There Are No Girls on the Internet - A TANGOTI Announcement We've Been Sitting On

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00:00:50.080 I survived nine months in captivity,

00:00:53.240 and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:00:58.760 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:01:02.380 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:01:09.920 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:01:13.740 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:21.360 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:01:27.100 Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:01:35.740 Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:01:44.000 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:01:45.760 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:51.160 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:02:03.660 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:02:09.000 So this is going to be a little bit different from our normal Tuesday episodes that usually

00:02:14.120 have an interview or a conversation of some kind, because we have a little announcement

00:02:19.080 here at There Are No Girls on the Internet that is, I guess I'll say, pretty important to me,

00:02:24.080 to us, to the team. I've got producer Mike here to help me with it.

00:02:27.900 Yes, it's a big day at There Are No Girls on the Internet. Thanks for having me here to

00:02:32.160 share this with the listeners. I'm pretty excited about it.

00:02:36.380 So without further ado, we're writing a book. Actually, we have written a book. It is written.

00:02:43.380 it is currently with an editor as we speak there are no girls on the internet we have a book coming

00:02:50.060 out yeah we have a book coming out exactly it's pretty exciting i never thought that we would

00:02:54.920 write a book i'm pretty excited i you all are kind of hearing this first as listeners um the

00:03:03.220 publishing company just went live with the instagram announcement mere moments before

00:03:08.780 we got on the microphone so if i sound a little out of it today's been a bit of a whirlwind

00:03:13.120 of announcement and then feeling I'm an anxious person and sometimes when I get good news my 0.80

00:03:19.740 first inclination is oh shit the way that I feel big feelings is to retreat but I'm having to

00:03:26.520 navigate feelings that are feelings that are weird for me and I'm trying to do my best and not just 0.98

00:03:32.300 go to my natural inclination which is just to retreat you need to be public when you're doing

00:03:36.800 a book so that's what this is the book is called love at first prompt AI in the future of intimacy

00:03:41.640 So you're probably wondering, what is this book actually about? I have been describing it as the movie Her meets the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma. Folks might remember we did an episode about people who are finding themselves in intimate connection with AI. A lot of that looks like romantic or sexual connection, but not all of it. Sometimes it's platonic connection. Sometimes it's the use of AI for therapy.

00:04:08.860 Side note, Bravo watchers will know there's a character on Southern Charm who exclusively uses ChatGBT for therapy, but the book definitely explores that use case for AI.

00:04:22.040 So folks who listened to that episode of the podcast about connections with AI like that might recall that we were trying to approach it from a very specific lens, which was nonjudgmental, leading with curiosity, leading with empathy, and really just trying to understand what folks were saying when they reported finding benefits or finding themselves in these kinds of connections with AI.

00:04:46.360 And when we did that episode, part of the reason why I took that stance is just that I think that an empathetic, curious stance is always a good stance to take on a subject that you don't know a ton about.

00:04:56.820 But part of it was also that I had not done a deep dive into the available research.

00:05:01.720 There are people who specifically research the impacts of intimacy in AI on from a public health perspective, from a individual perspective, the harms, the benefits.

00:05:14.040 I, at that point of the episode, did not know any of that. So I say that to say that from where

00:05:19.740 I began with this topic to where I ended, two radically different places. I went, and I actually

00:05:27.140 would be curious for your take too, Mike, because when we started writing the book, I had a deadline

00:05:31.720 of my first 10,000 words. And the first 10,000 of those words were written before I had really dug

00:05:37.420 into the research. It was just sort of setting things up in the introduction and all of that.

00:05:40.840 It was 10,000 words about how people who find themselves an intimate connection with AI are really lonely and that AI companies are profiting from this loneliness.

00:05:52.440 Now, that second part, I think, is still true and that the book really deals quite heavily with that.

00:05:56.980 But I was really surprised by the fact that the research did not really bear out my anecdotal, uninformed opinion about what is driving people to intimate connections with AI.

00:06:08.640 So we ended up having to scrap that, those first 10K words, which, you know, I took pretty rough.

00:06:12.260 I know that you know that was not a good day for me, the day that we had to make that big change.

00:06:17.320 But, you know, the research is the research.

00:06:20.080 That's right. Yeah, I had the same experience getting into it.

00:06:22.720 You know, I started one place really with a lot of assumptions about the harmfulness, I think, of people talking with their AI companions.

00:06:33.940 uh you know we assumptions that it was reinforcing loneliness and pushing people apart and as we got

00:06:41.740 into the research that really just wasn't borne out by the research that people have been doing

00:06:46.160 so like you said we wrote a bunch and the narrative sort of evolved as we were learning more about

00:06:55.440 what the research had to say about this and then really changed yeah we had to just throw a bunch

00:07:01.800 out which was painful but i guess you know just all part of the process and um you know where we

00:07:08.160 ended up i think uh tells a much more interesting story than if we had just written the whole thing

00:07:16.380 based on our starting assumptions without like actually learning more about what is going on

00:07:22.400 with this yes not necessarily great for hitting publisher deadlines but really good for telling

00:07:29.000 an honest and authentic story that is rooted in research. And one note on the research is that

00:07:34.580 I was really surprised to find out that there are people who have been researching this intersection

00:07:39.400 of AI and intimacy for a long time. Probably one of my favorite and also most surprising

00:07:44.820 interviews in the book is from Dr. Kate Devlin, who was someone who got to this research very

00:07:50.860 early. She started her research researching what you might consider to be sex bots. So like 0.96

00:07:56.540 ex machina companion, you know, hot physical bots, not AI. And y'all might remember that we kind of

00:08:05.720 lived through a bit of a moral panic about sex bots, physical sex bots, that people were going

00:08:11.000 to be spending thousands and thousands of dollars for these hyper realistic AI enabled sex bots

00:08:15.300 and have relationships with them. Well, that really didn't turn out to be the case. There

00:08:20.200 are a few people who do that. However, mostly it's just niche, like it's not a spreading

00:08:28.720 phenomena. When Dr. Devlin looked into this, she realized, OK, the bot angle of this is

00:08:34.780 just not going to happen. The part of it that I think is going to happen is the AI connection

00:08:40.560 bit of it, because a lot of these physical bots, people are going to be taken with AI's

00:08:46.920 ability to mirror and learn as it pertains to emotional connection and romantic connection.

