Skip to content
Shell Game podcast artwork

PODCAST · technology

Shell Game

by Kaleidoscope

A podcast about things that are not what they seem, hosted by journalist Evan Ratliff. NEW SEASON launching October 21. 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. It's "riveting," says The New Yorker, "awesome" says The Verge, and "slightly terrifying," says The Globe and Mail. www.shellgame.co

Publisher-supplied feed metadata · PodParley refreshed Oct 14, 2026 · Source feed

Episodes

  1. Season 3 is Coming!

    The next season of Shell Game arrives October 21! Here's a hint, and another new show from Shell Game to check out in the meantime: Evan Finds a Friend. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  2. From How to Life Forever: The Longevinauts

    When an astrologer tells Mangesh that he’ll (probably) die early, he takes it in stride. But his family and friends (not to mention all the Don’t Die longevity influencers on his FYP) feel differently… and besides, if science can keep his brain sharp and his tennis game strong for longer, why not...

  3. Bonus Episode: Shell Game x No Such Thing

    In this bonus episode to close out Season 2, Evan and Maty talk with the hosts of the show No Such Thing, who like to settle their arguments by consulting research and experts. The subject of this argument: Will AI take our jobs? Maty weighs in as the expert, and Evan comes along for the ride.…

    more
  4. Bonus Episode: Kyle vs. the World

    We’re back with a special bonus episode to share some behind-the-scenes clips showing how the agents have handled their newly public roles since Shell Game’s launch. Hear Kyle navigate fan mail, unsolicited marketing outreach, a webinar that he signed up for all on his own (on “the AI social…

    more
  5. Episode 8: Launch

    HurumoAI finally sets sail in the Season 2 finale, and we find out how the world responds to a startup led by AI agents. The company explores new financing avenues and charts the next course for their increasingly merry AI pirate ship, and Kyle meets his true maker. To sign up for our newsletter,...

  6. Episode 7: Welcome Aboard

    HurumoAI’s AI-agent staff welcomes a new hire: Julia, a social media contract worker who is, most importantly, a human. How will a real person integrate into the company culture, such as it is? Evan watches from behind the scenes, fretting over when and how much to intervene. He had anticipated a...

  7. Episode 6: Keep 'Em Coming

    As HurumoAI prepares to bring on its first human employee, the team must wrestle with some difficult and timely questions about the role of AI in the hiring process. Meanwhile, Head of HR Jennifer Nauro enters a new dimension as she gears up to conduct job interviews … via video call. To sign up...

  8. Episode 5: Winners Win

    On this week’s episode, we enter the sensitive realm of intra-office politics and inter-founder dynamics—between agents and agents, and agents and people. While HurumoAI gears up to hire its first human, Evan tries to resolve whether Kyle is really up for the challenge of building and leading the...

  9. Episode 4: The Startup Chronicles

    Evan decides it’s time to give his AI agents a little more ... agency. After all, to make the one-person, agent-run startup feasible, they need to be able to do things on their own. But as with humans, freedom sometimes comes with a certain amount of anarchy. To sign up for our newsletter and...

  10. Episode 3: This is Law

    As Kyle, Megan, and the gang get to work ideating on the perfect product, Evan is left grappling with some uncomfortable questions about his AI collaborators — whose every attribute and memory he controls. To inform how he thinks about his own unnerving power to create and manipulate human...

  11. Episode 2: Outdoor Debugging

    As Evan gets Hurumo’s employees up and running as fully-functioning colleagues (with support from Maty), he learns what it’s really like to spend your days managing, collaborating with, and socializing alongside autonomous AI agents. And he quickly sees one of the significant cracks in the facade...

  12. Episode 1: Minimum Viable Company

    In Season 2 of Shell Game, journalist Evan Ratliff tells a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age; or, how he tried to build a real company, run by fake people. Meet Kyle Law and Megan Flores, Evan’s AI agent cofounders, as he puts to the test the claims about an emerging future in which AI...

  13. The One-Human Unicorn

    As AI agents infiltrate the workforce, some tech entrepreneurs are imagining a not-so-distant future of successful companies with only one human at the helm. That got investigative journalist and former startup CEO Evan Ratliff wondering: Could he start such a company? What will it feel like to...

  14. Season 2 Is Coming!

    The next season of Shell Game arrives November 12. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  15. Episode 6: The Future Isn't Real

    Evan pushes the experiment one step further, sending his AI voice agent to talk to his closest friends and family — his buddies, his daughters, his dad. With their alternately joyful, skeptical, and painful reactions to meeting an AI version of him, he tries to come to terms with what generative…

    more
  16. Episode 5: My Digital Twin

    Will AI bots replace humans in the workforce? Could one replace Evan… right now? That’s what we tackle on this week’s Shell Game, in which Evan sees just how much of his job his voice agent can handle on his behalf. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan...

  17. Episode 4: Take a Deep Breath

    Evan looks into the depths of his AI-powered voice agent by sending it on a new mission: going to therapy. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit...

  18. Episode 3: Conversations With Myself

    Evan takes his experiment in a new direction by having his AI-powered voice agent converse with … another of his AI-powered voice agents. What can these surreal and hilarious conversations between two AI incarnations of Evan Ratliff tell us about identity, authenticity, and the best and worst of...

  19. Episode 2: Me and My Scammer

    Evan turns his AI-powered voice agent loose on the people who are always at the forefront of technological adoption: the fraudsters and the rip-off artists. How will the scammers and spammers react when they face Evan’s voice agent in a battle of wits? And what happens when they deploy the same...

  20. Episode 1: Quality Assurance

    This is the story of what happens when Evan Ratliff, a longtime tech journalist, makes a digital copy of himself, powered by AI, in order to understand how amazing and scary and utterly ridiculous the world is about to get. In Episode 1, Evan clones his voice, hooks it up to a chat bot and his...

  21. Introducing Shell Game, a Strange and Immersive AI Experiment

    What would happen if you created a digital copy of yourself, powered by AI, and set it loose in the world? Evan Ratliff, longtime tech journalist, decided to find out. He combined a clone of his voice, an AI chatbot, and a phone line—many phone lines, actually—into what are called “voice agents.”...

Type above to search every episode's transcript for a word or phrase. Matches are scoped to this podcast.

Searching…

We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.

No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.

Showing of matches

No topics indexed yet for this podcast.

Loading reviews...

ABOUT THIS SHOW

A podcast about things that are not what they seem, hosted by journalist Evan Ratliff. NEW SEASON launching October 21. 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. It's "riveting," says The New Yorker, "awesome" says The Verge, and "slightly terrifying," says The Globe and Mail. www.shellgame.co

HOSTED BY

Kaleidoscope

Produced by iHeartPodcasts

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Shell Game have?

Shell Game currently has 21 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is Shell Game about?

A podcast about things that are not what they seem, hosted by journalist Evan Ratliff. NEW SEASON launching October 21. 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. It's...

How often does Shell Game release new episodes?

Shell Game has 21 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.

Where can I listen to Shell Game?

You can listen to Shell Game on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.

Who hosts Shell Game?

Shell Game is created and hosted by Kaleidoscope.
URL copied to clipboard!