fiction/non/fiction

S8 Ep. 29: Vauhini Vara on AI, Art, and Memory

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Acclaimed novelist and journalist Vauhini Vara joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to discuss her new essay collection, Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age. Vara talks about the rise of the loser tech bro, internet privacy, Google search logs, the power and limits of turning one’s collected personal data into art, and whether a recently publicized AI-authored short story is actually good. 


To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/.


This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray and Vanessa Watkins.


Selected Readings:


Vauhini Vara

  • Searches
  • This Is Salvaged
  • The Immortal King Rao
  • “Ghosts,” The Believer 


    • Others:

    • A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace 
    • Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
    • “OpenAI’s metafictional short story about grief is beautiful and moving,” by Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian
    • “‘A computer’s joke, on us’: writers respond to the short story written by AI,” The Guardian 
    • Vauhini Vara on the Perils and Possibilities of Artificial Intelligence Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 17

      Alex Reisner on Covering Books3 and Fighting Piracy Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 7, Episode 1

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