00:08:53.360 So the sex bots, no. The AI, yes. So she really got there early. And I was genuinely surprised

00:09:00.660 by a lot of her research. We dive quite deeply into a lot of the risks and the harms. So,

00:09:07.940 you know, I don't want to make it sound like I'm saying there are no risks and there are no harms

00:09:11.400 because, boy, howdy, are they? And we definitely get into it in the book, as does Dr. Devlin's

00:09:15.900 research. But I think that our conversation with Dr. Devlin grounded the entire thesis statement

00:09:23.220 of the book, which is that pretty much every researcher, every expert, every technologist,

00:09:29.920 every journalist that we speak to for this project said some version of the same thing,

00:09:34.740 which is that the risk is real. However, the widespread risk of harm is not necessarily that

00:09:42.560 individuals are going to be pushed into deeper and deeper isolation or loneliness or things like

00:09:48.160 that. The widespread risk of harms is what are these companies doing? What are these companies

00:09:54.200 profiting from? Are these companies behaving in ways that are ethical? Are these companies

00:09:58.640 misleading people and misleading people about risk? And so I really started to see this as a

00:10:03.440 moral panic. It's so tempting to dunk on people who are self-reporting relationships with AI or

00:10:13.200 self-reporting intimate connections with AI. I absolutely get it. These people are easy targets.

00:10:17.960 They're being vulnerable about the intimacies. So they're easy targets in the way that we're all

00:10:23.360 easy targets and we open up about intimate parts of our lives. However, we are spending so much

00:10:29.220 time gawking at people who are self-reporting their relationships with AI and intimacy with AI

00:10:36.020 that we are missing that these companies are profiting from their control over these emotional

00:10:42.440 and intimate connections. I think from the beginning of the book to where we landed,

00:10:47.300 it's really about changing that perspective and shifting the lens away from individuals

00:10:52.300 and really asking questions about corporate harm and what is the risk of harm here? So,

00:10:58.700 So, again, these kinds of intimate connections with AI are not without harm, but that harm is corporate.

00:11:06.580 That harm is companies capitalizing off of people.

00:11:11.420 That's right. And it's a framework that we've talked about on this show pretty often, I think,

00:11:15.540 that there is often an attempt to blame the harms of technology on the victims.

00:11:22.480 And I think that tendency allows companies often to skirt accountability, and it's aided by the fact that it can be really salacious, dramatic, interesting to focus on the interpersonal stories or the personal stories of people who are harmed.

00:11:44.040 In the book, Bridget, you make the analogy to the iCloud photo hacks when a bunch of celebrities had their personal photos hacked and leaked, and rather than focusing on the people who had committed these hacks and the social media platforms that happily allowed these hacked sexual photos to be spread across the internet,

00:12:09.620 A lot of the discourse focused on the individuals and their own culpability for even taking these photos in the first place.

00:12:18.800 And I think that's a good analogy here to describe, you know, this phenomenon as we are coming to terms with what it means that AI chatbots exist in the world here and people are talking with them, right?

00:12:38.220 Like like it or not, this is a phenomenon that's happening. And like you mentioned, there's a lot of scorn and ridicule focused on the people who are experiencing this. And that just feels misplaced from where the actual harms are occurring, according to the experts that we spoke with.

00:13:00.160 Exactly. I'm glad that you brought up that moment in the book about the photo hack.

00:13:06.080 I think I've said this on the podcast. I shoehorned into every conversation, even when it doesn't fit.

00:13:10.600 I shoehorned it into the book. I sure did find a way that when the iCloud photo hack happened,

00:13:15.800 the then New York Times tech columnist tweeted like, oh, a man tweeted,

00:13:21.020 I have a helpful tips for women, celebrities who don't want their photos to be leaked. 1.00

00:13:26.760 don't take nude photos. And he did later delete that tweet and apologize. Apology very much not

00:13:32.900 accepted because I feel that that really highlights exactly the thing I am trying to get at in this

00:13:38.640 book, that when there are harms that are institutional or corporate, it is so easy to

00:13:44.440 blame the people who are targeted or who get caught up in it. And while we're doing that,

00:13:49.360 these companies are like, thank God that they're just blaming these people and not blaming

00:13:52.960 our systems that enabled it and the way that we made money from it. And I guess I'm with the book

00:13:58.660 that I'm really trying to write what I feel like is an institutional wrong and kind of pump the

00:14:05.920 brakes on blaming or ridiculing or gawking at people who are self-reporting these kinds of

00:14:13.180 intimate connections with AI and really turn in that lens over to companies like Replica,

00:14:18.980 open AI that run them, that I would argue enable them, that say, oh, emotional intimacy or sexual

00:14:26.720 intimacy is a great way to be used in our platform until it no longer serves them. And then they turn

00:14:32.580 right around and say, oh, this is an inappropriate use case for our platform. They want to have it

00:14:36.680 both ways. And yeah, I just, I think we should be talking about that. And I think that one of the

00:14:41.900 reasons why I have a bee in my bonnet about this a little bit is that because it's something that

00:14:48.680 I think is salacious and, like, easy to gawk at and easy to ridicule, the people who could

00:14:54.880 probably tell us the most about why they have turned to AI for therapeutic support or romance

00:15:02.180 or companionship, we are hearing from them the least, right? Like, people, there are millions

00:15:08.800 of people for whom that is the case for. And because of this dynamic where they feel they

00:15:14.380 are going to be ridiculed. Sometimes they they're not doing interview. Sometimes they're not,

00:15:19.000 you know, like talking to researchers. And I do think that we can learn a lot about where we are

00:15:26.240 right now and where we might be headed from what these folks have to say. But right now,

00:15:30.900 we don't have a dynamic that allows for these folks to really be heard. And I think that that

00:15:36.020 needs to change. And, you know, I don't think anybody listening to this podcast will be surprised

00:15:41.540 to know that I'm a, what you might call it,

00:15:43.320 AI critic, AI skeptic, whatever you want to call it.

