How Does Tomorrow Sound?

How Does Tomorrow Sound is a six episode series on the future of podcasts. Hosts Kate, Josh, and Neleigh endeavor to predict what podcasts might look like — or evolve into — in 10 years’ time. Expert interviews are braided with funny, experimental, blue sky brainstorming sessions and audio experiments by the hosts. This show will challenge your assumptions, will make you wonder, and will spark new ideas about the road from here to the future of audio narrative.

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Let’s imagine some audio futures! This podcast explores the future of digital audio and asks what podcasts might become in ten years.

Podcasts flourished out of the tech of the early 2000s. Now, artificial intelligence is poised to change everything. We speak with Natural Language Processing (NLP) researcher Philippe Laban; science writer Matthew Hutson; professor, programmer, and composer David Cope; and creator of Late Night with Robot, Ana-Marija Stojic. Every day, NLP and speech synthesis more closely imitate human language: Now, imagine AI-generated pods offering a key feature no live producer can: 24/7 interactivity. If the future of pods sounds like the best AI chatbot, one who remembers everything, is it your AI BFF? Or a scammer’s paradise? And will we listen?

If you dig us, please subscribe, review, and share — it really helps. And thanks!

The Big Takeaways:

• If the new tech of the early 2000s made podcasts possible, how will new, new tech — artificial intelligence like natural language processing and speech synthesis — change how we make and listen to digital audio?

• Philippe Laban, a researcher in natural language processing and human-computer interaction, has already built an AI-generated news podcast called Newspod, proving it’s possible. Now he works on interactivity in the chatbot space, which he believes may be the future of digital audio content.

  • Newspod on Github

  • Laban, Philippe, Elicia Ye, Srujay Korlakunta, John Canny, Marti Hearst. “Newspod: Automatic and Interactive News Podcasts.” 27th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces. Helsinki, Finland. March 2022

    • “I think this will be one of the very cool things that can happen is podcasts can become kind of a companion and like, accompany you as you learn about the world.” — NLP researcher Philippe Laban

    • “It's like, Welcome back Philippe. We haven't talked about Brexit in the last three weeks, but there's been an update since we last talked.” — NLP researcher Philippe Laban

• Matthew Hutson writes about AI for outlets like The New Yorker and Nature. He guides us through an exploration of what NLP and AI can already do in creative fields. He connects us to Google’s Dall-E2 which uses AI to generate images, and to David Cope’s experiments in musical intelligence (EMMY) and Emily Howell, algorithms that compose new music. He mentions a company called Alethia AI that offered to make a chatbot out of him.

  • Hutson, Matthew. “RoboWriters: The Rise and Risk of Language Generating AI.” Nature. 3 March 2021.

  • Hutson, Matthew. “Can Computers Learn Common Sense?” The New Yorker. 5 April 2022.

  • Alethea AI

    • “I see more promise in humans collaborating with AI. You might have a person who is at least an editor saying, Let’s use these bits of audio, put them together.” — science writer Matthew Hutson

• David Cope is Professor Emeritus of Music at UC Santa Cruz. He is a composer and a computer programmer, and he developed algorithms that write music.

  • “Emily Howell — From Darkness to Light — 1 Prelude.” YouTube. 7 May 2016.

  • “Emily Howell — fugue.” YouTube. 20 October 2012.

  • “David Cope Emmy Vivaldi.” YouTube. 12 August 2012.

  • “David Cope Emmy Beethoven 2 beg.” YouTube. 13 August 2021.

    • “It’s important for me to engage people in thinking about things that they don’t ordinarily think about. And [...] to sort of teach them to evaluate what we’re all trying to do. And that is some kind of intelligence.” — professor and composer David Cope

• Ana-Marija Stojich is a comedian, writer, actor, creator, and host of Late Night with Robot (beams.fm), where she interviews AI versions of famous people, like Amelia Earhart, Barack Obama, Zora Neale Hurston, and Vincent Van Gogh.

  • Late Night with Robot (beams.fm)

  • “I’m just lying on my couch, like texting with AI Barack Obama, and like Albert Camus, and Vincent Van Gogh, and like Zora Neal Hurston. And they’re all having different conversations and it’s fun because they text you back right away.” — Ana-Marija Stojich, Late Night with Robot

    • “I learn things all the time from the AI. Vincent Van Gogh AI was one of my favorites.” — Ana-Marija Stojich, Late Night with Robot

• It’s easy to dismiss the idea of AI podcasts, but one advantage that AI and NLP pods would have over human pods is that they could be fully interactive 100% of the time (recall the 2013 film Her). In their interactivity, they can retain information about the user, remembering what we say, like, dislike, and who we’re in relation with — gathering useful data about us while making us feel heard and valued, maybe even loved.

