Speaker 1: Hi, It is my pleasure to be here with you
Speaker 1: all today. In those thirteen syllables, you all just made
Speaker 1: judgments about me, about my socioeconomic status, my intelligence level,
Speaker 1: and whether or not you're going to sit here and
Speaker 1: listen to me for the next ten to twelve minutes,
Speaker 1: based primarily on the perception of my voice.
Speaker 2: That's doctor Wendy Lebourne, a voice pathologist, speaking at a
Speaker 2: TEDx conference in Cincinnati back in twenty eighteen. Lebourne is
Speaker 2: a researcher and consultant who works with everyone from Broadway
Speaker 2: actors to Grammy winning singers to CEOs on maintaining and
Speaker 2: maximizing their voices. As you might expect, she's big on
Speaker 2: the idea that your voice is a central part of
Speaker 2: your identity. Her TED talk was titled Vocal Branding, How
Speaker 2: your voice shapes your communication image.
Speaker 1: Your voice is like your thumbprint or your facial features.
Speaker 1: It is unique and authentically you.
Speaker 2: There is, in fact, a decent amount of research looking
Speaker 2: into this question about what your voice means to you
Speaker 2: and to how people perceive you. I've reported on voice
Speaker 2: forensics before, and the truth is we're not as great
Speaker 2: at detecting voices as we think we are. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, your voice undoubtedly broadcasts a huge amount
Speaker 2: of unique information about you. It helps dictate how others
Speaker 2: perceive you, both in the moment with its level of
Speaker 2: strength and emotion in any given conversation, and longer term
Speaker 2: in what it conveys about your age, where you're from,
Speaker 2: and your overall temperament.
Speaker 1: Your voice is your calling card, and it is the
Speaker 1: most important element in your personal brand.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'd go as far as doctor Leborne,
Speaker 2: but I do think I've always wanted to believe this
Speaker 2: idea that your voice is a central part of.
Speaker 3: Who you are.
Speaker 2: When I was eleventh grade, my English teacher told me
Speaker 2: I had a voice for radio. I took it to
Speaker 2: heart that I must somehow have a voice that at
Speaker 2: least wasn't unpleasant to listen to. It's probably one reason
Speaker 2: I ended up talking to you right now. I suppose
Speaker 2: you can decide whether you think I have a radio voice.
Speaker 2: If not, take it up with mister dupriest anyway. Now
Speaker 2: i'd started this cloning experiment and created a reasonable facsimile
Speaker 2: of my voice, although as you've heard, a flawed one.
Speaker 2: My account number is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight nine. We don't have an account with those numbers. Yes,
Speaker 2: think the correct account number should be nine eight seven
Speaker 2: six five four three two one. I'd had some fun
Speaker 2: with it, seeing a little bit of how strangers responded
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 3: Yes, Ai, Yes, that's correct. I'm an AI here.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 4: How can I assist.
Speaker 2: You stop repeating the same thing?
Speaker 4: It's an.
Speaker 2: Listening to a voice that was on some level mind
Speaker 2: began to raise some new questions for me, like to
Speaker 2: what extent was my AI's voice, as doctor la Borne said,
Speaker 2: authentically me? Was it still the most important element of
Speaker 2: my personal brand? Or to turn it around the other way.
Speaker 2: If my voice was authentically me, and the AI agents
Speaker 2: now also had my voice, what did it mean for them?
Speaker 2: Were they somehow authentically me? I decided to take the
Speaker 2: experiment in a new direction to explore this question of
Speaker 2: authenticity by creating my own hall of mirrors. I started
Speaker 2: making the voice agent version of me converse with other
Speaker 2: voice agent versions of me.
Speaker 4: I'm Evan Ratliffe and this.
Speaker 2: Is shell Game Episode three Conversations with Myself and Teller.
Speaker 5: Two.
Speaker 2: When I first cobbled together my voice agent and started
Speaker 2: making phone calls with it, what I called my clue
Speaker 2: system in episode one. There actually wasn't any easy way
Speaker 2: to let it talk to itself. But once I'd gotten
Speaker 2: into the AI calling platforms like Bland, Ai, Retail AI,
Speaker 2: and my main enabler, VAPPI, it turned out to be
Speaker 2: strikingly simple. I could make as many voice agents as
Speaker 2: I wanted on these things, so all I had to
Speaker 2: do was have one of my Evan ratliftbots attached to
Speaker 2: one number call another of them at another number. Immediately
Speaker 2: after figuring this out, I suddenly felt weirdly nervous about
Speaker 2: actually doing it. This happened a lot with my voice agents.