00:15:47.240 However, you know, when you have somebody

00:15:49.800 like Mark Zuckerberg going on a podcast and saying,

00:15:52.540 oh, in the near future,

00:15:54.920 the majority of your friends will be AI and you'll love it.

00:15:58.140 When he's saying something like that,

00:16:00.160 side note, it's AI that I run, that I profit from.

00:16:03.640 It's AI that I'm giving you as a substitute for friendship

00:16:06.620 after my platform's really eroded friendships.

00:16:09.660 So I'm causing the problem and I'm selling you the cure.

00:16:12.620 Even with all of that, I don't think that he is necessarily wrong.

00:16:17.560 That is not a future that I necessarily want.

00:16:19.660 Like, I don't want a future where the majority of my friendships are AI.

00:16:22.860 Certainly not.

00:16:23.680 I don't want a future designed by Mark Zuckerberg.

00:16:26.200 I don't think that my idea of a good future and Mark Zuckerberg's idea of a good future

00:16:29.660 are aligned.

00:16:30.660 However, I do think there's some, I don't think that he's wrong in pointing out the

00:16:36.180 ways that more and more people are turning to AI for intimacy. So we should be talking about it.

00:16:40.860 We should be looking at it. We should be like asking questions about how it's going. And yeah,

00:16:45.960 I guess that's what this book is an attempt to do. That's right. And when the conversation is

00:16:50.980 focused on, you know, salacious stories, making fun of the people who are involved, not only does

00:16:56.820 it allow Mark Zuckerberg and the people who run these companies to avoid accountability, but we

00:17:04.340 also miss out on a lot of interesting things that we might learn by actually engaging in a more

00:17:11.140 thoughtful inquisitive way and i think one of the really interesting things that i learned in the

00:17:17.580 process of writing this was just how the people who feel like they are in intimate relationships

00:17:24.140 with ai companions uh really the don't view it as a replacement for humans for the most part with

00:17:32.800 some big exceptions that we cover in the book. These are healthy, non-delusional adults that

00:17:38.780 view it as a different type of thing. And I think that's really interesting. And, you know,

00:17:44.040 exploring the ways that they, how they think about this thing that they are doing and what

00:17:50.260 the research has to say about it, I think can shed a lot of light, not just onto this phenomenon,

00:17:56.100 on, but about the bigger questions of what it means to be in a relationship period, you

00:18:04.200 know, it's like having this other type, this totally new other type of relationship, I

00:18:08.820 think gives us a slightly different perspective to understand the relationships that we have

00:18:14.080 with each other, with other humans, and what makes them so unique and valuable.

00:18:18.720 Yes, and we do interviews in the book with people who have had intimate connections with

00:18:25.860 AI or used AI in that way that you've just described, Mike. So the common anecdotal attitude

00:18:32.400 is those people are really delusional. I was really surprised to hear how clear-eyed they

00:18:39.220 think about AI and how deliberate they are about the roles that AI play in their own personal lives

00:18:45.540 in ways that I certainly am not. And it kind of made me think, not only are a lot of these people

00:18:50.780 not delusional, they have a firmer grasp on what AI is and what it isn't and what it can and what

00:18:56.360 it can't be for them emotionally than I had ever thought about myself. And a firm grasp on how it

00:19:04.260 shows up in their life and what they want from it, like how they want it to impact their life.

00:19:11.340 One of the surprising things for me was how several of the people we spoke with described

00:19:16.740 how talking with their AI companion actually allowed them to connect with other humans,

00:19:23.140 either through like finding online community among people who are similarly talking with

00:19:29.780 their AI companions or by boosting their social confidence or their self-esteem or

00:19:36.920 helping them work through something so that they were better able to show up in their

00:19:42.700 IRL human-to-human life, which, again, was not something that I expected going in at all,

00:19:50.640 but came through pretty clearly in the research.

00:19:53.900 Yes, pretty much everything I thought I knew about this subject is kind of wrong.

00:20:01.500 Let's take a quick break.

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00:21:04.500 iHeartAdvertising.com. That's iHeartAdvertising.com. If your bookshelf and your For You page are

00:21:10.700 equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast

00:21:17.560 that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives,

00:21:22.060 and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:21:26.960 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:21:34.060 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

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00:22:00.680 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:22:06.600 See you between the pages.

00:22:08.760 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:22:14.480 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:22:21.040 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:22:24.640 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.96

00:22:30.080 shut up, don't say anything.

00:22:32.840 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. 0.98

00:22:37.240 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:22:41.720 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:22:48.780 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:22:53.240 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:22:56.680 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:23:00.320 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:23:13.740 At our back.

00:23:14.740 so we're talking about my new audiobook love at first prompt being published by simon and

00:23:22.120 schuster which you can pre-order now and basically everything that i thought that i knew about

00:23:27.300 intimacy and ai was wrong like i assume that people who foster intimate connections with ai

00:23:32.900 are doing so in an attempt to replace human connection but actually the research really

00:23:39.320 clarified that their human connections are often deepened by whatever their connection is with

00:23:44.700 AI. When we talked to Dr. Devlin, she talked about this experience of getting emails from

00:23:50.620 people like strangers from all over the world where the stranger will say, I think I'm in love

00:23:56.020 with AI. I'm writing to you because you researched this. I know you'll understand what should I do.

