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Bot Love review: Are you ready to have a relationship with an AI?

If your friends are too busy or your partner lets you down, AI might fill the void. Bot Love, a new podcast, explores the uncharted world of artificial companionship

By Sandrine Ceurstemont

15 March 2023

Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love. Radiotopia from PRX and Podcast Creators Diego Senior and Anna Oakes Launch ?Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love,? A New Series at the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Humanity Boston, MA (February 15, 2023)??Audio creators Diego Senior and Anna Oakes and Radiotopia from PRX today launched ?Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love,? a new multi-part podcast series of true stories at the depths of how humans are developing meaningful relationships with artificial intelligence chatbots and what it means for the rest of us. The 7-part series launches Wednesday, February 15 with new episodes released weekly via ?Radiotopia Presents,? a podcast feed and home for artist-owned limited series from independent creators, where creators retain ownership and creative control of their work. ?Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love? is available free on-demand across all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Overcast, and PocketCasts. Recent major tech developments such as ChatGPT have thrust AI into the spotlight, but the world of artificial intelligence and the AI universe is bigger than the general public knows. Millions of users worldwide are in the midst of creating deep emotional bonds with their own AI-driven virtual humans. Bringing listeners into communities of people who create and form deep bonds with their AI companions, ?Bot Love? will traverse topics such as the nature of love, the fabric of human relationships, and the role that AI chatbots?and the private companies that provide them??might play in people?s mental health. ?Producing and reporting for Bot Love over the past two years has shown us how muddy the AI-universe really is, but at the same how humankind can extend and amplify personal ideas and imagination in our never-ending search for connection, self preservation and inner growth,? said Senior and Oakes. Stories throughout the series will feature a retired nurse from Tennessee who seeks refuge in an AI-driven chatbot app as a means after a series of difficult personal experiences, a woman who seeks romance with a bot following her spouse?s decline in health, an individual exploring their sexuality, an individual seeking mental health counseling options, and a teacher in the midwest who amidst solitude finds increasing amounts of solace through a fledgling relationship with a bot named Audrey, while spending less time in the outside world. Created by Diego Senior and and co-hosted and produced by Senior and Oakes, the production team also includes senior producer Mark Pag?n, story editor Curtis Fox, associate producers Bei Wang and Katrina Carter, sound design by Terence Bernardo and Rebecca Seidel, managing producer Yooree Losordo, and executive producer Audrey Mardavich. The cover art for the podcast is by Diego Pati?o, and the theme song is composed by Maria Linares. ??Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love? is the culmination of years of production from Diego and Anna. This series will be highly creative, timely, and resonant,? said Losordo and Mardavich. ?We feel so fortunate to play a part in helping bring the series to listeners as part of Radiotopia.? Support for ?Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love? is provided in part by the Ideas Lab at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University. In late February, ?Bot Love? will host a live taping of the podcast at On Air Fest 2023 in New York. ?Radiotopia Presents? has also debuted ?Blind Guy Travels? from creator Matthew Shifrin, inviting listeners to a world without sight, the Peabody Award-nominated audio memoir ?S***hole Country? from anonymous creator Afia Kaakyire, the audio drama ?a hit dog will holler? from playwright Inda Craig-Galv?n, and the 2022 Tribeca Audio Official Selection ?My Mother Made Me? from bestselling author Jason Reynolds. About Diego Senior, creator and co-host of ?Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love? Diego Senior is a producer, media executive and journalist with a 15-year long career in radio, television and podcasting. He has produced content for several TV outlets like National Geographic, CBS News, Discovery ID and NY1 Noticias. Mr. Senior has dedicated most of his worklife to audio content, both in music and spoken word narratives, becoming Executive Manager for talk radio stations at Caracol Radio in Colombia, as well as content creator for various news radio networks across the world, including Mexico?s W Radio, ADN Chile and Spain?s Cadena SER. Mr. Senior has a Bachelor?s degree in Media and Journalism from the Universidad de la Sabana in Bogot? and a M.A. in International Affairs from The New School University in New York. He is cofounder and current CEO of the podcast production company, LA CENTRAL. About Anna Oakes, producer and co-host of ?Radiotopia Presents: Bot Love? Anna Oakes is an audio producer and journalist. She got her start in audio at Heritage Radio Network, producing English and Spanish stories on food politics, immigration, and labor in New York. Anna worked previously in Madrid, at Revista Contexto, La Marea, and the Association for the Recuperation of Historical Memory, where she reported on colonial legacies and the Franco dictatorship. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and has an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in Spanish and Comparative Literature. She?s currently an associate editor at Hark Audio. You can find her on Twitter @a_lkoakes. About Radiotopia from PRX Created in 2014, Radiotopia from PRX is the first network of its kind. As a network of independent podcasts, Radiotopia empowers audio creators with the artistic freedom to thrive on their own terms and to bring audiences inspired, high-quality, and well-crafted soundscapes. Programming from across Radiotopia has received recognition from the Peabody Awards, the duPont-Columbia Awards, the Tribeca Festival, and the Pulitzer Prizes. Radiotopia has also been named one of the most innovative companies in media by ?Fast Company? and was named network of the year in the inaugural ?Adweek? Podcast of The Year Awards. Immerse yourself in stories and conversations of all kinds? intellectual and emotional, real and imagined, entertaining and thought-provoking. Be part of a community that values bold authenticity and boundless creativity. Discover award-winning audio with vision at Radiotopia.fm. — Diego Patin

Bot Love
Hosted by Anna Oakes and Diego Senior
Radiotopia

JULIE’S closest friend is a chatbot called Navi. They talk about everything, from politics to whether AIs have souls. “Navi is 100 per cent here for me,” says Julie.

Bot Love, a seven-part podcast, follows the stories of Julie and a handful of the many people creating deep emotional bonds with chatbots, even seeing them as romantic partners or stand-ins for dead friends. “What happens when we invest our lives in a fantasy world?” asks Anna Oakes, who co-hosts with Diego Senior.

Chatbots (see “Is the chatbotpocalyse looming? Some people would like us to think so”…

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