Some podcast recommendations this week
Plus, would you like to be in an advertisement?
Hello!
We’re off this week, sharing an episode of one of the shows we adore: Death, Sex and Money. Some more podcast recommendations, and if you want, a chance to be in an advertisement on Search Engine! Read on …
If you’re looking for more to listen to, it’s been a pretty good week in podcasting? Zoe Chace, one of the greats, has an hour on This American Life this weekend I’m excited to listen to, that goes up later on Sunday.
The Daily killed it with their history of NAFTA, Sruthi and Noah were both totally hooked on it. We’ve been trying to put together an episode about the border, and this was really helpful context.
And then, if you’re looking for podcasts that cover the internet, Ryan Broderick just launched a new show called Panic World, where each episode he talks to a guest about a moment of hysteria online.
Podcasting is dead, we know this, and yet … people keep making stuff. Very weird.
Would you like to be in an advertisement?
One of our advertisers is looking for stories from people who use artificial intelligence for work, to be featured in an ad on the show. If you’re interested, just shoot me an email at pjvogt85@gmail.com, subject line “AI Advertisement”, and attach a 30-secondish voicemail about how you use AI for work.
It doesn’t matter which AI product you use, we’re just sort of curious to hear different unusual ways people are leaning on these strange products.
What about people who don’t like AI?
Also, I just want to say, I know some people do not like when we advertise AI products, at all. There’s a small group of listeners who write me emails when we do, and I read those emails.
I understand where those listeners are coming from. They have anxiety that artificial intelligence will automate away a bunch of creative or white collar jobs, or just jobs in general.
My feeling about AI, as a category, as a technology, is ambivalent and cautious. I have anxiety about the jobs it has automated. At the same time, I use it. I rely on it to do math and make schedules and proof-read emails. It’s sometimes a replacement for Google search, which, at this point is pretty depreciated. So I use it, but I’m wary of its social cost. That’s my view, and you can hear that view underneath the stories we report about AI.
Where I’m at right now is that I’m OK advertising AI products, as long as our listeners know that our coverage of the category is not going to be more positive because of it. Advertisers do not get a say in the reporting or opinions we express in the stories on our show. If they did, we’d have a lot more money, but we’d also lose your trust and our desire to make stories. However, the furniture we could afford would be tremendous.
Anyway, as you may have gleaned, advertisements on podcasts remain a tricky subject. I think about it a lot, even though I don’t talk about it much here.
You can always find out ad policy here. We continue to work towards a future where more of our revenue comes from listeners and where we are less reliant on ad revenue. If you’d like to support us in that mission, please become a premium subscriber.
Okay, cool.
See you this coming Friday with a very spicy double episode,
PJ
PJ, I just heard you say that you wonder what podcasting is for, and wanted to sit down right away and respond to that. What it is for you is of course different perhaps than for your listeners. But for us, or me at least, it is vital. Even during the Great Depression, when people had so little, movies and radio and books, continued on. I believe that we humans deeply need someone to tell us a story. I honestly think it comes close on the heels of nourishment and shelter in the rankings of human needs; you find storytelling through all cultures and times. Listening to podcasts is for me a respite from stress, an education, an amusement, company when I'm alone, and with the few podcasts that people I love also listen to, a jumping off place for conversations. It can be information about the world we live in, but oftentimes it is simultaneously a much needed break from it all. I don't have a lot of leisure time, and I cannot read or watch tv while I'm driving or washing dishes, but I can listen to podcasts. I honestly cannot figure out how my house ever got clean before podcasts became a thing; was I just IN MY OWN HEAD the whole time?!?
As much as I adore podcasts, there are very few of them that make the cut. I am constantly looking for more that I will like as much as I like the ones that you have created, but for the most part they always fall short. Here are a few that I think come close.
Imaginary worlds
My Favorite Murder
Heavyweight
The Moth
Apart from the fears about the impact on livelihoods, what about the cost of AI as our planet becomes inexorably uninhabitable. We’re not making the connections in our everyday conversations about the energy consumption needs and impact on our environment.