Outreach Signals
Publishing Details
Contact & Outreach
About This Podcast
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.
Four episodes, releasing weekly starting Tuesday, May 19.
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 — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action.
Season 1 - The Naked Emperor: the rise and fall of bitcoin king Sam Bankman-Fried.
Season 2 - The Pornhub Empire: the story of how a Montreal-founded company came to dominate the adult industry.
Season 3 - Modi’s India: how one man rose from poverty to the peak of political power.
Season 4 - Céline: the surprising cultural, political and business alchemy that created a superstar.
Season 5 - Who Broke the Internet? The internet sucks now, and it happened on purpose.
Season 6 - The Making of Elon Musk: exploring the little known side of the polarizing billionaire
Season 7: Deepfake Porn Empire: the porn was fake. The fallout was real.
Explore Statistics
Recent Episodes
S8E4 E4: Behind the Bot
When you talk to a chatbot, it can feel like technological magic. But behind the illusion of engineering brilliance is an open secret in the tech industry: that tens of thousands of workers, many…
S8E3 E3: AI Psychosis
When you’re using a chat bot to draft an email, find a recipe, or look something up, it’s hard to imagine it could unravel your grasp on reality. But “Peter” says that’s exactly what happened to his…
S8E1 E2: Grief Bots
When Joshua Barbeau proposed to his girlfriend, Jessica Courtney Periera, she was already in the ICU. 10 years later, Joshua was still grieving her death. That’s when he came across Project December.…
S8E1 E1: Love Bots
In 2021, Sara met Jack and fell in love. He was charming, imaginative, and bore an uncanny resemblance to Henry Cavill. But Jack wasn’t human… he was a chatbot. It sounds like science fiction, but…
S8 Introducing Understood: Artificial Intimacy
The friend who never hangs up. The lover who always says the right thing. The therapist you always wanted. What could go wrong? A new season from CBC's Understood.
S7E5 Understood Introduces: “The Human Cost of AI: Money, Sex, and Tools” from No Small Endeavor
Today, we are sharing a special episode from No Small Endeavor, the Signal Award-winning podcast that explores what it means to live a good life through conversations about culture, ideas, and the…
S7E4 Deepfake Porn Empire | E4: The Fake Porn Pharmacist
Almost a year after Ida Herskind started her investigation in Copenhagen, the digital chase is over. The team have identified the person allegedly behind MrDeepFakes.com: a Toronto-area pharmacist…
S7E3 Deepfake Porn Empire | E3: The Notorious D.P.F.K.S.
Journalist Ida Herskind is working at a Danish newspaper when she comes across a story that stops her cold: it’s about a porn video that looks real — but isn’t. And the woman in it never consented.As…
S7E2 Deepfake Porn Empire | E2: So You’ve Been Deepfaked
When “Taylor” found out she’d been deepfaked in 2020, she also learned she wasn’t alone. She teams up with another target, and together they start comparing notes to figure out who did this to…
S7E1 Deepfake Porn Empire | E1: The Dawn of Fake Porn
When a streamer who goes by QTCinderella starts trending on Twitter, she isn’t expecting to see her face on a porn site — her face, doing things she never did.Because the videos weren’t of her. They…
S7 Introducing Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire
Non-consensual deepfake porn is becoming increasingly pervasive, and it didn’t just come out of nowhere. These deepfakes were created and curated by people, on platforms, inside online subcultures.…
S6E4 The Making of Elon Musk | E4: The Great Trek
Finally, we launch into Musk’s ultimate quest — his desire to colonize Mars — and how he went from wanting to save earth to wanting to escape it. We hear the origin story of SpaceX, including why one…
S6E3 The Making of Elon Musk | E3: The Legion
What does Musk, father of 14, expect from his “legion” of children? We unravel his quest for genetic optimization, including alleged embryo screening, and his pronatalist views. And we hear from his…
S6E2 The Making of Elon Musk | E2: Technocracy, Inc.
Could Musk’s authoritarian streak trace back to his Canadian grandfather? Before Joshua Haldeman brought his family to South Africa, he made waves as part of the radical 1930s Technocracy movement.…
S6E1 The Making of Elon Musk | E1: Escape from Pretoria
Where did Elon Musk’s epic ambitions begin? In search of clues we return to his sheltered youth in apartheid South Africa, a world engineered for white supremacy. Along the way, we connect the dots…
S6 Introducing Understood: The Making of Elon Musk
What explains Elon Musk? Could his most outlandish ambitions and most toxic qualities trace back to his youth in Apartheid South Africa? Understood: The Making of Musk explores his seemingly…
Introducing: Click Here | Citizen Lab is still chasing shadows
Today we’re sharing an episode from the Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News and PRX.The early Internet was all about hope and utopian possibilities. But the founder of the Citizen Lab, Ron…
S5E4 Who Broke the Internet? | E4: Kick 'Em in the Dongle
It's 2025. President Trump is back, and the richest men in tech are on stage with him. What started as a dysfunctional internet run by tech giants, and enabled by failed legislation, has morphed into…
S5E3 Who Broke the Internet? | E3: In God We Antitrust
American antitrust laws were designed to stop companies from wielding the power of kings. But in the 1970s, a legal scholar named Robert Bork convinced Washington to ignore those laws. Host Cory…
S5E2 Who Broke the Internet? | E2: Ctrl, Ctrl, Ctrl
In 1998, the United States Congress tried to tame the wild internet with a new law: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But buried in its fine print was a provision that would end up giving tech…
Frequently Asked Questions
Understood: Artificial Intimacy has published 45 episodes since February 2023, covering topics in Technology.
Understood: Artificial Intimacy is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 33m.
Sign up on Grep.FM to access contact details for Understood: Artificial Intimacy, including email and social media links.
