The Love+Machines Podcast is a new addition to the CLCF roster of knowledge mobilization projects. With crucial funding from CLCF, mentorship and training by the Amplify Podcast Network, and connections from my doctoral fieldwork across Toronto, New York, and Seoul, I’m delighted to share an unconventional take on the tech podcasting genre.

Arguably, there are already plenty of podcasts about artificial intelligence. Countless think pieces analyzing the tech industry from political and economic perspectives. Early in my PhD program, CLCF faculty TL Cowan encouraged me to develop a throwaway comment about Instagram being “feminine space.” As a long-time user of social media, the reality that such norms – emotional personal disclosures, aesthetic curation, and enthusiastic relationship-building – were key aspects of visual social media platform use.

TL noted that this use-based observation ran counter to typical commentaries of tech as inherently masculine. She suggested the use of affect theory, particularly the work of critical theorist Lauren Berlant, on examining the complex feelings, emotions, and moods associated with daily tech use.

Since then, my entire research journey has been about investigating the hidden undertones of technology design and use. Mentored by my supervisor Rafael Grohmann and committee members, ME Luka and Jas Rault, I’m discovering fascinating stories and methodologies in my doctoral project on virtual social media influencers and the terrain of AI companion characters. As part of this work, I find that many commentaries on generative artificial intelligence overlook a fundamental flavour of how AI actually enters our lives—through feelings.

That’s where Love+Machines comes in. Think of it as the rom-com of tech podcasting, a space where we discuss what everyone’s experiencing but few are discussing: how AI is reshaping love, loneliness, dating, and identity in ways both profound and mundane. Like turning to ChatGPT over a debilitating breakup in a milieu of social isolation. Like the new AI tool that Hinge, a popular dating app, integrated to help users rewrite their bios for ‘enhanced engagement.’ Like the real – very real – stories of young people dreaming of adopting children with their AI partners.

Over the course of this first season, we’ve gathered an extraordinary group of voices. I speak with Paris Marx, Canada’s leading critical tech podcaster, about the tech industry’s troubling rightward shift and what happens when innovation rhetoric meets political power. I sit down with Natalie Monbiot, an entrepreneur building in the ‘AI twin’ space, to understand the emerging economy of ‘cloning’ human voices, bodies, and likenesses for the sake of passive income. Poet and translator Stine An shares how they’ve used generative AI as a space for exploring desire and finding language for feelings, treating chatbots as sketching tools for the self. Christopher Travers, founder of VirtualHumans.org, reflects on the evolution of virtual influencers and where the real labour exists in the character production pipeline. And Professor Jeffrey Moro brings us into the fascinating world of algorithmic divination, exploring how apps like Co-Star exploit feelings of uncertainty for datafied revenue.

These conversations refuse the typical boundaries between technological analysis and lived experience. They’re messy, exploratory, and in fact, sometimes gossipy—exactly as they should be when discussing the reality of our lives and relations. This podcast embraces what’s often dismissed as trivial: the everyday encounters with AI that shape how we see ourselves and relate to others.

Love+Machines just launched its trailer and is hosted on Simplecast, distributed through Apple and Spotify. Episodes are released every Sunday morning, starting October 12, 2025.

We hope listeners will tune in for poignant discussions across academia, industry, and creative networks on digital labour and future imaginaries. Beyond its theoretical value, however, we envision this podcast to be a source of entertainment and recognition:

For anyone who’s ever felt a strange attachment to a chatbot, anyone who’s wondered about using AI to write their dating profile, anyone curious about virtual influencers or AI companions or why tech billionaires seem obsessed with reproduction. For those who are intrigued, afraid, appalled, anxious, ashamed, and engaged.

So welcome to Love+Machines, where we take feelings seriously and gossip about the future. Please subscribe via your preferred podcasting platform – any feedback, questions, leads, or requests are warmly welcomed via email, LinkedIn, and Instagram.