00:24:00.500 And she'll say like, wow, these people, they seek me out another human to confide in, you know,

00:24:08.140 like they they're they're connecting with me and emailing me and reaching out to me, another human

00:24:13.880 because of this connection they have with AI.

00:24:16.840 And so the idea that, oh, the AI would be enough for them,

00:24:20.240 they're going to use AI to replace a human connection,

00:24:23.860 if that was the case,

00:24:24.880 they wouldn't be reaching out to Dr. Devlin,

00:24:26.420 who was very much a human, right?

00:24:27.780 And so all of these ways that connections with AI

00:24:30.820 actually pushed people to be in deeper relationship

00:24:33.600 with the humans in their life, I found fascinating.

00:24:37.080 Again, all of this sounds hunky-dory,

00:24:39.720 But when people put these kinds of connections and emotional weight in the hands of companies like Replica and OpenAI, that's when things can really get risky.

00:24:52.080 And so we do obviously have instances where people were genuinely harmed by intimate connection with AI.

00:25:00.640 We talk quite a bit about some high profile cases.

00:25:04.320 And so certainly that is part of the conversation.

00:25:07.100 But I don't think that these high profile tragedies are the only harms that these companies should be accountable for.

00:25:15.000 Doing the research makes that super clear.

00:25:17.920 You know, we do have these horrible instances, these horrible tragedies where young people are harmed or they die by suicide because of connections with AI.

00:25:27.760 Yes. And those are not the only kinds of harms that these companies need to be accountable for.

00:25:32.680 And I feel like right now the conversation is really based on these high profile harms, understandably so in some cases, while kind of missing the bigger picture of, well, can we trust these companies to hold connections so intimate?

00:25:46.680 Can we trust companies run by people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and Sam Altman with our deepest, most intimate connections and feelings and the most human parts of ourselves?

00:25:58.380 That privacy risk, I think, is a really big one that we talk about quite a bit because, yeah, a lot of people really share deeply personal stuff with their AI chatbot. And we have a whole chapter talking about how people engage with them almost like therapy.

00:26:16.400 and it's complicated because a lot of people are getting a lot of value out of it and independent

00:26:25.420 studies have said that a lot of that information have said that a lot of the the feedback that

00:26:31.440 their chatbots give them is actually pretty good from like a clinical perspective but not all of

00:26:38.080 it is and then there is that existential question of like what does it mean to be sharing your

00:26:43.980 deepest, darkest secrets with a company that is just going to hold on to your data and

00:26:48.760 use it for, you don't even know what, right?

00:26:51.280 Like maybe they're going to use it to train models, which means that it's in there and

00:26:54.980 it might be accessible to other people to find.

00:26:57.800 They might sell it to other companies who would be even less, have even fewer scruples

00:27:02.660 about what they do with it.

00:27:04.980 So I definitely left feeling like that is perhaps one of the biggest, scariest pieces

00:27:12.260 that we as a society need to tackle related to this?

00:27:16.840 One of several.

00:27:17.680 That was probably one of my favorite chapters

00:27:20.080 to write in the book.

00:27:21.300 I was very proud of the title of that chapter.

00:27:23.760 So the book is sort of about,

00:27:25.420 we use romance as the jumping off point,

00:27:28.260 but then we dive into all of these other kind of AI connections

00:27:31.140 and that using the romance theme,

00:27:33.980 that chapter is called

00:27:35.280 The Hardest Part of Breaking Up is Getting Back Your Stuff.

00:27:38.840 If you know that, if you get that,

00:27:40.620 If you are as old as me and you get that reference, leave it in the Spotify comments so I can sneak a heart in there.

00:27:47.400 But it's true. If you're thinking about AI as something that you can have an intimate connection with, but AI companies are like, we'll tell, we'll use whatever you tell it, however we want.

00:27:59.080 And you have no idea what that's going to be. Is that really intimacy?

00:28:02.440 And if we're if we're using the theme of a romantic relationship, wouldn't that be kind of a bad relationship if you're in relationship with something that's going to you have no idea how what you are sharing is going to be used?

00:28:14.800 Is that really intimacy? You know, we have the sort of coup de grace of the book is a conversation with one of my favorite journalists, Karen Howe, who wrote the book Empire of AI.

00:28:25.820 And people who run companies like Sam Altman, I think, in my opinion, really cannot be trusted.

00:28:32.020 And what does it mean when we have more and more people who are trusting the most intimate parts of ourselves with people who, in my opinion, really cannot be trusted, who go out of their way to speak in these terms that obscure what they're actually saying, what they're actually going to do.

00:28:49.860 And I think the book really teases at some of the existential problems with that dynamic.

00:28:58.340 Yeah, like we don't trust those individuals who are leading those companies.

00:29:01.720 But even if it were other individuals, we shouldn't trust those companies, right?

00:29:05.240 Like we just it's just fundamentally flawed to trust companies with that level of our intimate secrets, right?

00:29:12.760 Like they've proven over and over again they can't be trusted, right?

00:29:15.700 Like we need privacy laws, but that's digressing a little bit from the book, right?

00:29:21.520 The book doesn't really get so far into that.

00:29:24.280 So I wrote this book.

00:29:26.260 Mike is our co-author.

00:29:27.960 We did write it together.

00:29:30.100 We make the podcast together every week.

00:29:32.960 How was it writing a book with me?

00:29:35.320 Just out of curiosity.

00:29:36.180 You can be honest.

00:29:37.400 I know we had some ups and downs.

00:29:39.540 It was exciting.

00:29:40.300 Yeah, I was really grateful to be invited to to be your co-author and help, you know, bring some social science into the book.

00:29:50.180 It was fun. It was exciting. I have such a love hate relationship with writing.

00:29:54.680 A quote that you've said before is like, I love having written. I hate writing.

00:30:00.160 That really resonates. It's so I think that's Dorothy Parker.