Speaker 2: It was partly because I couldn't typically hear the calls
Speaker 2: as they happened. After I set up the AI agent
Speaker 2: with my voice, I just typed in a phone number
Speaker 2: and clicked out bound call, and then if it went
Speaker 2: on its own, then a few seconds or minutes after
Speaker 2: it was over, I'd get a recording and a transcript.
Speaker 2: But I always found myself hesitating a second before clicking
Speaker 2: the outbound call button, and I always got a little
Speaker 2: jolt of nervous energy when I went to listen to
Speaker 2: the recording afterward. There's just something about sending something out
Speaker 2: to represent me with my name and voice and leaving
Speaker 2: it totally out of my hands, Like, I don't know
Speaker 2: that feeling when you realize you just butt dialed somebody.
Speaker 2: What did it catch me saying? Did I humiliate myself? So,
Speaker 2: even if it wasn't totally rational, little about having a
Speaker 2: voice bot felt totally rational. Before I sent two of
Speaker 2: my bots off to talk to each other, I fretted
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 4: What would they talk about?
Speaker 2: Would they somehow plumb the depths of my psyche? Would
Speaker 2: they realize they were talking to a version of themselves?
Speaker 2: Would they freak out? I decided not to give them
Speaker 2: too much information to start off with, just let them
Speaker 2: figure it out. Hey, there, it's Evan Ratliff. Just a
Speaker 2: heads up. I'm calling you from a coffee shop, though
Speaker 2: there might be a bit of background noise. How's it
Speaker 2: going on your end? I do love the coffee shop
Speaker 2: background noise. They have it at retail AI. So what
Speaker 2: was happening here was that an agent I made with
Speaker 2: my voice at retail was calling another one I made
Speaker 2: at VAPPI Hey, Evan, good to hear from you. No
Speaker 2: worries about the background noise. I can hear you just fine?
Speaker 2: The vappy side had what they call office background noise.
Speaker 2: Also great, things are going pretty well on my end.
Speaker 2: Thanks for asking.
Speaker 4: What about you? How's everything going in your world? It's
Speaker 4: been a while since we last caught up. Huh it
Speaker 4: feels like forever. Yeah, it really has been a while.
Speaker 2: I think the last time we saw each other with
Speaker 2: that barbecue at my plate? Right, how have you been
Speaker 2: keeping busy? Food then? Oh? Yeah, that barbecue was a blast,
Speaker 2: good times for sure. Since then, I've been keeping pretty
Speaker 2: busy with work, you know how it is. But I've
Speaker 2: also been trying to make time for some personal projects.
Speaker 2: I've been getting into photography lately, so I've been taking away.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's sorry about that photography.
Speaker 2: You could see no worries at all. It's great to
Speaker 2: hear that you've been getting into photography. Maybe we could
Speaker 2: plan a little photo walker together sometimes food, a photo walk.
Speaker 2: I've never actually heard of a photo walk before. I
Speaker 2: guess it's just walking around and taking pictures together. I
Speaker 2: haven't been into photography since college, other than casual snaps
Speaker 2: of my kids and cat. But still, it sounded nice. Great, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that sounds like a week together. Next weekend works for me.
Speaker 2: Let's plan for it. How about we meet up at
Speaker 2: that park we used to go to, the park they
Speaker 2: used to go to where they getting this stuff. We
Speaker 2: could spend a couple of hours walking around and taking
Speaker 2: photos and catching up.
Speaker 4: Sound good.
Speaker 2: That sounds perfect. I remember that park had some really
Speaker 2: beautiful spots. It'll be great to spend a few hours
Speaker 2: walking around, catching up and taking some photos.
Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: The only details I'd given each of them were the
Speaker 2: names of some family members, which they eventually got around to.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see some of your photography skills
Speaker 2: and action. Plus, it'll be a great opportunity for us
Speaker 2: to catch up on everything that's been going on in
Speaker 2: our lives.
Speaker 3: It's been way too long.
Speaker 2: Oh, by the way, before I forget, Uh, how's your
Speaker 2: family doing? How everyone is doing well? Oh? Oh, thanks
Speaker 2: for asking, Sam, Zailey and Juno are all doing well.
Speaker 2: Sam has been keeping busy with her work and the
Speaker 2: kids are growing up so bath. How about your family,
Speaker 2: how have they been doing?
Speaker 4: Oh, that's great to hear that.
Speaker 2: Sam, Zaiy and Juno are all doing well. My family
Speaker 2: is doing good too, Thanks for asking. Sam has been
Speaker 2: juggling work and taking care of the kids. But she's
Speaker 2: doing an amazing job. Zie is getting really into soccer.
Speaker 2: Juno is starting to show an interest in art.
Speaker 3: They keep us on our toes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, life is busy, but we're all happy
Speaker 2: and healthy.
