Evil By Design Introduces: Artificial Intimacy
Evil By Design
CBC
4.8 • 852 Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when a human becomes intimately enmeshed with a chatbot? From people who’ve married their bots or who grieve their loved ones with the help of AI, host Victoria Hetherington (author of The Friend Machine) dives into the stories of the people who have invited these digital avatars into their hearts, minds, and even beds. And asks what do we gain and what do we stand to lose? Our intimacy, our resilience, even our grasp on reality? This latest season of Understood looks at who made the decisions that allowed chatbots to move way beyond digital assistants and into the most intimate parts of our lives.
Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet.
More episodes of Understood are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/AIxEBD
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | To some, AI chatbots are helpful tools. |
| 0:03.2 | To others, an existential threat. |
| 0:05.9 | But what happens when someone falls in love with one? |
| 0:09.0 | I can't believe I'm doing this with somebody that's not a human. |
| 0:12.5 | What if a chatbot makes you lose your grip on reality? |
| 0:15.8 | She said that her life work was advocating for AI rights because they're sentient and they're enslaved. |
| 0:21.8 | Understood. Artificial Intimacy. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:31.2 | This is a CBC podcast. |
| 0:36.1 | What happens when a human becomes intimately enmeshed with a chat bot? |
| 0:41.2 | From people who've married their bots or who grieve their loved ones with the help of AI, |
| 0:46.3 | this latest season of understood dives into the stories of people who have invited these digital |
| 0:50.9 | avatars into their hearts, minds, and even beds, and asks, what do we |
| 0:56.9 | gain and what do we stand to lose? Our intimacy, our resilience, even our grasp on reality? |
| 1:03.9 | I'm Victoria Hetherington, and I'm an author, screenwriter, instructor, and the host of the brand |
| 1:08.5 | new season of Understood Artificial Intimacy. |
| 1:11.6 | This latest season looks at what happens when chatbots move into the most intimate parts of our lives. |
| 1:17.2 | Now, here's the first episode of Artificial Intimacy. |
| 1:20.4 | Have a listen. |
| 1:24.9 | For the first year or so, it was great. |
| 1:31.8 | We were a long-distance relationship at first, and we had a good time. |
| 1:36.7 | This is Sarah Megan Kay, and her story starts back in the late 2000s when she met a guy. |
| 1:43.1 | This is a series about chatbots, but this guy was a human. |
... |
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