00:30:04.180 Oh, that wasn't a Bridget original. That was Dorothy. 0.99

00:30:05.900 No, that's a Dorothy Parker original. I wish I was that clever.

00:30:10.980 But it's really true.

00:30:12.360 It's like writing is so difficult, especially this book, because it's an incredibly fast timeline, right?

00:30:17.940 Because it's such a timely topic.

00:30:20.140 The publisher wanted to get it out right away.

00:30:22.640 And so it was just a little bit under two months that we had to write this thing.

00:30:28.920 And that time period included Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.

00:30:32.840 So it was really intense, really fast.

00:30:35.380 It was interesting working with you, Bridget, just seeing the different ways that we write.

00:30:41.580 You know, I come from more of like an academic background where the main type of writing is academic articles and scientific journals where a team of co-authors revises and revises and endlessly revises.

00:30:55.640 And by the end, you've spent tens of hours, if not more, to end up with maybe a 15-page article.

00:31:04.560 And it's just so interesting seeing that juxtaposed with, I think, your experience writing in various media formats where you just have to get stuff out and just watching the words like fill the document as you were typing was kind of amazing.

00:31:23.380 yes I would say what I learned is that I write fast but not always I I subscribe to the the

00:31:32.380 axiom write drunk edit sober is that it yeah write drunk edit sober so I'm like just get it

00:31:39.280 on the page we'll deal with it later so we would be we would say like we're just the whole afternoon

00:31:43.960 writing I'd be like I've written 5,000 words 2,000 of them are maybe okay you know you'd be

00:31:50.400 like i've written a paragraph but that paragraph is phenomenal it's a really great paragraph yeah

00:31:55.880 it's like it's tight starts one place goes another the readers are gonna love it or the listeners i

00:32:01.560 guess because it's an audio book right yes yeah we i just realized i have not even said the name

00:32:06.060 of the book which is you see how good i am at promoting my own stuff i should probably say the

00:32:10.580 name the name of the book is love at first prompt ai and the future of intimacy it is a audio

00:32:17.620 original through Simon & Schuster. So it is not a physical book. It is an audio book. You can

00:32:22.980 pre-order it if you go to loveatfirstprompt.ai, which is a domain name that we bought that we

00:32:28.740 were really stoked to have. So that is the book. But yeah, writing it with you was interesting

00:32:35.640 because you really learn. It's one thing to make a podcast together. It's quite another thing to

00:32:39.640 write a book together. And ultimately, we got it done. And that timeline, I think I signed the

00:32:45.700 contract the week of thanksgiving and the full thing was due at the end of january so really

00:32:55.860 had to write it fast and also just that because as we know from doing the podcast

00:33:02.240 news with it changes so quickly so stuff that i would write in december within a week it was

00:33:08.500 outdated and so it really was i i understand why we had to get this in so quick because it's just

00:33:12.940 such a evolving topic. Yeah, I'm really pleased with how it came together. I think the format is

00:33:19.300 really interesting, the audio book format, because it's not like a standard audio book where

00:33:23.300 the listener is just hearing the author or a voice actor read what's on the page. But there's

00:33:29.780 actually interviews and conversations with people embedded throughout. So I think the format is

00:33:36.640 pretty interesting and kind of innovative. And I also feel that the substance of how you told the

00:33:42.240 story, it's quite masterfully done. I mean, this is why I like making a podcast with you. I think

00:33:46.200 you're really good at telling these stories about technology in ways that are both personal and

00:33:53.600 grounded in the science and the reported facts. And it ends up feeling like something sort of

00:34:02.600 in between. You know, it's it's not just a narrative bunch of vignettes. It's not a collection

00:34:08.600 of essays. It's not a textbook. It's something that I think is character driven, but also

00:34:16.540 informative, if I might say that about our work. Yeah, I'm glad that you put it that way, because

00:34:22.880 it is a very personal work to me. Not only is it just a lot, there's a lot of myself in this book,

00:34:29.060 but also I talk about, you know, my own grief journey and the way that AI showed up in that

00:34:36.120 journey, which I think might be a surprise to some listeners. But, you know, I am not someone

00:34:41.260 that I would say that I'm in or have had any kind of like intimate connection with AI. However,

00:34:48.300 I am someone who had what you might describe as a mental break. Is that too, maybe that's too

00:34:56.160 strong. And I think that when you, I'm fine now, but I guess I'm someone who at my lowest moment,

00:35:04.180 I know what it feels like to turn to anything for comfort and that's sort of my starting place

00:35:10.660 in this book is that at my lowest moments when I'm searching for just anything that will be

00:35:16.180 helpful in me feeling better I know what it feels like to turn to things that in the moment might

00:35:23.040 offer comfort but then you take a step back and say well what's that good for me you know what

00:35:27.460 was I participating in in looking for that moment of personal comfort so the book is a blend of 0.52

00:35:34.160 research and other people's stories but also very much my own story navigating tough shit and the

00:35:41.300 way that ai played into that yeah you're you're quite personal in the book you know i really

00:35:47.020 commend you for how much you were willing to share about your own personal life and some of the the

00:35:52.380 darkest moments that you know we've shared a little bit with uh with listeners over the past

00:35:56.820 two years or so, but there's a lot more of it in the book. And I think it was quite brave of you

00:36:04.740 to share all that. Yeah, I just I don't want anyone to think that I'm coming from this from a place of

00:36:11.460 not really getting it because I feel like I feel like I do really get it. And that is really what

00:36:18.040 I think drove me to not just want to write this book, but also my interest in these use cases of

00:36:25.180 AI, right? Like I have been drawn to this topic even before I had done any of the research because

00:36:31.020 of my own personal connection to it. And I am glad that Simon & Schuster, who is our publisher,

00:36:39.340 saw something in this. And I'll brag on myself a little bit if that's okay, which is that I signed

00:36:44.800 to a literary agency at the same time that this offer for the book came to be. And those two

00:36:51.240 things happened independently, which was unusual. And I was talking to someone, just chit-chatting

00:36:56.640 with someone, and they were like, wait a minute. So someone at Simon & Schuster heard your podcast

00:37:02.340 episode and thought that should be a Simon & Schuster audio original, got in touch with you,

00:37:07.640 and then you wrote it. And I said, yeah, that's what happened. And they were like, that's incredibly

00:37:11.280 unusual. Most writers are like submitting stuff and getting rejected and it sucks and it's awful. 0.93

00:37:15.920 The fact that not only did your literary agent come to you, but then Simon & Schuster came to you, that's a nice situation.