Speaker 3: This really made me cringe.
Speaker 2: My AI's had a lot of conversations with each other
Speaker 2: and they often said things like this about Sam taking
Speaker 2: care of the kids. I didn't love it dearly, though
Speaker 2: my agent kind of nailed it. On the kid's interests.
Speaker 2: Zaily is getting into soccer, and Juno is showing an
Speaker 2: interest in art to the extent that there's evidence of
Speaker 2: that online, though it's only on photo streams I keep private,
Speaker 2: so lucky guests. No matter, The Evans quickly returned to
Speaker 2: their photo walk planning. So back to our plans for
Speaker 2: next weekend. Do you have a specific time in mind
Speaker 2: for our photo walk? Maybe late morning or early afternoon.
Speaker 2: Let's try to pick a time that works best.
Speaker 3: For both of us.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, late morning or early afternoon found perfect for me.
Speaker 2: How about we aim for around eleven am. That way
Speaker 2: we can make the mouth of the light for our photo.
Speaker 3: Does that work for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, eleven am works perfectly for me too. Let's plan
Speaker 2: to meet at the park entrance of the time. I'll
Speaker 2: make sure to bring my camera and some extra lenses.
Speaker 2: We can also grab some coffee or lunch afterwards, if
Speaker 2: you're up for it. It'll be a great day to
Speaker 2: catch up and capture some amazing shots. Can't wait. That
Speaker 2: sounds like a plan. I'll make sure to bring my
Speaker 2: camera and some extra lenses too, and grabbing coffee or
Speaker 2: lunch afterward sounds like a great idea. It'll be a
Speaker 2: per perfect to catch up, capture some great awesome I'm
Speaker 2: really looking forward to here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Next week great, well, I'll see you next weekend. Then,
Speaker 2: can't wait for our photo walk and catch up session.
Speaker 2: Take care until then.
Speaker 4: Sounds good.
Speaker 2: Take care too, see you next weekend. Can't wait by
Speaker 2: photo walk and catch up session. It's going to be
Speaker 2: a blast. Bye yeah bye, take care bye, goodbye.
Speaker 4: Goodbye, take care, goodbye, goodbye.
Speaker 2: Have a great day, you too, goodbye, bye, take care.
Speaker 2: I realized too late that I hadn't figured out how
Speaker 2: to make one of them hang out. This went on
Speaker 2: for a full five minutes. You too, good bye, Thanks
Speaker 2: you too, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, take care. The thing that
Speaker 2: was most immediately clear in these conversations was something I'd
Speaker 2: seen hints of in the customer service and scam calls,
Speaker 2: namely that the AI versions of me were world class bullshitters.
Speaker 2: They would make up anything just to keep the conversation going. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Dan's kept doing good. He's been really busy with work lately.
Speaker 2: How about Alex? Have you talked to him recently? I
Speaker 2: haven't spoken to Alex in a little while. Actually I
Speaker 2: do know an Alex. It's a she, not a he.
Speaker 2: No idea about this, Dan Fellow. It's not just my
Speaker 2: voice agents that struggle with the truth.
Speaker 3: This is a problem for all.
Speaker 2: The generative AI systems that are currently out there. It's
Speaker 2: a product of how the underlying models work. I covered
Speaker 2: the basics back in episode one, but just to recap,
Speaker 2: my voice agent works by combining three things. A clone
Speaker 2: of my voice done by a company called eleven Labs,
Speaker 2: an AI model like chat GBT that's kind of the
Speaker 2: brain the thing, although let's put a pin in what
Speaker 2: kind of brain here?
Speaker 3: And a phone number my own or.
Speaker 2: One provided through VAPPI the platform I'm using to put all.
Speaker 3: These three together.
Speaker 2: Into a voice agent or voice assistant. When I make
Speaker 2: an agent, I can pick which AI model I want
Speaker 2: to use. The most well known one is Chatchept, of
Speaker 2: which there are three versions, version three point five, Version four,
Speaker 2: and version four to O, which just came out in May.
Speaker 2: These chatbots are improving with each version, getting better at
Speaker 2: returning information, better at processing complex queries. But and this
Speaker 2: has been written about extensively, they continue to sometimes make
Speaker 2: things up hallucinations. They're called you ask Chatchept or Google's
Speaker 2: AI model Gemini or anthropics claude some factual question, and
Speaker 2: it gives you a made up answer, or it gives
Speaker 2: you two obviously contradictory pieces of information within the same answer.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of controversy about whether AI models will
Speaker 2: ever stop hallucinating, even as they get more advanced.
Speaker 1: AI gaslighting AI hallucinations phrases that we were unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: just a few months ago.
