Roboism

By RelayNews Education Tech News

Roboism episodes

September 0381: Putting Down the Rhinestones
Goodbye, Dolly. ♥️
(This is a happy one though! There's also some robots, sports, and animated crushes! Don't worry!)
Links and Show Notes:
Relay for St. Jude
The 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games
Robot Riot: Chicago’s robot fighting league
BattleBots
Portland Fire mascot Rose, the glitter-breathing dragon
Chicago Sky
CARROT Weather
Dolly Parton
Tim Curry
Conduit #135: “It’s Better With A Friend”
Can Can’s Dolly! at Portland’s Paris Theatre
Dolly Parton’s funding of COVID-19 vaccine research at Vanderbilt
Moderna and Merck’s mRNA cancer vaccine breakthrough
Dollywood
Dolly Parton’s 1977 interview with Barbara Walters
Dolly Parton’s longtime support of her trans friend and employee Jason Pirro
Dolly Parton on Black Lives Matter
Dolly Parton investing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” royalties in a Black Nashville neighborhood
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
Dolly Parton – “Family”
Dolly Parton on same-sex marriage: “They should suffer like the rest of us do”
Dolly Parton denounces North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom bill
The Three Musketeers (1993)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Clue
The Beaverton: “Tim Curry’s death to be investigated by suspicious group of eccentrics gathering at his house”
Tim Curry as Premier Cherdenko in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
The “Hear Me Out Cake” trend
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Disney’s Robin Hood
Balto
Chicago Cubs
Chicago Stars FC
Chicago Fire FC
The Unicorn Sidekick
The Unicorn Sidekick on YouTube
Conduit
Kathy Campbell
Alex Cox
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48 min
August 1180: Food Has No Alignment
Kathy takes the wheel!
Links and Show Notes:
Posha
McKenna Cooking with Posha | @rayne.kennnn on TikTok
Posha: The Best Inventions of 2025
Posha review: this robot chef cooks better than me | The Verge
Cornballer
Suvie
“The People Do Not Yearn for Automation”
Lil Finder Guy — Basic Apple Guy
“Can It Swaddle?”
Vlogbrothers
Shy Girl by Mia Ballard
Frankie’s Shelf — “i’m pretty sure this book is ai slop”
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
Farming While Beige
TikTok’s “Voice Memo Guy”
Lucy Darling
Chicago Magic Lounge
Carisa Hendrix
The Unicorn Sidekick
The Unicorn Sidekick on YouTube
Conduit
Kathy Campbell
Alex Cox
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1 hr 12 min
March 1779: Beach Dwelling Folk
Subtitle: More Rocks, Less Lobster
Kathy prevents Alex from bringing bad lobsters to the beach.
Links and Show Notes:
OpenClaw
OpenClaw on GitHub
OpenClaw on Wikipedia
Moltbook
Moltbook on Wikipedia
Best Of Moltbook by Scott Alexander (Astral Codex Ten)
Meta Acquires Moltbook (Axios exclusive)
ElevenLabs
Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior (Stanford/Google Sims Study)
Dead Internet Theory (Wikipedia)
ChatGPT Rolls Out Ads (TechCrunch)
OpenAI's Approach to Advertising
Meta's LLaMA
Mistral AI
Claude Code
Lucky for Safari
GPT-4o "Glazing" / Sam Altman's "Glaze" Post (Know Your Meme)
Kendra Hilty's Psychiatrist TikTok Series (Distractify)
Ballerina Farm Pauses Raw Milk Sales (Salt Lake Tribune)
Paperclip Maximizer (Wikipedia)
Kathy Campbell | Chief Awesome Officer
Alex Cox
Roboism Feedback
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55 min
March 0978: Tupperware on Wheels
Fashion minus the "-shion" and with an "-cism."
Links and Show Notes:
Sidewalk Delivery Robots Are Colonizing City Sidewalks and Raising Concerns (NPR)
Coco Robotics — Delivery Robots in Chicago, LA, Miami & Helsinki
Serve Robotics — Largest Sidewalk Delivery Fleet in the U.S.
ICE — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
TikTok Signs Deal to Give U.S. Operations to Oracle-Led Investor Group (NPR)
Home Assistant
NFC Implants (Wikipedia)
We Contain Multitudes on The Incomparable
Mary Robinette Kowal
FoldiMate (Wikipedia)
Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (Wikipedia)
The Dot-Com Bubble (Wikipedia)
Web 2.0 (Wikipedia)
TrueAnon (Wikipedia)
Pete Davidson Show Secures SAG-AFTRA Podcast Agreement (Variety)
Enshittification (Wikipedia)
Cory Doctorow's Enshittification (the book)
Kathy Campbell
Alex Cox
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1 hr 10 min
January 26 77: Cosplaying Servitude
Subtitle: Find yourself a bad faith buddy.
Kathy continues to explore her relationship with Mr. Opus, and Alex continues to be almost as bad at folding laundry as the robots of CES 2026.
Links and Show Notes: Support Roboism with a Relay Membership Submit Feedback 🎙️ MacWhisper Draft Science - The Incomparable Mothership #800 Stephen King on Writing, Fear, and the Atrocity of Adverbs – The Marginalian Summer of Submarines You Need to Rent Pantone® Colors Surely they didn't put AI in an ice-cube maker? | TechCrunch Nuralogix’s Longevity mirror. - YouTube Segway Drift W1 | Electric Skates LG’s CLOiD - YouTube LG Shows Off CLOiD Home Robot at CES Keynote - YouTube FoldiMate - YouTube Hyundai Introduces Its Next-Gen Atlas Robot at CES 2026 - YouTube Robot drill | TikTok Mizzou’s Grace Robot - TikTok This is what happens when you stop taking CES so seriously. - YouTube Beeple’s Robot Dogs Steal the Show at Art Basel Miami Beach Kathy Campbell | Chief Awesome Officer alexcox.me