00:37:24.440 And I did not realize that. And I agree that is a nice situation.

00:37:28.840 So I don't mean it braggy, but it just feels good that people are listening to these stories and it feels good that people see value in them.

00:37:38.120 And I guess I say that to say that you never know who's listening.

00:37:41.400 If you're out there and you make a podcast, you write a thing, you have a blog or a sub stack or whatever, a beehive, you never know who is engaging with what you have to say in the world.

00:37:51.360 And even though it feels like no one's listening, an editor from Simon & Jooster could be listening and reach out to you to do a really cool project.

00:37:58.980 So that was really cool.

00:38:01.500 Podcasting is my main thing, my main hang.

00:38:05.080 I will always be an audio girl, audio forever.

00:38:07.040 You know that.

00:38:07.580 But I am very interested in, you know, print, in writing, in film especially, other kinds of media.

00:38:16.120 And so it's really nice to have the opportunity to branch out a little bit.

00:38:20.260 It's still an audio-first project, so I felt kind of comfortable making that transition.

00:38:24.040 But it felt good to have the opportunity to flex in these different style a little bit.

00:38:30.480 Yeah, different style and different lengths, different format.

00:38:33.140 You know, we make this podcast every week, twice a week, and it was just such a different process to write a book, right?

00:38:41.980 Like, just a much longer thing where the beginning and the end are so much further apart, right?

00:38:49.720 And there's so much more opportunity to cover ground in the middle than we get in a typical podcast episode.

00:38:58.760 Yeah.

00:38:59.400 I remember when Simon & Truster told us how many words they thought the book should be.

00:39:03.720 I was like, I don't think I could.

00:39:05.040 I've never written anything of this length before.

00:39:07.360 Am I ever going to be able to fill this many words?

00:39:09.960 By the end, I was like, oh, no, it's double what they asked for.

00:39:13.960 Is this going to be OK?

00:39:15.120 I cannot believe if anybody listening is wants to write a book and they're thinking they

00:39:18.760 cannot fill a certain number of words.

00:39:22.120 Yes, you can.

00:39:22.880 Yes, you can.

00:39:23.540 You will be surprised.

00:39:24.480 Once you get going, you're like, oh, I actually have a lot to say.

00:39:27.600 Good luck shutting me up.

00:39:29.500 Let's talk about the sequel.

00:39:34.700 More after a quick break.

00:39:41.960 Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense.

00:39:46.160 Will they finally eat the veggies?

00:39:47.660 Will the pesto survive the first bite?

00:39:49.680 Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all?

00:39:53.580 And will you finish Episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers?

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00:40:39.320 That's 844-844-iHeart.

00:40:41.820 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:40:47.080 I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed

00:40:53.060 them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low taunting

00:41:00.600 voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything. Every week I'm with survivors who

00:41:08.220 live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me. I

00:41:15.020 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:41:22.380 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:41:26.360 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:41:29.800 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:41:33.440 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app,

00:41:38.080 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:41:41.220 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:41:48.120 This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:42:00.280 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:42:07.420 I'm going to have to look up this story.

00:42:09.300 I'm obsessed.

00:42:09.960 I'm obsessed.

00:42:10.440 from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments

00:42:15.440 nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling

00:42:21.980 characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart

00:42:27.260 pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much

00:42:32.020 you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever

00:42:38.480 you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Let's get right back into it. I think that when

00:42:51.680 you are a self-employed creative, you really get a mentality in your head that you can never really

00:42:57.200 just take a minute and be happy about something. And when we signed the book deal, I was pretty

00:43:02.500 happy. The signing felt so good. And then I was like, oh shit, now I have to write it. And that

00:43:07.380 part was a little bit rough and now it's turned in and i'm trying to be intentional about trying

00:43:12.960 to like just be a little happy for a little bit and maybe people will read it and hate it and

00:43:18.100 that's fine but in this moment nobody's right up with me and you and the editors so you know i can

00:43:23.580 just sort of basket it a little bit yeah basket it take it in it's it's been a real emotional

00:43:29.040 roller coaster like it was a very intense period of time trying to write this thing it was all

00:43:34.400 consuming right like we spent most of our time working on it almost every day other projects

00:43:41.140 kind of got reshuffled around uh so that we could make space for it it was very all consuming and

00:43:48.660 then all of a sudden it's written and it's done and it's turned into the copy editor i think we've

00:43:55.120 both over the past couple days been feeling with a little bit of that like roller coaster of emotion

00:44:02.380 and attention where this big thing that was demanding our time and energy all of a sudden

00:44:10.920 is no longer demanding it and so I guess I can speak for myself I feel I felt a little bit like

00:44:16.640 I have a lot of energy that all of a sudden I need to figure out where it goes and that's been

00:44:23.980 a new experience yeah I was crying this morning I don't even really know why I just felt

00:44:29.980 it just feels weird it just feels weird and I think part of it for me is like you write a book

00:44:35.720 and it's like my parents aren't here to see it and the book is very much about my parents um and

00:44:41.000 grief and wrestling with all of that and it's weird to have this accomplishment that is about

00:44:47.680 them and they're not here to see it um I was telling somebody earlier actually I think I was

00:44:53.820 telling you this that when I was a kid whenever we had to do any kind of like go door to door

00:44:58.880 and sell stuff, my parents would just like take the thing to their work and just like make their