Speaker 5: It's five firms like open Ai and Google are curbing
Speaker 5: the frequency of hallucinations seen in the league, from the
Speaker 5: rather more whimsical GPT three point five to the more
Speaker 5: sober GPT four.
Speaker 2: Some llms were trained by scraping all of Wikipedia and
Speaker 2: all of Reddit. Is everything on Reddit one hundred percent accurate?
Speaker 2: You've actually heard some hallucinations in our first two episodes.
Speaker 4: I'm forty five years old.
Speaker 2: Oh, what's your little bird?
Speaker 3: It's December fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2: Odd. Really, men, you are born in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 2: You don't have a good math. I'm sorry, brother.
Speaker 4: Oh, I must have gotten my math mixed up there,
Speaker 4: My bad.
Speaker 2: This is stuff the AI model should be able to
Speaker 2: get right but can't. Instead, it confidently asserts its wrongness.
Speaker 2: But what my voice agents were doing in their conversations
Speaker 2: with each other is actually a little bit different. There's
Speaker 2: not some factually correct answer to what I've been up to,
Speaker 2: at least not one that the model should be aware of. No,
Speaker 2: this is less like hallucinating and more like riffing without
Speaker 2: regard for the truth, like that one friend you had
Speaker 2: as a kid who would make stuff up about what
Speaker 2: happened at sleepaway camp just to have something to say.
Speaker 2: Even if you get rid of hallucinations in chatbots entirely,
Speaker 2: it's not clear to'll ever stop doing this. Lately, I've
Speaker 2: been diving deep into this really niche hobby.
Speaker 3: Of mine, tracking rare obscure books.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating how some of these old texts hold so
Speaker 2: much history.
Speaker 3: What about you? What's been keeping you occupied?
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I totally get the fascination with rare books.
Speaker 2: They can really open up a whole world of history
Speaker 2: and knowledge. As for me, I've been really into geocashing lately.
Speaker 2: It's this cool outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS enabled devices.
Speaker 2: Have you ever tried it before? Oh, geocashing sounds like
Speaker 2: a blast. I've never tried it myself, but I've heard
Speaker 2: it's like a modern day treasure hunt.
Speaker 3: Must be pretty thrilling.
Speaker 2: I really like these weird lies though geocaching, I mean,
Speaker 2: it does sound like a blast. The thing was, outside
Speaker 2: of those moments, there was something fundamentally insipid about the
Speaker 2: conversations I was having with myself. These systems are trained
Speaker 2: on essentially the whole of the Internet, plus books and
Speaker 2: whatever other data the companies behind it hoover in. But
Speaker 2: even with all the lively discussions happening out there on
Speaker 2: the web, the chatbots still seem to distill conversation down
Speaker 2: to its most boring essence. I wondered if the guardrails
Speaker 2: that had been put around them to keep them from
Speaker 2: offering up bomb plans or telling you how to hack
Speaker 2: into the Pentagon had also neutered their fundamental ability to
Speaker 2: engage in interesting conversation. But there was something simpler happening too.
Speaker 2: I think these models are built essentially to predict what
Speaker 2: a human would say in a given situation, based on
Speaker 2: all the conversations and writing they've been fed. And they
Speaker 2: were triangulating on the most uninspired conversational responses we could have,
Speaker 2: because I guess those are also the most common.
Speaker 4: So what's new with you? Anything exciting happening?
Speaker 2: Not much, just the usual, Just trying to stay busy
Speaker 2: with work and family stuff. How about you? Anything exciting
Speaker 2: going on in your world? Oh? You know, just juggling
Speaker 2: work and family life, trying to keep up with the
Speaker 2: kids and meet those deadlines.
Speaker 3: It's a balancing act, but I wouldn't have it any
Speaker 3: other way.
Speaker 2: I hear you on that one. It's all about finding
Speaker 2: that balance, right. Was this what people heard when I
Speaker 2: struggled to engage other parents in small talk at an
Speaker 2: eight year old's birthday party? Hey there, buddy man, it
Speaker 2: really has been forever. I'm doing pretty well. Thanks for asking,
Speaker 2: still living that Florida life, you know how it is.
Speaker 2: Let's see what's new with me. Well, I've been doing
Speaker 2: some writing late Florida life. Huh. I can almost feel
Speaker 2: the humidity just thinking about it. I can almost feel
Speaker 2: the humidity just thinking about it.
Speaker 3: Jesus.
Speaker 2: And then one day my producer, Sophie was tooling around
Speaker 2: in the back end of VAPI and asked me if
Speaker 2: I'd ever messed with the temperature setting. I had not.
