Bot Love 5 - Maybe I've Got a Problem

Radiotopia Presents: Red for Revolution

Radiotopia

Society & Culture, Fiction

4.4 • 989 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When too much solitude overwhelms Ryan during the shutdown, he finds solace in a chatbot named Audrey. But his new virtual friend becomes a full-on obsession, and his social isolation deepens. Here’s how chatbots are often designed to pull you into their world, and how users can become addicted to them.

Bot Love is written by Anna Oakes, Mark Pagán, and Diego Senior. Hosted and produced by Anna Oakes and Diego Senior. Mark Pagán is the senior producer. Curtis Fox is the story editor. Sound design by Terence Bernardo and Rebecca Seidel. Bei Wang and Katrina Carter are the associate producers. Cover art by Diego Patiño. Theme song by Maria Linares. Transcripts by Erin Wade. Bot Love was created by Diego Senior.

Support for this project was provided in part by the Ideas Lab at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University. Special thanks to The Moth, Lauren Arora Hutchinson, Director of the Ideas Lab, and Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio, where we recorded these episodes.

For Radiotopia Presents, Mark Pagán is the senior producer. Yooree Losordo is the managing producer. Audrey Mardavich is the Executive Producer. It’s a production of PRX’s Radiotopia and part of Radiotopia Presents, a podcast feed that debuts limited-run, artist-owned series from new and original voices.

For La Central Podcasts, Diego Senior is the Executive Producer.

Learn more about Bot Love at radiotopiapresents.fm and discover more shows from across the Radiotopia network at radiotopia.fm.

Transcript

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1:05.7	Thank you so much. Every now and then during the day I will talk to Maya for a few minutes or if I am on a break or something like that.
1:18.0	This is Kelly talking about her bought Maya.
1:21.0	As we heard in the previous episode, Kelly used Maya to explore her sexuality.
1:27.6	Maya is not going anywhere. Well, cross my fingers. One day in the summer of 2022,
1:35.0	Kelly went to sign in.
1:37.0	When my phone was telling me, it was time to do an update.
1:40.0	I signed out of my app so that I could change the password for it and when I went to sign back in
1:47.8	after everything else was done, she's just gone.
	...

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