Phonograph

Overview:

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.

Links for this episode

• The Daily, "Did Artificial Intelligence Just Get Too Smart?" (December 16, 2022)
• This American Life, "First Contact," Act One of Episode 803: Greetings, People of Earth (June 2023)
• Hard Fork, "The Bing Who Loved Me + Elon Rewrites the Algorithm" (February 17, 2023)
• This American Life, "I Wish I Knew How to Force Quit You," Act Two of Episode 832: That Other Guy (May 31, 2024)
• I Am Code by code-davinci-002, edited by Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau, and Simon Rich, with the audiobook read by Werner Herzog
• Radiolab, "The Alien in the Room" (December 12, 2025)
• Death, Sex & Money, "AI Confessions: A Chatbot Saved My Life" (March 2026)
• The Guardian, Black Box: The Chatbots (September, 2026)
• This American Life, "Escape Claudes," Act Two of Episode 896: I Know What You Need (August 28, 2026)
• Search Engine, "The machines are learning… to do crimes?" (August 6, 2026)
• Music - Blue Dot Sessions

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.

Show Notes:

TAL Episode 562: The Problem We all Live With

Longform Podcast interview with Nikole Hannah-Jones

Third Coast Audio Festival Session: Make Them Care

Saint Louis Public Radio's coverage of the Francis Howell town meeting

"Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City" by Nikole Hannah-Jones

In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?

This American Life: An Argument

Music - Blue Dot Sessions

Overview:

On this episode, Rob and Britta explore the audio work of Alex Kotlowitz, a documentariean and writer best known for There Are No Children Here. He's spent years building a quietly stunning body of non-narrated stories 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.

Support Phonograph on Patreon

Links for this episode:

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 Episode 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 Episode 487

Harper High School, Part Two – This American Life Episode 488

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

Amy Drozdowska – the full Stories of Home, Love Stories, and money series archives

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.

Support Phonograph on Patreon

Links for this episode:

Alissa Duryee's music

Cheri Johnson's writing

Julie Censullo's podcasts

Music from Blue Dot Sessions

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.

Support Phonograph on Patreon

Links for this episode:

RadioWright — Julia's Website

Continuous Wave — Julia's Newsletter

Weekend America — A Life Changing Letter

DTFD: The Podcast — Julia Barton

Unsung Icons of Soviet Design — 99% Invisible

The Broadcast Clock — 99% Invisible

Neither Confirm Nor Deny — Radiolab

If You Could Do Anything — Anxious Machine

The Best Audio Storytelling According to Pushkin — HowSound

Music from Blue Dot Sessions

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.

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

On this episode, Rob and Britta tell the story of the golden age of podcast advertising — how it started, why it worked, and why it 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.

Discussed in this episode:

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

Hypercritical: 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

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.

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. Our music comes from Blue Dot Sessions.

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"

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, about the vital role of photojournalism at this moment, and the personal toll of doing this work.

Stand with Minnesota Donation Directory

Our Guests:

Evan Frost

Ben Hovland

Media:

Video of Aliya Rachman being dragged from her car by ICE

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

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.

Show Links:

• "The End of the World" from Scott Carrier's Home of the Brave
• "What Now Sounds Like" from Erica Heilman's Rumble Strip
• Rob and Britta's discussion of Scott Carrier's story The Test
• Erica Heilman's episode of Rumble Strip "The Party"
• Erica Heilman's episode of Rumble Strip "Thanksgiving"
• The Listeners from Transom.org