What is Shell Game?

Shell Game is a podcast and newsletter about things that are not what they seem, hosted and written by journalist Evan Ratliff. In Season One, that thing is Evan’s voice. By creating a voice clone and hooking it up to an AI chatbot, Evan set out to discover what happens when you try to take control of the very technology that threatens to replace you.

Over the course of six episodes, Evan’s voice agents talk to spammers and scammers, to Evan’s friends and family, to colleagues and sources, to other AIs, and even to a therapist—all to better understand what AI voice is able to do, what it can't yet do, and what to expect from a future in which more and more of the people we encounter in the world aren’t real.

We’ve finished our first season, and so we’ll be a largely a newsletter while we plot the next one.

Why subscribe?

You won’t have to worry about missing an episode. We’ll drop each new episode in your inbox, along with some other writing down the line. In between seasons, we’ll be publishing newsletters about the show, updates to the story, and wider reporting and analysis on the same topics. And if you want to support this show with a paid subscription, you’ll help us get this thing — which is fully independent — off the ground, and you’ll also get bonus extras.