• Comfort for the lonely? A playland for artists? A marketer’s goldmine? A scammer’s paradise? It will come down to why we listen. Stay tuned for more on that in Episode 2.

Other resources

Marc Maron experiment

• WTF with Marc Maron

• Rev.com AI transcription of audio used in Marc Maron experiment

• GPT-2 text generator used for Marc Maron experiment. (Kate wrote to Open AI for access to GPT-3 but never heard back.)

Dall-E2 Exploration

• Dall-E2

• Recker, Jane. “US Copyright Office Rules A.I. Art Can’t be Copyrighted.” Smithsonian Magazine. 24 March 2022.

On the Ethics of NLP

• Sylva, Christianna. “Google fires engineer for saying its AI has a soul.” Mashable. 25 July 2022.

• Sozlow, Jack. “Two AIs talk about becoming human (GPT-3).” YouTube. 13 April 2021.

• Emily Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, Shmargaret Shmitchell.

• “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” FAccT ’21: Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. March 2021.

Contact Us

Tell us what you really think, by emailing PodflyCalls@gmail.com or leaving us a voicemail at 440-290-6796.

Or check us out online:

• Podfly Productions

• How Does Tomorrow Sound

• Neleigh Olson

• Kate Pigott

• Josh Suhy

Series: The Future of Podcasting

There is little more daunting, I imagine in any industry, than the work of predicting the future. This is especially true when the future you anticipate may indeed shape the very way you operate your business for years to come. Yet, with a balance of enthusiasm and moderate hubris, we at Podfly are rising to the task. And what better way than with a podcast? It is, in fact, what we do best.

So, what are we making? 

In short, a six-episode podcast series. We will tackle blue-sky topics on the future of podcasting. This is a show for future thinkers who want to anticipate shifts that will impact our industry, and position themselves ahead of the curve. We’ll project ten years out on technology, audience demands, and anticipated zeitgeist shifts, and work back from these with experts to ask the question: What might be the future of the podcast industry, and what can we do today to be ready for that future? 

Topics include: 

• How will new tech change audio stories in the future? 

• What role will podcasts play in our future societies? 

• Is the future of the podcast interactive? 

• What is the endgame of content moderation? 

• What does a podcast in the metaverse sound like? 

• Does a podcast need a host? 

• Can a podcast be an experiment? 

• Is the podcast of the future…you?

Who’s asking, and who’s got answers?

We have assembled a team at Podfly to study these topics, and gather and present ideas from industry leaders in areas such as: futurism, artificial intelligence, machine learning, neuro language processing, social psychology and psychiatry, language technologies, content moderation, metaverse, Dolby Atmos and spatial audio, and dozens more.

The principle research and production team includes: 

Kate Tighe-Pigott - Producer

Kate is a communications professional with a passion for radio, podcasts, and audio narratives. She has expertise in everything from high-level strategies and logistics coordination, to the production of branded podcasts. For years she has empowered small teams to punch above their weight. 

Josh Suhy - Sound Designer and Audio Engineer

With over a decade of experience in audio, Josh has steadily built his career from the ground up by creating high quality audio projects, and fostering professional relationships with his clients. Josh strives to deliver the highest quality custom work possible, ensuring his client’s creative needs are always met, and the final product reflects their business and artistic goals. 

Neleigh Olson - Host and Talent

Neleigh may be new to audio, but not to storytelling or deep-dive researching. She has her MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society, an interdisciplinary theory- and research-based program from Liverpool Hope University. She also has three years of acting training from Lifebook Acting Academy in Los Angeles, CA and has done print, commercial, film, stage, and voice work.

What, when, where, and how?

To say we’re excited about what we can learn here is an understatement. We will launch this podcast series just ahead of Podcast Movement, mid August 2022. To stay up-to-date on progress (yes, we’ll be sharing as we go!), you can subscribe to our newsletter, or follow our socials if that’s your ilk.

In the meantime, we look forward to meeting you in the future…

Podfest 2018, Are You Going? Podfly Is!

Podfly is happy to announce that our Co-Founder Corey Coates will be a keynote speaker at Podfest 2018 in Orlando, Florida!

Podfest will be held on February 7-10th and hosted at the Wyndham Orlando Resort International Drive, which is right next to Universal Studios Orlando and Disney. This is its fourth year running and it has become a must-attend international event that brings over a thousand content creators together. Not only is it the perfect place to network with fellow podcasters, but the conference will have a lot of jam-packed resources for the up-and-coming as well as veteran podcasters. There will be keynote speakers, workshops, panels, schmoozing, and so much more!

