Podcast
Off Center is the podcast of the Center for Digital Narrative, hosted by Scott Rettberg. Listed here are the 29 episodes that belong to this project: The AI Update in full, the episodes where an XDN researcher is the guest, and the augmented- and alternate-reality episodes. The complete run of 82 covers the whole centre.
On this episode, Jhave and Scott tackle the intersection of artificial intelligence, theology, and human dignity, sparked by Pope Leo XIV's landmark AI encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. From philosophical debates over the "TESCREAL" ideology and Isomorphic Labs' massive $2.1 billion funding and how to navigate mundan…
Scott and Jhave are back to talk even more AI controversy. Is it okay for AI to kill up to 100 people? Is there a dark money campaign to spread Anti-China-AI fear? Are "deep fakes" out and "shallow fakes" so in right now? That, and so much more.Referenceshttps://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2051454585420521501 .A Dark…
Join Scott and Jhave for a candid, slightly cynical deep dive into the ethical quagmires currently reshaping the tech landscape on The AI Update. This episode tackles everything from the military entanglements of Anthropic and Palantir to the unsettling rise of AI-driven bioweapons and global cyber warfare. Amidst a…
In this episode we present a live recording of "The Wrong Body; Diverse Bodies and Digital Narratives" panel that took place at the CDN Equinox event on 20th March 2026, with Hannah Ackermans, Ella Holi and Sérgio Galvão Roxo.
On this episode Scott and Jhave talk about AI Consciousness, debating whether recent research into mechanistic interpretability suggests that frontier models are developing introspection, nascent sentience, and/or a "society of thought."References Aranyosi, M. (2026), Mechanistic Indicators of Understanding in Large…
What are “World Models,” and why should we care? Could AI really understand reality? Scott and Jhave sit down to explore the rise of World Models - the "engines" of machine intuition -to discuss how quickly they are evolving and what their existence means for the future of humanity (and the robots living alongside u…
Following Universal Music Groups' settlement and partnership of Udio, Scott and Jhave sit down to discuss the potential future of music in a world with AI.
Scott and Jhave are back talking billions of dollars and discussing whether the new AI economy truly is "too big to fail".References Artificial Analysis (2025) Models Leaderboard Fortune (2025) Without data centers, US GDP growth was 0.1% in the first half of 2025 GLM-4 (2025) GLM-4.6: Open-Source Bilingual Intermed…
Scott and Jhave are here to talk about a major class-action lawsuit that will reward authors for the fact that their books were used for AI training data... and this is not just any class-action lawsuit: the largest publicly reported settlement in human history.References: https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.co…
On this episode we talk about our upcoming exhibition "An Eye for AI Cinema" at the Bergen International Film Festival, running October 15th-23rd. Is artificial intelligence destroying cinema as we know it? Are we entering the age of the computer-generated DIY film? AI brings tumultuous changes to the established fi…
It’s been a while since the last AI update, and with the field evolving so quickly, Scott and Jhave have plenty to catch up on. In this episode, they explore AI and writing - but who is prompting whom? Can AI serve as “steroids for creativity”? And if so, what are the unintended side effects?References Abundant Inte…
This episode Scott and Jhave talk about some of the ways in which AI is finding itself involved in research. They talk about some of the AI models that have been developed with research in mind as well as some of their own experiments with these models.References:Brain2Qwerty https://ai.meta.com/research/publication…
In this week's AI Update, Scott and Jhave discuss some of the ways in which fascism reproduces itself, how AI could be used as a tool to facilitate it, and how those leading AI development have found themselves in positions of political power.References:Ahmed, S. (2024). Social Media News Use Amplifies the Illusory…
Jhave and Scott talk about simulated worlds or environments created with AI, considering what are the boundaries for artifical life. ReferencesByteDance. (2025). Protenix: Toward High-Accuracy Open-Source Biomolecular Structure Prediction. https://github.com/bytedance/ProtenixConway, J. H. (1970). The Game of Life.…
In this AI Update Jhave and Scott discuss O3, the new AI model announced by OpenAI, which excels in high-complexity tasks, demonstrating state-of-the-art capabilities in science, structured reasoning, and problem-solving. References Brown, N., & Sandholm, T. (2018). Superhuman AI for heads-up no-limit poker: Libratu…
