Hello everyone, welcome to Shell Game!
This is a show about things that are not what they seem, and in our first six-episode season, the thing in question is… my voice. Six months ago I made a clone of it, then I hooked that clone up to a phone line and powered it with an AI chatbot, to create a “voice agent” that could make and receive its own calls. I was curious what it could do—as me—and how people would respond to it.
Shell Game takes you through the wild, bizarre, and sometimes creepy story of what happened when I tried to replace myself, before someone else could replace me. In Episode One, we tangle with customer service.
Take a listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever. I hope if you find yourself thinking and talking about the show that you’ll spread the word.
Later this week I’ll also be sending paid subscribers some extras from today’s episode, including a more detailed look at the prompts that I used to power the voice agents. Paid subscribers will also get to listen to the Discover call featured in parts of the episode, in its full glory.
If you aren’t a paid subscriber and want to get in on that and other bonus stuff, and get a better sense of how exactly I make these voice agents operate, please consider signing up. Not only do you get a peek behind-the-scenes, but you’ll also be supporting our independent show and helping us make more episodes. (If you have already signed up as a paid subscriber, thank you! You’ll be hearing more from me soon.)
You can even sign on as a founding member, which will give you a direct line to me, and to my AI. Literally. Founding members can email me about whatever aspect of the show they want, and if it strikes their fancy, have their own conversations with my voice agent.
With that, please enjoy Episode One.
Evan
This brought me right into the heart of this odd, scarey, curious moment.
hi Evan, do you have like a paypal or kofi or something like this for a one time donation? i can't afford another 7€/month subscription rn, but would love to give a little something for the show which i've greatly enjoyed.
Found out about this show via Radiolab, like I’m sure a lot of people now, and just started listening. I’m curious if there’s a blog post or anything that goes into the technical details of what you’ve done for this?
Episode 1 gives you the run down, folks have replicated it based on that. It's basically: clone your voice at Elevenlabs, grab the API key. Open an account at Vapi, add your voice in, make an assistant, get a phone number for it. (Or you can use your own, which is a little more complicated.) I've posted some more detailed behind the scenes from me (for paid subscribers) at: https://www.shellgame.co/p/premium-how-shell-game-gets-made. Cheers!
Awesome thank you!