TECHNOLOGY | WEEKLY SERIES
A podcast about things that are not what they seem.
Season 3 is a miniseries in three episodes, telling the story of how Evan tried to understand the tsunami of AI-generated content—by injecting as much of it as possible straight into his ears.
What exactly is AI slop anyway? How do you actually define it? Who is behind it all? And what does it mean for the human storytelling that we care about? We journey deep into the muck, and fight our way back out with answers.
Shell Game is a multiple award-winning series that has been named one of the best of the year by Apple, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Vulture, The Information, The Economist.
Shell Game
Season 2 tells the story of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the AI age. Or: how Evan tried to build a real startup, run by fake people.
This season, Evan confronts head-on the assertion from tech entrepreneurs and VCs that we’re on the precipice of AI remaking the workforce. That we should expect not just AI colleagues working alongside us, but also — by Sam Altman’s telling, at least — the dawn of a billion-dollar company with only one human involved. Evan learns what it would take to create such a company … by doing it: Launching a real startup with five AI employees. Over the course of eight episodes, he explores what AI agents tell us about the work we do, the meaning we find in it, and the world that their makers say we’ll all be living in soon enough.
Shell Game
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Episode 1: Minimum Viable Company
The episode introduces Evan Ratliff’s attempt to launch a startup staffed by AI agents, testing claims that the future may include billion-dollar companies with only one human employee.