Jhave and Scott discuss recent developments in AI and forecast new developments in AI storytelling, reasoning, efficiency, organoids, and medicine coming in 2025.ReferencesAmodei, D., & Hernandez, D. (2018). AI and Compute. https://openai.com/index/ai-and-compute/Jumper, J., et al. (2021). Highly accurate protein st…
In this AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and David Jhave Johnston dive deep into the connection between AI and violence. Tune in for the latest AI updates, and the last episode of the year. We will continue the season in the new year. References Calvo, Serena, et al. 2024. Does suicide contagion (Werther Effect) take…
In this short byweekly AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and Jhave Johnston talk about the use of AI in filmmaking in places like Hollywood. While actors and writers fear AI could take over their jobs, its use in filmmaking is rapidly growing. ReferencesBateman, Justine. 2024. “Hollywood is dead, according to Justine…
Back with a new episode and song, are David Jhave Johnston and Scott Rettberg. In today’s episode, they will discuss AI agents. Secret agents, travel agents, helping you with anything you need. Whether that may be spying on people or booking that holiday you wanted to go on, the AI agents can do it for you. Listen n…
In this AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and David Jhave Johnston dive deep into the evolving relationship between AI and human reasoning. They explore how AI models like GPT are learning to "think" through synthetic chain-of-thought processes. Tune in for the latest AI updates. ReferencesBrown, Noam, and Tuomas Sand…
In this short biweekly AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and Jhave Johnston talk about this year's Nobel Peace Prizes for AI research. John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Tune in to find out what their disc…
We are back with another AI update about AI produced podcasts. And this time, we have a special guest joining us, Jill Walker Rettberg. In this episode Jill, Scott, and Jhave will discuss the new feature of Google's NotebookLM, that lets you listen to a podcast conversation about your source documents. ReferencesGoo…
Welcome back to another biweekly AI update with David Jhave Johnston and Scott Rettberg, that from this season on come out every other week between the usual Off Center episodes. In this AI update, Scott and Jhave discuss one of the venues for the More Than Meets AI exhibition at the Bergen International Film Festiv…
In this episode, Kat Mustatea joins Scott for a chat about the crossroad of technology and performance. Kat Mustatea is a playwright and technologist, and her tech-native storytelling stretches theatre into the digital age. They talk about her journey and her projects Voidopolis BodyMouth, and Lizardly in depth on t…
From this season on, the biweekly AI update with David Jhave Johnston and Scott Rettberg will come in the weeks between the usual Off Center episodes. In this first separate AI update, Scott and Jhave discuss art made in collaboration with AI for the upcoming More Than Meets AI exhibition, that will take place in Be…
Scott Rettberg and Patrick Jagoda, professor at the university of Chicago, and cofounder of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab and the Transmedia Story Lab, talk about alternate reality games and transmedia storytelling in this episode of Off Center. They talk about games Patrick has been working on. Sign up for …
In this first episode of season two, Scott is joined by David Jhave Johnston, digital poet, videographer, and motion graphics artist. Together they talk about digital poetry, cyborg authorship, and the use of AI for content creation. Sign up for the CDN newsletter here.ReferencesJohnston, D. J. 2016. Aesthetic Ani…
In this episode, Scott Rettberg is joined by immersive storyteller Caitlin Fisher, director of York University's Immersive Storytelling Lab. They discuss topics such as augmented and virtual reality, electronic literature, future cinema, and emerging technology. Sign up for the CDN newsletter here.ReferencesEastga…
Scott Rettberg is back with a new episode of the podcast Off Center. This time he is joined by Drew Keller to discuss computational creativity and storytelling in media production. Sign up for the CDN newsletter here. References Adobe Inc. 2023. Photoshop. macOS and Windows. Freedgood, Elaine. 2003. “Fine Fingers:…
Episode list and audio come from the podcast feed at build time. Artwork is held locally, so it survives the feed.
Extending Digital Narrative