Corey is scheduled to speak on Friday the 9th at 1:15pm to discuss the best way to record a remote guest. Did you know that using certain recording apps can actually diminish the call quality and audio sound? Do you have problems with dropped calls or simply your guest breaking in and out while you're interviewing them? Have you ever had an 'urgh! I wish I could fix that in post.' moment? Well, Corey has the solutions to these problems! As someone with over a decade of professional audio production, radio advertisement, and content programming experience, you can say Corey might know a thing or two about great sounding audio and guests.

There will be A TON of amazing speakers and we look forward to catching up with some of our favorite people at Podfest. Here's a list of speakers for the three-day event. We can't wait to see you there! If you see Corey while wandering around, don't be shy, go up to him and say hi.  

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Staff Feature - Jerry Payne

From the Air Force to Audio Engineer

Jerry has always been a wild child, so when he left the Air Force, it was back to his old ways. It wasn't like he was up to no good, well, unless you consider him playing rock and roll 'no good'! Sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was chaotic, but it was a fantastic way to release all that pent up energy he kept inside while he was in the service.

He always had a love for radio, so when he left the Air Force, he decided to go to college where he majored in communications. After hearing that one of his favorite morning radio hosts would be at a Flaming Lips concert, Jerry went down to search for (and destroy!) him. Without having any idea what he looked like, he somehow found him in the crowd (wearing a Santa Hat), introduced himself, and then lowered the morning host's defenses just enough so he was able to intern for him. He ended up interning with the station for 2.5 years without pay, but he doesn't regret a second of it. That experience was what kicked off his career and got the ball rolling for him.

He eventually worked with a local radio legend named Kim Peterson. Jerry acted as 'the voice of the millennials' by explaining to Kim, a baby boomer, what the heck his generation was doing, and what social media was. It was here where Jerry learned recording techniques, how to make a show compelling, and most importantly, how to tell a story.

Aside from working as a team leader and audio engineer for Podfly, Jerry also works as a production editor at Impact Partnership, a financial marketing organization that works with financial advisors to help them find new leads. Because some of their financial advisers have their own radio shows, Jerry has access to one of the nicest studios in all of Atlanta. Throughout his career, Jerry went from Rock Radio to Top 40 to Talk Radio, and he's now in Retirement Radio. However, Jerry has no plans on retiring from the industry any time soon.

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Deftones, the Gateway Drug to Becoming a Musician

Jerry currently lives in Kennesaw, Georgia. And what do Georgia boys usually do? Well, he grew up on country music until he was 12, but afterwards started listening to the Deftones album Adrenaline, which is when things drastically changed for him. That album made him want to play music and pick up a bass guitar. He would have picked up a 6-string guitar, but he says his fingers were just too fat for it. Jerry doesn't have a passport, but he travels all over the U.S. to see bands and attend concerts. In fact, he's been to the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee 8 years in a row, because he loves real drums, real strings, and people singing. However, when Bonnaroo started having more EDM acts, it was time to move on to other shows in Colorado, California, and more.

When Jerry was in a band, he says the drummer was the best musician out of all three of them. He was a classically trained drummer and very original with the sounds he was able to produce. The band wrote lyrics, but the funny thing was no one wanted to sing them. So, they decided to put a laptop on stage and have the laptop 'sing' in a robot voice as it read the lyrics out loud. Band life was incredibly fun for Jerry and what made this particular band special was how everyone was open to experimenting and trying new ideas. Unfortunately, the band had to be put on hold as the band members’ family commitments began to increase. But, as Jerry says, “The last band I was in was the best band I was ever in.”

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How to Tell Engaging Stories

When people try to tell stories, they tend to get caught on the details and sort of derail from there. This can take somebody out of the experience. As William Shakespeare says, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Don't get too caught up in the irrelevant details. Shows like Serial focus a lot on details; however, they always relate it back to the main story. You can do this too by being prepared and by focusing on the larger point you're trying to make. People love to be hypnotized by stories. Jerry believes that stories are the secret to really captivating and maintaining someone's attention.

Another way to tell an engaging story is to slow down. Even Jerry struggles with this. You need to be able to let a simple sentence 'breathe'. If you speak slowly and clearly, people will listen to you in a closer way and it's much more compelling. People try to talk fast because they feel like they need to get all their points out on the table, but if you can just slow it down and let the story breathe, it gives the listener a chance to create an image, or a story, in their head.

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Words of Wisdom from a Radio Guy

In the radio business, Jerry was trained to 'create and establish a theater for the mind'. It is so important to create a story for the listeners that is in their head. As the guy or gal behind the mic, you're in control of your audience's imagination. Don't forget that. The perfect example of a host creating this 'theater for the mind' is host Dan Carlin of Hardcore History. He does a 6-part 4 hour episode series on World War 1 and you can just see and smell the battlefield that's he's describing. He's a true master at what he's doing.

