AI and Relationships, Part 2: AI Therapists and Bot Boyfriends
What happens when we outsource aspects of our most personal moments to machines?
In the second installment of our two-part series on AI and relationships, we hear from Rhiannon Williams, a reporter for MIT Technology Review who spoke to people all over the world about how they're using AI to relate to their loved ones, including a man who turns to it during marital disputes, a French mother who uses it to craft nightly tales for her son, and a nursing student who calls her AI companion her "boyfriend."
Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter and edited by Meg Cramer. It was co-hosted by Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski.
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AI and Relationships, Part 1: Into the Woods
Amir Mizroch spent years deconstructing fairy tales for his children — and thinking that maybe, he could create something out of his analysis and storytelling for a wider audience. In the first episode of our two-part series on AI and relationships, we hear what Amir finally created, and explore the questions it raises about connection in the digital age.
Credits: This episode was produced by Grace Tatter, and edited by Meg Cramer. It was co-hosted by Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski.
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Bootcamp for Men: from betas to alphas
In the past few years, videos from a new kind of camp have begun circulating the internet. They feature men participating in a variety of bizarre activities: from aggressively digging holes under floodlights, to collectively wailing in a pool of water. These are man camps, where men can pay up to $18,000 to undergo extreme boot-camp-like conditioning in the name of reclaiming their masculinity.
This week on Endless Thread, host Ben Brock Johnson and senior producer Dean Russell, dive into the past, present and future of man camps.
Show notes:
Learning 'how to be a man' in the Californian desert: Man Camp (The Guardian)
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Kisscams, ratcams, Barbra Streisand
On this week's Endless Thread, host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter bring us two stories about the power of livestreams – one from the Coldplay concert box seats, and another from a notorious rat corridor in Brooklyn, NYC.
Show notes:
What's the deal with "Astronomer" CEO and CPO affair? (Reddit)
A Crown Heights Building's Rat Infestation Gets a Livestream (Hell Gate)
Rat cam (YouTube/Adam Schleser)
I am a rat (a real live rotten-tailed rat) (YouTube/Adam Schleser)
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Thinking Outside the Dox: What 'consensual doxing' can teach us about internet privacy
Kristen Sotakoun (@notkahnjunior on TikTok) says she has always been 'the FBI of the friend group' – that person you can count on to dig up the juicy details on anyone's social media.
It's a skillset that has earned her millions upon millions of views on TikTok in a series she has dubbed 'consensual doxing.' In her videos, Kristen completes challenges from her viewers to find their birthdays, using only publicly posted information online.
Kristen is now a handful of creators on TikTok who are making consensual doxing videos as educational content, encouraging viewers to think more deeply about what they post online, and where.
On this week's Endless Thread, we dive into the world of consensual doxing, what it can teach us about our privacy, and host Ben Brock Johnson gets (consensually) doxed.
Show notes:
I got popular on TikTok by being a total creep (Business Insider)
This Man Proves You Can Find Anyone Using Geolocation — and It's a Scary Lesson for All of Us (Distractify)
‘Consensual doxxing’ reveals the confronting truth about online privacy - you’re not as hidden as you think (7NEWS Australia)
Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dig into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.
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