A Brief History of Podcasts Talking about A.I.

Rob and Britta listen back to four years of podcast stories about artificial intelligence, from The Daily’s first demo of ChatGPT through Bing falling in love with Kevin Roose, an untamed poetry model, A.I. psychosis, and two Claudes who can’t stop talking to each other. Along the way we trace how the stories we tell about A.I. keep changing, and what those stories tell us about who we imagine A.I. to be.

A Brief History of Podcasts Talking about AI
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Nikole Hannah-Jones: What The Evidence Shows

In light of Nikole Hannah-Jones’s recent essay about the fallout from choosing a school for her daughter, Rob and Britta to go back to a discussion of “The Problem We All Live With,” a story reported by Nikole Hannah-Jones for This American Life and produced by Chana Joffe-Walt in 2015. Rob and Britta dig into how that episode and recent events both exemplify the necessity of documentary journalism, even when a journalist is documenting her own doubts about her own ideals.

New York City School Integration Demonstration (circa 1964) from Penn State Special Collection via Flickr

Nikole Hannah-Jones: What the Evidence Shows
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An Audio Mural with Alex Kotlowitz

On this episode, Rob and Britta explore the audio work of Alex Kotlowitz, a documentarian probably best known for his book There Are No Children Here, who spent years building a quietly stunning body of non-narrated radio for Chicago Public Radio and This American Life. Britta's conversation with Alex is woven into our discussion of his stories about home, money, love, and trauma.

A photo of a mural painted on a building in Chicago, showing a man sitting with eyes closed, a hand on his forehead.

Image by Don Sniegowski via Flickr

An Audio Mural with Alex Kotlowitz
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Click here to subscribe on any podcast player

Links for this episode:

Alex Kotlowitz

A Trip to the Boundary Waters -- The New Yorker Radio Hour

Panthers and Palm Trees -- Stories of Home, produced with Amy Drozdowska

Mothers of Invention -- This American Life #298, Getting and Spending

An Almost Perfect Guy -- Love Stories, produced with Amy Drozdowska

In Country, In City -- This American Life #484, Doppelgängers

Harper High School, Part One -- This American Life #487

Harper High School, Part Two -- This American Life #488

The Bigness of the Small Story -- Alex's 2016 Third Coast talk

Amy Drozdowska -- the full Stories of Home, Love, and Money archives

Ancient High School Regrets

On this episode, a break from the usual format. About a year ago, Rob came home from his 30th high school reunion with a story he couldn’t stop telling: how he tried to apologize to a woman that reunion whose friendship he’d ended their junior year of high school. To get to the bottom of what the story meant, Rob sat down with a close friend, set up two microphones, and told her the whole thing. Rob and Britta talk about what happened when he did, and why a story might mean something different depending on who’s listening when you tell it.

A photo of three men and two woman at a high school reunion

Rob and four friends at their 30th high school reunion. Photo by Alissa Duryee

Ancient High School Regrets
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Julia Barton and the Invisible Clock of Audio Stories

Overview:

On this episode, Rob and Britta dig into the career of editor and writer Julia Barton, whose incredibly varied career has spanned the golden era of public radio, an experimental podcast recorded while doing the dishes, and an executive editing role at Pushkin Industries. Along the way she’s traced the hidden architecture of radio—where it came from and what it costs the people who work inside it.

Photo by Patrick Strang via Flickr

Julia Barton and the Invisible Clock of Audio Stories
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Its Own Kind of Clock: "24 Hours at the Golden Apple" with Guest Joe Richman

Overview:

On this episode, Rob and Britta dig into the classic This American Life episode "24 Hours at the Golden Apple," (November 17, 2000) in which a team of producers spent a full day and night at a 24-hour diner on Chicago's north side, trying to interview everyone who was willing to talk. Special guest Joe Richman, founder of Radio Diaries, joins us to talk about the segment he produced for the episode, and what it felt like to revisit that story more than two decades later.

Photo by Paige Shoemaker via Flickr

Its Own Kind of Clock: “24 Hours at the Golden Apple”
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Links for this episode:

This American Life: 24 Hours at the Golden Apple (Episode 173)

Nancy Updike's talk at the Third Coast International Audio Festival: “Die Mediocrity Die”

Joe Richman's Radio Diaries

Music from Blue Dot Sessions

Knob Feel: The Story of the Greatest Podcast Ad Campaign of All Time

Overview:

On this episode, Rob and Britta tell the story of the golden age of podcast advertising — how it started, why those ads worked, and why that era seems to be over. Along the way we tell the story of what happened when Cards Against Humanity partnerned with a very opinionated tech podcaster to create the most entertaining ad campaign in the history of the medium.

