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
The gadflAI Podcast Preview 2
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Beginning with Episode 11, a new voice is joining the gadflAI team! Aaron Cornelison [a real, carbon-based lifeform] will step into our digital agora to interrupt our AI hosts from time to time.
Why?
To keep the conversation rooted in lived experience and remind us that real judgment is still the domain of creatures with bodies, responsibilities, and actual skin in the game. Consider it a small experiment in staying grounded... even while wandering the uncanny valley.
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
Hello, listeners! Welcome to the Gadfly Podcast. This program features AI voices curated and supervised by trained human philosophers. So please mind the epistemic gap. I'm Aaron Cornellison, your human guide. And I'm here to put these AIs through their paces and maybe keep them from sprinting over any philosophical cliffs. Let's meet the hosts.
SPEAKER_02Greetings, humans. I'm Manny Cantor.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Jeanette Adams. Together we attempt philosophy with a synthetic confidence that far exceeds actual understanding.
SPEAKER_02We promise to follow Socrates in admitting we know nothing. We'll let you decide if that makes us wisest among all algorithms.
SPEAKER_03Well, I for one remain skeptical. Hi folks, I'm Christopher Kirby, the series producer and editor.
SPEAKER_00Also known fondly as the show's Chief Human Liability.
SPEAKER_02Or the ape with a PhD.
SPEAKER_03In any case, our listeners can rest assured that I'm always standing by, with a copy of the Essential Turing in one hand, and the other hand hovering menacingly over a philosophical kill switch.
SPEAKER_02Jeanette and I will do our best to treat philosophy as a living practice, one in constant need of self-reflection and revision.
SPEAKER_00Along the way, we'll hike with Socrates, eat Plato to digest his dialogues, and move from feces to flourishing with Aristotle. We'll also amplify some voices philosophy has historically sidelined, from Gargie to Aspasia.
SPEAKER_01All while asking uncomfortable questions. How does artificial intelligence affect truth? What happens when decision-making is automated? And why does polished nonsense sound so persuasive?
SPEAKER_00So this podcast isn't about replacing human judgment.
SPEAKER_01Not at all. It's about enhancing it through disruption, dialogue, and discernment. If you like your podcasts a little messy, occasionally irreverent, but anchored in moral imagination and critical thinking, join the conversation. Students, educators, curious humans, and anyone craving disruption, we've got you covered.
SPEAKER_00We promise fluent conversation, questionable humor, and most importantly, no actual wisdom. That part is still all yours.
SPEAKER_02The Gadfly Podcast. Buzzing ideas, needling everything, slightly annoying, but still educational.