How do you turn a hobby podcast (or even a business podcast) into theater? Well, you don't need the whole podcast to become an elaborate story, but do not underestimate the power of what a good example can do for you. Laying out the anecdotal stories in advance and then referencing them casually in the podcast is a great tool people can use. Bring Your Whole Self to Work, a podcast Podfly produces, is a fantastic example of this.

Host Mike Robbins is so polished and comfortable behind the mic while he's telling a story. Jerry really looks forward to listening to what Mike has to say each week because he does a fantastic job at communicating while also making it captivating.

Another tip Jerry learned in radio is to always speak directly into the mic. When hosts are interviewing people, this is a tip people quickly forget as they get distracted and become comfortable in their surroundings. By not speaking directly into the mic, you can lose audio quality and people can miss out on what you're saying. Also, audio quality is the main focal point in a podcast and if you lose it (or if it's low quality), you also lose your listeners. There are so many great sounding podcasts out there, so if yours doesn't sound good, listeners will tune out and not be engaged. This is why it's so important to aim for the middle of the mic, and to stop moving around in your chair while looking at your ceiling! It goes a long way in audio quality.

Oh and one more thing, don't forget you can always do a second take. It's not hard to correct the material or edit it in post-production. So, just be comfortable while you're doing it and don't be afraid to do more than one take until you feel like you've got it down. In this case, more is always better!

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Why Podcasts Are a 'Thing'

Podcasts are growing and radio has taken a backseat. People can get what they want on demand, but Jerry doesn't think radio will ever go away completely. It's still very passive. Afterall, every car has a radio in it. If you can't get cellphone service, you can probably still get a radio station. Due to time constraints in radio, podcasters have much more freedom of expression.

Podcasting has its niches, whereas radio has to be broad to satisfy advertisers and a wide range of listeners. For example, one of our Podfly podcasters, Tim Hanlon of Good Seats Still Available, covers sports leagues and franchises that are no longer around.

He often covers teams that most people have never even heard of. He's trying to preserve history by remembering these precious moments, and unfortunately, a lot of the people involved in these old school teams have passed away and their stories are gone. So, Tim is on a mission to uncover these fascinating stories about teams long past and the podcast format makes it ideal for him to carry out this mission. 

Another benefit about podcasting is when you're talking to someone and they're listening to you, whether they're in their car or at the gym, you have their attention. You're taking their mind off the mundane tasks that they're doing. Jerry believes audio formats like podcasts and radio are more influential than TV or movies because you have an active listener who isn't distracted by what they're seeing.  

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Podfly Picks: Apple AirPods are Banging, Ozark is Colorful, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is WILD.

Once a month we feature staff picks, or #guiltypleasures, the Podfly team is currently digging. If you're looking to expand your music, movie, or podcast tastes, then stop by to see what all of us are currently obsessed with!

David Gregerson, Co-Founder:

“I’m really into Ozark on Netflix. Great show! If you enjoyed Breaking Bad, you’ll like this.”

Both Meryl Klemow and Kimberly Beck chimed in and agreed with David. Kim even said, “I like the color scheme used in Ozark. It really added something to the atmosphere of the story.”

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Jerry Payne, Team Leader/Audio Engineer:

“That feeling when you realize one of your favorite bands has a new album out in a couple months! (Little Thing Gone Wild album by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club).”

“This month, I’ve been listening to the latest release from the Canadian blues-rock duo Black Pistol Fire. Deadbeat Graffiti proves that sometimes, all you need to make a great album is a guitar, drums, and a whole lot of soul.”

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Meryl Klemow, Copywriter:

“I swear I'm not 14 years old but I like FULLER HOUSE hee hee.”

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Kimberly Beck, Copywriter:

“Revisiting one of my favorite shows: Wilco at Sydney Opera House.”

Joseph Batty commented that he does like some of old Wilco, but he's personally 'more of a Jeff Tweedy fan' himself.

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Eric Begay, Team Leader/Audio Engineer:

Eric is currently loving these Apple AirPods.

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Nina Pollock, Producer/Showrunner/Sound Designer:

“My podcast guilty pleasure right now is definitely "My Dad Wrote A Porno" - it's hilarious, jaw-dropping, and absolutely addictive. The podcast is essentially the reading of a porno written by the father of the host. The host and two of his insanely funny friends dive deep into each chapter while commenting on the absurdity/genius of his father's "literature". Definitely worth checking out! I lose it every time I listen to an episode.”

Ayn Codina says, “I have friends talking about this show. Just hearing them re-tell it had me crying.”