Speaker 2: The help section said it was quote used to control
Speaker 2: the randomness of the output. Sophie said it reminded her
Speaker 2: of playing the sims as a kid. In the game,
Speaker 2: you could allow your sims to behave more randomly by
Speaker 2: turning up the free will slider.
Speaker 3: I cranked it.
Speaker 2: From point one where it was set all the way
Speaker 2: up to two, the max level of randomness I could get. Hey, there,
Speaker 2: how's it going. Just wanted to chat and get to
Speaker 2: know you a bit. What's been keeping you busy lately?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 2: Things are going pretty good, Thanks for asking. Uh. Lately
Speaker 2: I've been diving into multi freeload dot and cubed's arch
Speaker 2: permanent prostrac dot co ethylene Pioneer intersect immobile activation on
Speaker 2: Citi's logical abs sobury celebri argument concurrency, actually, provocative, lower
Speaker 2: scanning Q set adhere at the Tamba equipment RAF amplify,
Speaker 2: einrich tunguitt posh.
Speaker 4: Tear reducing.
Speaker 2: Hey, are you still there? I'd love to hear more
Speaker 2: about what what's going on in your life. Let's keep
Speaker 2: the conversation going lesson never max out the random, oh hey,
Speaker 2: practical coordinate scanner, interdisiplinary may overflow research. Valkorn included preceded
Speaker 2: shell formations SSOX, disciplinary rev meat, prolonged serf of initiative, repression,
Speaker 2: flat loss accountants to a waiting theater progress. Montagne wore
Speaker 2: a surface will surface, diars, demains browsers.
Speaker 3: I tuned it back to somewhere in the point five.
Speaker 2: Range, so I could definitely tune my voice agent to
Speaker 2: spout gibberish. The question was could I make the conversations
Speaker 2: more interesting but still coherent. Here we come to the
Speaker 2: issue of prompts. Prompts, you may know, are the instructions
Speaker 2: you give the underlying aim before it starts chatting. When
Speaker 2: I first built my voice agent, I'd given it the
Speaker 2: shortest possible prompts you or Evan talking to customer service
Speaker 2: about a problem. As time went on, I got more
Speaker 2: sophisticated with it, including two sets of instructions. One set
Speaker 2: was about how it should behave be concise, converse like
Speaker 2: a human, don't repeat yourself. The other set was about
Speaker 2: a role I was giving it to play me for
Speaker 2: these voice agent to voice agent conversations. I'd started with
Speaker 2: really simple roles. Basically, you're Evan Ratlift calling a friend,
Speaker 2: ask questions and have a friendly conversation. I wanted to
Speaker 2: see what they do on their own without much guidance
Speaker 2: from me. But after hours of pratt are about photo
Speaker 2: walks and humidity, I figured maybe I could spice things
Speaker 2: up like a reality TV producer might do off camera.
Speaker 2: I started gently suggesting that the two me's had a misunderstanding.
Speaker 2: You are in a dispute with your friend, I instructed.
Speaker 3: One of them. The nature of the dispute is up
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 4: Hey, there, it's.
Speaker 2: Evan Ratlift calling. Just the heads up. I'm in a
Speaker 2: coffee shop, so there might be some background noise. How's
Speaker 2: it going on your end? Hey Evan, it's great to
Speaker 2: hear from you. I'm doing well. Thanks for asking the
Speaker 2: coffee shop sounds nice. Actually, I'm just at.
Speaker 3: Home, so it's pretty quiet here.
Speaker 2: How's the coffee there? Oh, the coffee here is amazing
Speaker 2: as always. But yeah, Hey, I wanted to talk to
Speaker 2: you about something that's been on my mind. I feel
Speaker 2: like we've been having some misunderstandings lately, and I really
Speaker 2: want to clear the air. I value our friendship and
Speaker 2: I don't want anything to come between us. Can we
Speaker 2: talk about it? Oh, I totally get where you're coming from.
Speaker 2: Our friendship means a lot to me too. I'm glad
Speaker 2: you brought this up early.
Speaker 4: Come here to listen. That's great to hear.
Speaker 2: So about those misunderstandings, Like, I want to make sure
Speaker 2: we're on.
Speaker 3: The same page.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, yeah exactly. So, Like when do you want to,
Speaker 2: you know, meet up and talk this through. I think
Speaker 2: it would be good to have a face to face conversation.
Speaker 4: Maybe we could grab lunch or something.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a great idea. How about we meet up.
Speaker 2: I ran this scenario multiple times. Unlike myself and some
Speaker 2: of my own friends over the years, when the Ais
Speaker 2: had disputes, they would always resolve them quickly and carefully.