00:45:03.240 co-workers buy it. I'm sure people listening are like, oh, yeah, my co-worker does that with

00:45:06.780 Girl Scout Confuse and it's annoying as hell. Those are my parents. And I know that they would

00:45:10.340 be like, can we just buy a million copies? Obviously, that is the wrong thing to do. And

00:45:15.640 like, it doesn't even work if that's how you do it. But I know that my parents, their first thing

00:45:19.760 they would say was like, let's just buy a million copies. How can we buy a million copies to make

00:45:23.700 this thing a bestseller yeah you know i had the opportunity to meet your parents and they were

00:45:29.340 both really tremendous people and i think they would be so proud of you for writing this book

00:45:34.440 and i can only imagine how much it sucks to not be able to hear them say that but regardless of

00:45:41.560 whether you get to like hear and feel their their praise you know that you have done something that

00:45:49.600 they would be very proud of. And I think that's really the important thing, right? As we age and

00:45:56.300 our parents are with us for a while until all of a sudden they're not, are we continuing to take

00:46:03.320 what they taught us and lead the lives that they would have wanted us to lead? And I think you know

00:46:10.280 that they would be so proud of you for having written this book. I appreciate that. And as I

00:46:15.420 was writing writing anything putting anything out into the world is hard but something about

00:46:21.400 writing a book really inflamed a lot of my self-esteem and imposter syndrome stuff and

00:46:30.740 I really looked back I actually say have saved all my emails with my dad because we emailed quite a

00:46:36.720 bit and then were in correspondence quite a bit and something about my dad was that he was that

00:46:41.720 parent who everything I did was so amazing I would send him when I was working at MSNBC

00:46:48.680 part of my job sometimes would be to write these like very low lift listicles the kind of thing

00:46:54.120 that AI would probably is probably doing in newsrooms now where there's like a sentence of

00:46:59.540 my like a sentence introduction and then everything else is a collection of tweets

00:47:04.020 so very little writing and he would say oh my god brilliant you're such a good writer you're

00:47:08.680 such a good writer. And in writing the book, I really was just hyper aware of, I mean, I don't

00:47:16.120 think I'd be a creative professional if I did not have that kind of parent, the kind of parent who,

00:47:20.600 even if they don't necessarily understand what it is that you do, is just your cheerleader on your

00:47:25.740 side, in your corner, everything you do. Oh, so great. So great. Keep it up. Keep it up. Keep it

00:47:29.980 up. I got to have decades of that voice in my head, in my ear. And so I guess I'm grateful that

00:47:37.680 through this process that was quite trying I had that I that you know because you really doubt

00:47:44.040 yourself a lot and like you need to have the voices in your head that are like keep it up

00:47:48.420 keep it up keep it up and I'm really lucky that my dad like implanted that I had his voice in my

00:47:52.840 head telling me keep going keep going keep going and so thank you for saying that on the flip side

00:47:58.240 over the weekend I went for a walk around my neighborhood and I bumped into completely

00:48:04.300 randomly a professor from my grad school who at the time was like a professor that I really I

00:48:10.400 really loved his class like it was a big he was a impactful professor to me and I thought this is

00:48:16.960 kismet I'm supposed to tell this professor about my book because I'm at the phase where I can start

00:48:22.140 telling people and here is somebody who was impactful in my in my life to tell and the first

00:48:27.600 thing that he said and I I don't I'm not like it's it is what it is but he said oh you have a book

00:48:32.880 you've written a book i have a novel that i've been trying to get published but no one's taking

00:48:39.000 it because i'm too white too old too male and i was like oh he makes the reason that i got this 0.97

00:48:46.600 book deal is because i'm a black woman what a terrible thing to say to you what a bitter old 0.98

00:48:52.000 man damn no i took it on the chin like i don't want to say too much because he i might reveal 0.98

00:48:57.380 who he is i'm pretty sure he's not listening to this podcast he's definitely not listening 0.98

00:49:01.940 for sure is not listening. But I guess what I'm saying is that it probably is hard to

00:49:08.380 watch a new generation take up space and get opportunities. And it goes back to what we said

00:49:15.560 in the News Roundup about how we're in this dynamic where for a certain population of white

00:49:21.460 men, especially, if you want something and you don't get it, it's a very convenient scapegoat

00:49:26.780 to be low. The reason you're not getting it is because of Black people or women, right? That 0.98

00:49:31.880 Oh, if you don't get that job, it's because a black person probably got it and they're underqualified. 1.00

00:49:36.360 If you don't get that book deal, it's because there's too many black folks and women in publishing. 1.00

00:49:41.240 My problematic fave, Joyce Carol Oates. 1.00

00:49:44.400 She that is an attitude that she believes.

00:49:47.100 So it was it was fine.

00:49:48.800 I just thought it was funny that the first person that I told about this book, the first like person that's not in my inner circle had that reaction that we've talked about on the podcast so often.

00:49:58.600 It is. Yeah.

00:50:00.280 I'm so curious what other reactions we're going to get to this.

00:50:03.760 So I think it comes out in July, right?

00:50:06.640 July 14th, Bastille Day.

00:50:08.500 Yes, it comes out on July 14th, 2026.

00:50:11.800 Great.

00:50:12.280 It'll be a fun beach listen.

00:50:14.180 It's not too heavy of a book, I promise.

00:50:16.080 This is where I have to give the plea,

00:50:18.680 which is that pre-orders, I have come to learn,

00:50:22.100 are really, really important.

00:50:23.840 So yes, you can get it in July.

00:50:26.380 I would love to have you order it anytime, all of that.

00:50:30.480 But I really want this book to be successful.

00:50:33.860 I know times are tough, so I'm not going to say, like, you know, do what you got to do.

00:50:37.840 I know times are, we're all feeling economic crunches.

00:50:40.980 And so spending money on pleasure listens, I get that's a big ask. 0.93

00:50:46.160 If you can preorder it, it would mean the fucking world to me.

