Origin Stories Evan Ratliff on Shell Game
10 snips
Nov 19, 2025 
Evan Ratliff, magazine writer, podcaster, and author who founded Longform and The Atavist, discusses creating Shell Game, an independently funded narrative series. He describes using AI voice experiments, testing believability on strangers, and shaping emotional arcs. He also talks about production workflow, collaborating with a small team including his wife, and the risks of going independent.
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Making A Voice Clone Experiment
- Evan used a cloned version of his voice controlled by an AI to call people as an experiment in early 2020s technology.
- He recorded those interactions and later shaped them into the narrative podcast Shell Game to see what would happen.
Testing Calls Then Ethical Shift
- Evan initially tested the AI by calling customer-service reps and strangers to see whether the voice clone could fool people.
- He then shifted to calling scammers and telemarketers to avoid ethically compromising everyday workers.
Escalating Risk Shapes The Narrative
- The show's arc moves from impersonal, low-risk tests to deeply personal, high-risk experiments.
- That escalation forces listeners deeper into moral and emotional questions about creating versions of people.