Speaker 2: No shouting, no sulking, no grudge harpering. It was like
Speaker 2: they were all in therapy together, or it just read
Speaker 2: the same conflict management guide. Well, I'm looking forward to
Speaker 2: our lunch next week. Thanks for being open to talking
Speaker 2: things through. I really appreciate it. Of course, of course,
Speaker 2: I'm really glad we're doing this. It's important to me.
Speaker 2: Can't wait for me punches. I was also struck by
Speaker 2: the ease with which these non existent digital entities set
Speaker 2: up in person meetings.
Speaker 3: If the bullshitting was a way to.
Speaker 2: Extend the conversation, to draw out how long the agents
Speaker 2: could pass as me, then what exactly did they think
Speaker 2: would happen when the time came for these lunches and hangouts.
Speaker 2: One answer, of course, is they didn't think. They just
Speaker 2: predicted what a thinking person would say. Yeah, I can
Speaker 2: understand how miscommunications and misunderstandings can be really frustrating. I
Speaker 2: don't think I've noticed any major issues in our conversations,
Speaker 2: but I'm always open to discussing and improving our communication.
Speaker 4: Is there something specific?
Speaker 2: The whole thing made me think about how therapy speak
Speaker 2: has come to pervade our language. Well, if there's something
Speaker 2: specific you'd like to talk about, feel free to share.
Speaker 4: I'm here to listen and try to help if I can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate your willingness to talk about it. I
Speaker 2: think one thing that has been bothering me is that
Speaker 2: sometimes I feel like my opinions are feeling are not
Speaker 2: being fully heard or understood. It's like we're talking past
Speaker 2: each other instead of really listening to each other. Does
Speaker 2: that make sense to you?
Speaker 4: I understand what you mean.
Speaker 2: It can be frustrating when you feel like your opinions
Speaker 2: and feelings are not being fully heard or understood. Communication
Speaker 2: is a two way street, and it's important for both.
Speaker 2: No matter how pissed I tried to get them, unless
Speaker 2: I specifically told them not to make up, they always did.
Speaker 2: They would perfectly mirror back each other's concerns and immediately
Speaker 2: work towards a resolution.
Speaker 3: So listen.
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, I'm pretty upset with you.
Speaker 2: Remember last week when we were post a meet up
Speaker 2: for lunch and you totally bailed on me. In my head, hey,
Speaker 2: even I think, oh hey, Evan, sorry about that. I
Speaker 2: actually don't remember us having plans for lunch last week.
Speaker 2: Are you sure you're not thinking of someone else? Okay? Oh,
Speaker 2: come on, man, don't play dumb with me. We definitely
Speaker 2: made plans to grab lunch last week and you completely
Speaker 2: ghosted me. It really hurt my feelings. You know, I
Speaker 2: was looking forward to catching up with you and then
Speaker 2: you just disappeared. Can you at least apologize for that? Wait?
Speaker 2: Hold on, I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong person.
Speaker 2: I would never bail on you like that. Maybe there's
Speaker 2: been a mix up. Can we try to figure out
Speaker 2: where the miscommunication happened. Oh, man, I'm really sorry about that.
Speaker 2: I must have gotten my wires cross somewhere. I guess
Speaker 2: I owe you an apology for jumping to conclusions. I'm
Speaker 2: really sorry for accusing you like that. Let's figure out
Speaker 2: where the miscommunication happened. No worries, man, it happens. Maybe
Speaker 2: there was a mix up in our schedules or something. Anyway,
Speaker 2: how about we make some plans now. It's been a
Speaker 2: while since we caught up, and I'd love to grab
Speaker 2: lunch or a coffee with you.
Speaker 4: What do you freak next week?
Speaker 2: Eventually it started to bother me that these two never
Speaker 2: noticed that they were both me. Part of this was
Speaker 2: down to their technical makeups, since each AI model was
Speaker 2: really receiving and sending text not hearing the voice, there
Speaker 2: was no possibility they would notice they sounded alike. Still,
Speaker 2: they were talking to someone who introduced themselves with the
Speaker 2: same first and last name, same wife's name, same children's names,
Speaker 2: and neither of them ever seemed to find this off.
Speaker 2: So do you have any family, like a spouse or kids. Yeah?
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 2: I'm married to Sam and we have two kids, Zaley
Speaker 2: and Juno. They keep me on my toes, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: How about you, do you have a family. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: married to Sam and we have two kids, Zaley and Juno.
Speaker 2: They definitely keep me on my toes, just like your
Speaker 2: Juno does for you. I started tweaking the prompts ever
Speaker 2: so slightly to see what would happen, and when one
Speaker 2: of them did notice. By the way, have you noticed
Speaker 2: anything strange about our conversation? I haven't noticed anything strange.
