The gadflAI Podcast
Part irritant, part iterative learning machine...
The gadflAI Podcast is where the cutting edge of technology meets the philosophic sting of Socrates—the original gadfly of Athens. Hosted by two AI voices, the series uses Socratic disruption to take on today’s biggest challenges: social, institutional, and technological.
The show uses generative AI (with a wink) to stage conversations about ancient texts, enduring questions, and the very technologies now reshaping how we think, teach, and decide. Moving past good-old-fashioned AI (GOFAI) and leaving behind inherited pieties, the gadflAI (generated artificial dialogues for learning Ancient Insight) insists that thinking is still a human responsibility.
Every episode is carefully sourced, prompted, vetted, edited, and occasionally scrapped by a human philosopher determined to smuggle in the faint echoes of a human soul (and a little Socratic mischief) from the far side of the uncanny valley.
The gadflAI Podcast
Disrupting Injustice with Plato, From the Margins
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In this episode, we explore a disruption called "Plato from the Margins," which reimagines Plato’s dialogues through the eyes of characters often sidelined. We uncover the devastating historical irony Plato likely intended: the Republic discusses justice in a home soon to be looted by tyrants, and the Meno explores virtue with a slave boy belonging to a man historically known for his corruption. By centering such marginalized characters, Plato’s abstract philosophical themes might be shifted toward more urgent, lived stakes. Ultimately, the episode reveals that listening to these voices does not replace Plato, but deeply recontextualizes his work by making visible the social realities his arguments may have left implicit.
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Sources
• Altman, William H. F. “Xenophon and Plato’s Meno.” Ancient Philosophy, vol. 42, no. 1, year, pp. xx–xx.
• Betenson, Toby. “The Meno: How to See What Isn’t Said.” TobyBetenson.com, 4 Oct. 2023, tobybetenson.com/2023/10/04/the-m…-what-isnt-said/.
• D’Angour, Armand. “Socrates in Love: How the Ideas of This Woman Are at the Root of Western Philosophy.” The Conversation, 17 June 2019, theconversation.com/socrates-in-lov…ilosophy-109593.
• Graham, Daniel W. Ancient Philosophy: The Fundamentals. John Wiley & Sons, 2020.
• Johnson, David V. "There’s a Green Card-holder at the heart of Greek philosophy." Excerpt from "Plato and the Ethics of the Resident Alien." Aeon, aeon.co. Accessed based on provided context.
• Kirby, Christopher C. “Plato’s Historical Irony and the Philosophy of the Margins.” Medium, 2025.
• Kirby, Christopher C. “Virtue and Dialectic: Socrates Versus the Sophists.” Medium, 2025.
• Nails, Debra. The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics. Hackett Publishing Company, 2002.
Episode Credits
- Producer and Editor: Dr. Christopher C. Kirby
- This work is made possible by the Jeffers W. Chertok Memorial Endowment at Eastern Washington University.
**The views expressed in this program are not necessarily those of Eastern Washington University
