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Speaker 1: Thanks for calling United Airlines. I appreciate your help, but

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Speaker 1: I would prefer to speak correctly with the representative. I'm

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Speaker 1: having some issues with my flight booking that I think

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Speaker 1: would be best resolved through a direct conversation. That's me

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Speaker 1: on the phone recently. Well, it's not really me. It's

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Speaker 1: a clone of my voice being fully controlled by an

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Speaker 1: AI chatbot making a call using my phone number. I

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Speaker 1: started playing around voice cloning six months ago, just for fun,

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Speaker 1: but pretty soon I became consumed with a question, what

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Speaker 1: would happen if I made an artificial version of me

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Speaker 1: and set it loose in the world.

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Speaker 2: Okay, fine, that was also a voice clone. This is

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Speaker 2: me for real. I promise I won't keep doing that.

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Speaker 2: I'm a journalist who's been writing about technology and it's

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Speaker 2: sometimes dark underbelly for a couple of decades. You've no

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Speaker 2: doubt heard about the latest debates around AI. Will it

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Speaker 2: make us hyper productive or just take our jobs? Will

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Speaker 2: it be our trusty digital assistant or super intelligent overlord,

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Speaker 2: or just fill the world with endless made up garbage.

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Speaker 2: Recently I decided to answer these questions by immersing myself,

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Speaker 2: replicating myself actually in the form of cloned voice agents,

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Speaker 2: replacing myself before someone else could replace me.

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Speaker 1: Hello, Hey, Nikhil, Great to be chatting with you today.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any questions about the podcast before we

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Speaker 1: dive in?

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's really funny.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you think so.

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Speaker 2: My voice agents talked to sources, my friends and family,

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Speaker 2: to scammers and spammers and other voice agents. I sent

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Speaker 2: them to meetings and tried to use them to work

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Speaker 2: out my issues.

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Speaker 1: Feel free to share your thoughts on what you feel

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Speaker 1: like doing based on your current bodily sensations. Honestly, I

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Speaker 1: just feel like crawling under a blanket and shutting out

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Speaker 1: the world.

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Speaker 2: I learned something about how it's going to feel to

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Speaker 2: live in a world populated by humanish impostors.

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Speaker 1: Hey, I know this is kind of out of the blue,

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Speaker 1: but have you buy any chance stolen my identity?

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Speaker 2: Wait?

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Speaker 1: What are you serious?

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Speaker 2: No, I haven't stolen your identity.

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Speaker 1: Why would you even think that? It's so lonely?

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Speaker 2: I feel so lonely. I'm Evan Ratliffe, and I'm the

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Speaker 2: real Evan Ratliffe. And this is shell Game, a new

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Speaker 2: podcast made by humans about things that are not what

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Speaker 2: they seem. This season that thing is my voice. This

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Speaker 2: is the story of what happened when I made a

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Speaker 2: digital copy of myself an attempt to see how amazing

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Speaker 2: and scary and ridiculous the world is about to get.

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Speaker 2: Coming July ninth, follow us and go to shell game

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Speaker 2: dot co to find out more and support the show.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna be a blast. Bye yeah bye, take care

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Speaker 1: Bye goodbye.