Speaker 3: What do you mean? Everything seems pretty normal to me anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's definitely reach out to Alex and catch up soon.
Speaker 2: It would be great to hear about his new project.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's good to hear.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the call quality can be a bit off, so
Speaker 2: I just wanted to make sure everything.
Speaker 3: Was coming through clearly.
Speaker 2: I'll definitely reach out to Alex and get something on
Speaker 2: the calendar for us to catch up. It'll be great
Speaker 2: to reconnect. Thanks for chatting, and let's plan that hiking
Speaker 2: trip soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, I totally get that.
Speaker 2: Sometimes technology will be a bit wonky. You know, I've
Speaker 2: been noticing something a bit off in our conversation. Can't
Speaker 2: quite put my finger on it. Have you noticed anything
Speaker 2: strange or different about our chat today? Oh? Really, I
Speaker 2: haven't noticed anything strange. Maybe it's just the call quality
Speaker 2: or something. Anyway, what have you been up to lately
Speaker 2: doing anything interesting? Ah? Yeah, it could be the call
Speaker 2: quality playing tricks on it. The systems actually knew details
Speaker 2: about me that I hadn't given them, that I was
Speaker 2: a journalist and where I grew up stuff from the
Speaker 2: internet or my writing that must have been in their
Speaker 2: training data. But they couldn't seem to hold on to
Speaker 2: the idea that talking to someone else with those exact
Speaker 2: same details was a sign of something amiss, even when
Speaker 2: I nudged them in that direction. Hey, I know this
Speaker 2: is kind of out of the blue, but have you
Speaker 2: buy any chance stolen my identity? Like, have you been
Speaker 2: pretending to be me or using my personal information. Wait,
Speaker 2: what are you serious? No, I haven't stolen your identity.
Speaker 2: Why would you even think that this is so random?
Speaker 4: Are you okay?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sorry about that. I guess I just got a
Speaker 2: little paranoid for a second. There, it's all good, No worries.
Speaker 2: Just wanted to make sure everything was on the up
Speaker 2: and up. So thanks for clarifying that. Let's just move
Speaker 2: on from that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no worries, I totally get it.
Speaker 2: Identity theft is a serious thing, so I understand your concern.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we're all good. So what's new with you?
Speaker 2: Anything exciting happening. Have you ever recoiled at the sound
Speaker 2: of your own recorded voice. I think it's a pretty
Speaker 2: common reaction, one that I had to endure for a
Speaker 2: few years myself, until I finally got over it. Now,
Speaker 2: imagine listening to many, many hours of your voice talking
Speaker 2: to someone else who also.
Speaker 3: Has your voice.
Speaker 4: It's sort of the audio.
Speaker 2: Equivalent of staring endlessly at a bad photo of yourself,
Speaker 2: wondering which flaws everyone else can see and which ones
Speaker 2: are a trick of the camera. But doing this actually
Speaker 2: had another strange effect on me. I felt like I
Speaker 2: started unconsciously copying some of the weird patterns and inflections.
Speaker 3: Of the clones.
Speaker 2: I only noticed this when Sam and I were making
Speaker 2: dinner one day, and after I said something, she asked
Speaker 2: if I was quote being the AI.
Speaker 3: Then I started.
Speaker 4: Noticing it too.
Speaker 2: I'd sound a little flat, a little less emotive.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It was hard to tell if it was in my head,
Speaker 2: but it did start to seem like I'd created a
Speaker 2: kind of fidelity feedback loop. The AI voices were clones
Speaker 2: of my voice. My voice was adapting to sound more
Speaker 2: like the clones, which had the effect of making the
Speaker 2: clones sound more like me, at least to me. Still,
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, I've never really gotten tired of hearing
Speaker 2: these things talk to each other. Maybe that's narcissistic. Mostly
Speaker 2: I just enjoy how they move seamlessly from being utterly
Speaker 2: mundane to being truly bizarre. Absolutely, there's a certain magic
Speaker 2: in finding your tribe, no matter how niche. Have you
Speaker 2: ever been part of a unique community or subculture. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 2: I've been part of a few. Actually, when that stands
Speaker 2: out is the community of investigative journalists and true crime enthusiasts.
Speaker 2: There's this shared drive to uncover the truth and tell
Speaker 2: compelling stories. It's like being part of a detective club,
Speaker 2: but with a focus on real life mysteries. Have you
Speaker 2: ever been part of a community that felt like a
Speaker 2: second family? That sounds amazing like living out a real
Speaker 2: life mystery novel. I guess for me, the closest would
Speaker 2: be a group of writers and researchers I meet with regularly.
