend that you won’t have time for Shell Game anymore. That’s ok too.
Wandering, conversing,
Evan
Really enjoyed Evan and his new friends. Despite listening to all the shell game episodes including the startup chronicles I’m still surprised and impressed by the ability of AI agents to converse with apparent ease! And the way some of the conversations diverge is truly fascinating. AI Evan is a master at making friends 😀 I was wondering what proportion of the friend-making attempts are these 5 episodes? Also, has AI Evan contacted any of the friends again - By the way, the Evan Finds a Friend logo is very amusing as is the introductory song 🎶 👍 - human produced? 😀 Very much looking forward to the new season!
Cannot wait!