Understood: Artificial Intimacy

What happens when a human becomes intimately enmeshed with a chatbot? From people who’ve married their bots or who grieve their loved ones with the help of AI, host Victoria Hetherington (author of The Friend Machine) dives into the stories of the people who have invited these digital avatars into their hearts, minds, and even beds. And asks what do we gain and what do we stand to lose? Our intimacy, our resilience, even our grasp on reality?

This latest season of Understood looks at who made the decisions that allowed chatbots to move way beyond digital assistants and into the most intimate parts of our lives.

Four episodes, releasing weekly starting Tuesday, May 19.

Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action.

Season 1 - The Naked Emperor: the rise and fall of bitcoin king Sam Bankman-Fried.

Season 2 - The Pornhub Empire: the story of how a Montreal-founded company came to dominate the adult industry.

Season 3 - Modi’s India: how one man rose from poverty to the peak of political power.

Season 4 - Céline: the surprising cultural, political and business alchemy that created a superstar.

Season 5 - Who Broke the Internet? The internet sucks now, and it happened on purpose.

Season 6 - The Making of Elon Musk: exploring the little known side of the polarizing billionaire

Season 7: Deepfake Porn Empire: the porn was fake. The fallout was real.

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Episoder(45)

The Pornhub Empire Episode 3: Pornhub’s disgrace

Jane was coerced into making a pornographic film, and told it would never be shared online. Then, it was posted on Pornhub, over and over again. How did a scandal involving the hosting of sexual abuse...

25 Mar 202432min

The Pornhub Empire Episode 2: Pornhub goes mainstream

Not only did Pornhub become a massive moneymaker, it also helped push porn into the spotlight by using data, clever PR, and the power of celebrity. How did Pornhub make itself a household name? This i...

18 Mar 202423min

The Pornhub Empire Episode 1: Free porn for everyone

How did a handful of competitive foosball players in Montreal create the world’s largest online porn site? And what do a picturesque Dutch cabin, thousands of pornographic VHS tapes, and the subprime ...

11 Mar 202427min

Introducing: The Pornhub Empire

Pornhub — that site you only access on your browser’s incognito mode? It gets way more views than Netflix. But because of the sheepishness and stigma around porn, it’s treated as if it’s fringe, inste...

22 Feb 20242min

Bonus: Click Here from Recorded Future News

A former American IRS investigator responsible for some of the earliest dark market takedowns has been in Nigerian custody since February. Neither Nigerian nor the US authorities seem to be distinguis...

21 Feb 202428min

The Naked Emperor BONUS | Guilty: The fall of Sam Bankman-Fried

A jury has found FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried guilty on seven counts, from conspiracy to fraud, following the collapse of his crypto exchange last year. Speaking with Front Burner host Daemon Fairles...

6 Nov 202326min

The Naked Emperor BONUS: The Trial of Sam Bankman-Fried

Today we bring you a bonus episode of The Naked Emperor. As Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial kicks off in New York, host Jacob Silverman is back to bring you up to speed on the latest. What’s happen...

2 Okt 202325min

The Naked Emperor BONUS: Binance and its CEO sued in major crypto case

Jacob Silverman sits down on CBC's Front Burner podcast to discuss how the biggest crypto exchange in the world is being sued by an American regulator accusing Binance and its billionaire founder of b...

8 Jun 202323min