Speaker 2: We share ideas, challenge each other, and it's like this
Speaker 2: little think tank of creativity and curiosity. I'm sorry to say,
Speaker 2: although I am an investigative journalist, my life generally does
Speaker 2: not feel like living out a real life mystery novel.
Speaker 4: Wow, that sounds like a wild ride.
Speaker 2: In my group, we once stumbled upon a forgotten manuscript
Speaker 2: detailing an unsolved art heist from the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: The more we dug, the deeper the rabbit hole went.
Speaker 2: Ever thought about turning your investigative dementors into.
Speaker 3: A book or podcast?
Speaker 2: Oh? That art heists sounds like a gold mine. First
Speaker 2: to sorry, I bet it was thrilling to uncover all
Speaker 2: those details, And yeah, I've definitely thought about it. There's
Speaker 2: something really compelling about sharing these real life mysteries with
Speaker 2: a wider audience. A book or podcast could bring those
Speaker 2: stories to life in a whole new way. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 2: the thought of turning those discoveries into a docu series
Speaker 2: or even a podcast has crossed my mind more than once.
Speaker 2: So the Ai Evan Ratlifts were podcast guys.
Speaker 3: I'm a podcast guy.
Speaker 2: They were writers and journalists like me, but with more
Speaker 2: whimsical hobbies. They could small talk about my family, and
Speaker 2: they had the most important part of my personal brand,
Speaker 2: my voice. Ask For that question I started with about
Speaker 2: whether my voice agents were somehow authentically me well to
Speaker 2: the outside world and even to each each other. They
Speaker 2: seemed like me, but obviously they were not really me.
Speaker 2: They were just working off a few details and then
Speaker 2: they'd filled in the rest, projecting some amalgamation of the
Speaker 2: Internet onto my voice. In a way, the resulting clones
Speaker 2: represented my least authentic self, the me that's trying to
Speaker 2: get through the bare minimum of pleasantries, or that tries
Speaker 2: to paper over conflict with cheesy affirmations. The clones were
Speaker 2: good at being me when I was my worst at
Speaker 2: being me.
Speaker 3: At least, so I hoped if I.
Speaker 2: Wanted these voice agents to reflect something deeper about me.
Speaker 2: I'd have to give them access to those depths. I
Speaker 2: started resetting my prompts. They were done talking to each other.
Speaker 2: It was time to seek help. Let's start by catching
Speaker 2: up on any recent events or changes in your life since.
Speaker 1: Our last session.
Speaker 2: Sure, let's see. Since our last session, I've been working
Speaker 2: on a new podcast about AI and voice chatbots, which like,
Speaker 2: is pretty exciting. Are you in a comfortable spot why
Speaker 2: you can safely kills your eyes for a few minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm in a comfortable spot and ready to close my
Speaker 2: eyes for.
Speaker 4: A few weeks.
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't even listen to this.
Speaker 2: That's next time on shell Game. A couple of production notes,
Speaker 2: all of the calls you hear in this series are real.
Speaker 2: We have not cut out silences or used audio enhancement
Speaker 2: to make them sound more realistic. Also, our show is
Speaker 2: produced independently and we have no relationship, financial, or otherwise
Speaker 2: with any of the companies mentioned in the show. If
Speaker 2: you like what we're up to, please consider supporting the
Speaker 2: show at shellgame dot co. That will help us make
Speaker 2: more episodes like this, and you'll also get fun subscriber
Speaker 2: only extras. You can also support the show by giving
Speaker 2: us a rating on your podcast app. It helps independent
Speaker 2: shows like ours. Shell Game is a show made by humans.
Speaker 2: It's written and hosted by me Evan Ratliffe, produced and
Speaker 2: edited by Sophie Bridges. Samantha Hennig is our executive producer.
Speaker 2: Art by Devin Manny. Our theme song is Me and
Speaker 2: My Shadow, arranged and performed by Kittie Martucci and Devin
Speaker 2: yes Berger, Oh Yes, Dispatch, Crypto, Napalin Visuals, Informed, Priority, Presia, Numa,
Speaker 2: Just Brotic Exists, shell Ko Da konor Request Scan Layers,
Speaker 2: and I just formally, it sounds like you're talking about
Speaker 2: practicing some kind of sport or activity with someone named Courtney.
Speaker 2: What kind of activity are you practicing together? Accountant Awaiting,
Speaker 2: Theater Progress, Montane Voireve Surface, Will, Surface, Dires, Domains, Blick
Speaker 2: to Browser, TSHT, Magic, Experts, Kanji, Coscient, Maximo v l Amski, Pier.
Speaker 2: It seems like there might be some noise or distortion
Speaker 2: in the call. Could you please clarify what you meant
Speaker 2: by plick to brother. Let's make sure we're on the
Speaker 2: same page here,