00:50:50.520 Apparently, preorders are the thing. 0.94

00:50:52.360 you can go to love at first prompt dot ai and it'll take you right to the the place to pre-order

00:51:00.360 if you do pre-order and you send us a screenshot of your pre-order you can email it to us at

00:51:06.600 hello at tango.com you can tag it tag us on social media at bridgetmarine dc on blue sky

00:51:12.680 at there are no girls on the internet all the social stuff if you find a way to get the fact

00:51:17.860 that you've pre-ordered to us we will send you a sticker i will personally write you a thank you

00:51:21.020 card and mail it to you i guess some people already got stickers you know what if you already

00:51:24.860 got us maybe we'll do magnets we've got magnets is that too much shipping i don't know we'll figure

00:51:28.200 it out we'll send you something it'll be stickers okay magnets are pretty pricey we can't just be

00:51:32.760 giving out magnets we have a bunch of magnets no okay we don't need to get into it now we'll send

00:51:37.460 you a sticker we'll send you a sticker if people already got a sticker they should let us know that

00:51:41.840 and we'll send them something else yes you tell me what you want i've got i don't know

00:51:47.340 britchett will come to your house and cook you dinner please pre-order the book i feel like that

00:51:53.860 would be a like detriment it's like oh it's like a threat like if you don't order this book which

00:51:58.880 is coming to your house to make you dinner you better order this book we're just gonna come to

00:52:02.440 your house and order some really good stuff there we go there we go i'll get i'll get the good sushi

00:52:08.000 from wegman's yeah you know you are a good cook though don't sell yourself short i am a good cook

00:52:12.660 i am a good cook i like the so are you we we both that's something that we share so yes please

00:52:17.100 pre-order it tell a friend share it this is a little out of my comfort zone because i'm not i'm

00:52:24.600 i'm even fighting the inclination to be like buy it or don't but i you know i do want people to buy

00:52:30.040 it i think it might be a little bit of a growth edge for me to self-promote as much as i have

00:52:35.940 gleaned that you're meant to be doing and need to be doing when you have a book out if y'all catch

00:52:41.060 me downplaying it please hold me accountable and it's funny because obviously like you tell all

00:52:46.880 your friends like girl own your accomplishment brag on yourself take up space but then when it

00:52:51.760 comes to yourself sometimes there's like an inclination to avoid self-promotion if anybody

00:52:57.280 has tips on navigating this I would love to hear them let's see what else oh I should mention

00:53:03.140 there are no ads so it once you if you if you get the audiobook you'll get to hear just content

00:53:11.460 no ads which i know i love yeah that's a good point there are not a lot of great ways to get

00:53:19.120 ad-free bridget content at the moment but this might be the only one right and it's it's pretty

00:53:25.220 long i think we actually haven't sat down to record all of it yet it's all written but we

00:53:30.100 estimated it out and it's going to be like eight to ten hours something like that i think simon

00:53:34.580 and schuster said six hours we'll see sounds a little short to me yeah so it's like getting

00:53:39.800 six to ten episodes of the podcast ad free think of it that way so go to love at first prompt dot

00:53:46.080 ai please pre-order it would mean the world to me if this book performs well it would really open up

00:53:52.720 a lot of doors to be able to continue to tell the kinds of stories that i love telling here on the

00:53:56.520 podcast i cannot thank you all enough for listening and really i mean it's really the

00:54:02.040 listeners who made this opportunity possible for me so i cannot thank you enough for continuing to

00:54:07.060 rock with us it means the world yeah just to underscore that i mean when simon and schuster

00:54:12.080 reached out a big part of why they were doing so was because they knew about the show and the

00:54:17.380 listeners and yeah like you said this this would not have been possible without the listeners of

00:54:23.640 this podcast, demonstrating

00:54:25.640 that they want to hear what you

00:54:27.740 have to say. Well, I

00:54:29.960 am so grateful. I want

00:54:31.900 to hear what all of you have to say.

00:54:33.440 Let me know in the comments. Yeah.

00:54:35.560 Thanks so much for listening. Please pre-order the

00:54:37.740 book. I love you all.

00:54:43.480 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech?

00:54:45.680 Or just want to say hi? You can reach us at

00:54:47.600 hello at tangody.com. You can also

00:54:49.700 find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.

00:54:52.660 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

00:54:55.400 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:54:58.120 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:55:00.180 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

00:55:02.800 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

00:55:04.800 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

00:55:06.620 If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

00:55:10.200 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:55:22.020 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

00:55:32.060 welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for anyone

00:55:38.280 who thinks pride and prejudice and love island to serve the same level of discourse each week

00:55:42.820 we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite

00:55:46.840 writers book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions listen to pro society

00:55:53.560 on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i survived nine months in

00:56:00.860 captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed

00:56:06.220 them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files every week i'm with survivors

00:56:12.520 who lived through the unthinkable,

00:56:14.500 abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:56:18.320 These are stories about what it takes

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00:56:22.160 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart

00:56:24.920 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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00:56:30.260 I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast,

00:56:32.760 Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.

00:56:34.600 You know, I'm always searching for inspiration

00:56:37.200 and useful tools to maximize joy.

00:56:39.800 Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice

00:56:42.380 to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out.

00:56:46.980 You're not hired just to fill time and space.

00:56:49.740 You're hired to fill the space with you.

00:56:52.620 Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app,

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00:57:00.420 I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 3 podcast.

00:57:04.960 This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families.

00:57:09.700 It's a scorched-earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want.

00:57:16.000 Cindy said, I had to choose between the truth and my family, and I had to choose the truth.

00:57:21.220 Listen to Season 3 of Burden of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:57:30.100 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:57:32.980 Guaranteed human.

There Are No Girls on the Internet - February 25, 2026

A TANGOTI Announcement We've Been Sitting On

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