Guests include Lex Friedman, one of the first people to sell podcast ads, and John Siracusa and Casey Liss, co-hosts of Accidental Tech Podcast.

Toaster Oven via Wikicommons

Knob Feel: the Story of the Greatest Podcast Ad Campaign of All Time
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Discussed in this episode:

The Wolf Den: Lex Friedman, Midroll's EVP of Sales and Development (Episode 71)

Hypercritical: Dream Crusher (Episode 1)

Hypercritical: The Wrong Guy (Episode 42)

Hypercritical: Pinching the Harmonica (Episode 49)

Hypercritical: Worse and More Diverse (Episode 18)

Casey Liss: Siracusa on Toasters

Lex Friedman: lexfriedman.com

John Siracusa: hypercritical.co

Music from Blue Dot Sessions

Found Footage Horror: Podcast Coverage of the Ice Invasion

In the weeks since Alex Pretti's murder, Rob and Britta have been listening to numerous podcasts that covered the ICE invasion of American cities over the past year. Ingesting a year of audio ICE coverage puts this story (not to mention our conception of audio journalism) into a whole new perspective.

Come for the heartfelt media criticism. Stay for Rob's brutal takedown of The Daily.

ICE Agents in Minneapolis After Shooting — photo by Chad Davis via Wikimedia Commons

Found Footage Horror: How News Podcasts Have Covered ICE
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If you’d like to donate to people helping those targeted by ICE in Minneapolis, you can do that here. If you like the work we’re doing, you can support us on our Patreon.

Discussed in this Episode:

This American Life: “The Largest Deportation Operation in American History”

Reveal: "Taken by ICE"

Radio Atlantic: "When Border Patrol Comes to Town"

What Next: "Everyone Saw ICE Kill Renee Good"

The Daily: "On the Front Line of Minnesota's Fight with ICE"

Panic World: "We Were at ICE's Invasion in Minneapolis"

Radio Atlantic: "Another Death in Minneapolis"

This American Life: "What Is Your Emergency?"

5-4: "Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo"

Heavyweight: "Minneapolis"

To Show What's Going On: Photojournalists in Minneapolis

Rob and Britta both live in the Twin Cities, so on this episode, we took a break from discussing audio storytelling, and Britta interviewed two photojournalists who've been covering ICE in Minneapolis. It's a conversation about what they've seen, the vital role of photojournalism at this moment, and the personal toll of doing this work.

Photo by Evan Frost

To Show What's Going On - Photojournalists in Minneapolis
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Some Joyous Crazy Thing - Apocalyptic Vox Pop from Scott Carrier and Erica Heilman

At the tail end of 2025, Rob and Britta discuss work by Scott Carrier and Erica Heilman that captures something about how it felt to live through this harrowing year. To support our show and access our bonus story feed, follow this link to our Patreon.

Photo by Rob McGinley Myers

Some Joyous Crazy Thing - Apocalyptic Vox Pop from Scott Carrier and Erica Heilman

Show Links:

What a Wonderful Thing - 99% Invisible

Image by Eric Havir via Flickr

What a Wonderful Thing - 99% Invisible
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Episode Description:

As the 15th anniversary of 99% Invisible approaches, Rob and Britta dig into four very different episodes from the first four years of that show's run (as well as the story of the time Rob met Roman Mars):

To support Phonograph, subscribe to our new bonus feed, which features experiments in audio storytelling, including this month's story about a young mother's relationship to her hearing aids, having refused to wear them since she started losing her hearing in the 6th grade.

Show Notes:

Invisible Ink (featured on Transom.org)
"Genesis Object" on 99% Invisible
HowSound episode on 99% Invisible
HowSound episode on Heyoon
Alex Goldman's new podcast Hyperfixed
Music from Blue Dot Sessions

What Covid Did to Them - Nancy Updike's "We Were Three"

Photo by U.S. Pacific Fleet via Flickr

What Covid Did To Them
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Episode Description:

Rob and Britta discuss Nancy Updike's podcast "We Were Three," which tells the story of one family devastated by Covid and what that devastation revealed. Also discussed: Nancy Updike's status as as one of the all time great audio producers.

To support Phonograph, subscribe to our new bonus feed, which features experiments in audio storytelling. This month's story comes from Rob: a collage of recordings he made in the spring of 2020 around the theme of anxiety and grocery shopping.

Show Notes:

ICU nurse Kelley Anaas talking about the state of nurses near the end of 2020

Serial Productions podcast We Were Three

Nancy Updike's talk at the Third Coast International Audio Festival

Nancy Updike's story for This American Life about private contractors in Iraq

The Longform Podcast interview with Nancy Updike and Jenelle Pifer

Maintenance Phase episode about Covid Conspiracies

Music - Blue Dot Sessions