1 hr 19 min
January 20 76: Your OLED Screen is Not Out to Get You
Subtitle: The Internet finds a way.
Alex hopes a snow blower Wall-E can take down the home owner’s association, and Kathy wants to stop stealing.
Links and Show Notes: Support Roboism with a Relay Membership Submit Feedback Snow Blower | Robotic Lawn Mower | Lawn & Garden Equipment - Yarbo I Tried the First Humanoid Home Robot. It Got Weird. | WSJ - YouTube Disney's Living Characters: A Broken Promise - YouTube iPad Telepresence Robot for the Hybrid Office Mandatory Shutter Sounds, 8 in 10 Want it Muted | PetaPixel Wake Up Dead Man - Wikipedia A Cyborg Manifesto - Wikipedia Claude Opus 4.5 Introducing the Framework Desktop and newest Framework Fishing Boat Proceeds - Nerdfighteria Wiki If Anthropic Succeeds | WIRED Māori are trying to save their language from Big Tech | WIRED Conduit FM | Cotton Bureau Kathy Campbell | Chief Awesome Officer Alex Cox: Independent Queer Tech Podcasts alexcox.omg.lol
1 hr 24 min
December 11, 2025 75: A Woken Record
Delivery robots are (trying to) serve Chicago, but we need to talk about wagons.
Links and Show Notes: Support Roboism with a Relay Membership Submit Feedback A day in the life of a delivery robot | The Verge The secret behind these autonomous delivery robots - YouTube Hundreds of Chicago residents sign petition to pause robot delivery pilot program over safety concerns - CBS Chicago North Siders fed up with delivery robots on sidewalks - YouTube How Food Delivery Robots Are Conquering College Campuses - Business Insider Milton Keynes delivery robot takes plunge into canal The Artificial Intelligence illusion: How invisible workers fuel the "automated" economy | International Labour Organization How We Investigated the Human Labor Behind AI | Pulitzer Center How Roomba Sabotaged Its Own Success - YouTube Best Robot Vacuums - According to Reddit Data Amazon faces FAA probe after delivery drone incident in Texas Yarbo Core – The Smart Robot for All Your Yard Care Needs
1 hr 11 min
November 22, 2025 74: Who Knew Fascism Would Be the -ism?
Kathy didn't even get to the second page.
Links and Show Notes: Support Roboism with a Relay Membership Submit Feedback GOP lieutenant governor candidate uses AI representation of his opponent in online 'debate' - YouTube 'AI Psychosis': Term Doesn't Accurately Describe Chatbot Delusions
"Should we really be calling it 'AI Psychosis?'"
I spent a month living with a $430 AI pet, the Casio Moflin | TechCrunch Mommy blog - Wikipedia Heather Armstrong - Wikipedia Ballerina Farm (@ballerinafarm) | TikTok Hannah Neeleman (Ballerina Farm) - Wikipedia Nara Smith (@naraazizasmith) | TikTok Nara Smith - Wikipedia Ill Conceived: Tradwives - YouTube Ruby Franke - Wikipedia Ree Drummond - Wikipedia Kathy Campbell | Chief Awesome Officer Alex Cox: Independent Queer Tech Podcasts Roboism Feedback - Relay
1 hr 25 min
October 20, 2025 73: No More Flesh Buddies
Alex and Kathy cover a number of friendly and less friendly topics and try to avoid a Satanic Panic.
Links and Show Notes: Support Roboism with a Relay Membership Submit Feedback I Hate My Friend | WIRED Playing to Win Friends & Influence People AI-Fueled Spiritual Delusions Are Destroying Human Relationships Antipsychotic medications: a timeline - Our World in Data General psychopathology links and psychotic symptoms in a network approach | Schizophrenia How a chatbot encouraged a man who wanted to kill the Queen The Emerging Problem of "AI Psychosis" | Psychology Today
paper
The Real Demon Inside ChatGPT | WIRED ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Devil Worship - The Atlantic Empire of AI by Karen Hao The AI Mirror by Baillie Gifford The Anxious Generation - If Books Could Kill - Apple Podcasts Condé Nast Announces Partnership with OpenAI She Fell in Love With Her Psychiatrist, Told TikTok
ChatGPT
Who TF Did I Marry? - Wikipedia What's The 'Alexander Come Back to Sleep' Trend? | Know Your Meme Lin-Manuel Miranda Can't Get Enough of the Hamilton TikTok Trend - YouTube News - Dragonmount Alex Cox Kathy Campbell | Chief Awesome Officer
1 hr 16 min
June 13, 2025 72: Pure Undiluted Kathy
Friends?
We recorded this episode months ago and Alex wanted to scrap it. But as usual, Kathy was correct when she said, “I hate it–please publish it.”
Links and Show Notes: Support Roboism with a Relay Membership Submit Feedback Friend Reveal Trailer - YouTube Zuckerberg is doing exactly what we worried about. PARO Therapeutic Robot Roboism (@[email protected]) - Mastodon
1 hr 19 min

About Roboism

From the publisher's feed

Roboism is a show mostly about robots. We are exploring how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and digital assistants are affecting our culture. Come explore the humanity behind the bots that…