AI in Podcasting & CAC Happy Hour - January Newsletter

Thanks to everyone who joined us for this months CAC zoom meeting! We had a number of new folks join us. The turnout was great and led to a very interesting discussion about the benefits and harms of using AI in our work — more on that in a moment.

Here's what's in this months newsletter:

• Some light notes from our discussion around AI in podcasting, plus a call for participants in an AI standards discussion
• Save the date for a CAC Happy Hour on 1/29 @ 5:30-7:30pm at Sleeping Village!
• Save the date for CAC's next major event on 3/29 at the Lincoln Lodge... more details coming very soon!
• Reminders from last week:
  • Submissions open for Chicago Headline Club's Watchdog Award for Public Interest Journalism
  • The Great Lakes Listening Series is calling for submissions of new works of sound art, music and audio performance
  • Check out WBEZ's new special, Becoming Bovino

AI in Podcasting

Jesse Betend reached out to us suggesting a meeting focused on the topic of AI tools and how they can, should, and shouldn't be used in podcast production.

He raised the story of the video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 facing backlash over the use of AI tools in development. There's a lot of great reporting on the story out there, but the gist is that Expedition 33 won two awards from the Indie Game Awards but were later stripped of both awards when it came to light that Expedition 33's developers had used generative AI in the development process, in violation of the Indie Game Awards strict prohibition on AI use.

The loss of awards and the ensuing backlash around Expedition 33 and a number of other similar cases raises important questions for us in the narrative and creative audio space.

To what extent, if at all, is it okay to use AI tools?

Does it aid or harm the creative process? Does its use risk turning our audiences against us?

To be candid, I've hardly ever used generative AI tools because I'm critical of the technology for a wide array of reasons (perhaps time will prove me wrong). Like most of us, I'm not neutral on the topic, but also like most of us, I agree there's a lot of room for discussion.

There were a couple main themes that stood out in our call that I think very much warrant discussion:

1. Significant concerns over AI tools being used to replace paid creative work (as is already happening with voice actors)
2. A general lack of clarity on what day-to-day tools use AI, and whether it's even possible to avoid using AI if one chooses
3. A lack of commonly understood cases/guidelines where AI use may or may not be okay (both from our employers, and in general practice across the industry)

Call for participation

More to come on this topic in the future!

Some reading/resources on AI

A number of folks on our call shared resources, readings, etc... that can help illuminate this topic. I recommend checking these out if you're interested in learning more:

• Blood in the Machine: a book and substack by Brian Merchant which includes an "AI Killed My Job" series featuring highlights on tech workers, visual design workers, and copywriters.
• Shell Game: Shell Game is a podcast and newsletter about things that are not what they seem, hosted and written by journalist Evan Ratliff. Season 2 tells the story of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the AI age. Or: how Evan tried to build a real startup, run by fake people.
• Tech Won't Save Us: A podcast which has the primary goal of providing insights about technology and the tech industry that listeners are unlikely to hear on other tech podcasts and in most tech media. By doing that, listeners can see the industry in a different light, reconsider our relationship to technology, and question the narratives we’ve been fed about it for decades.
• Segment Anything Model Audio (SAM Audio): Stephen Pate just shared this newly released tool with us. It's an open source model developed by Meta that "separates target and residual sounds from any audio or audiovisual source" using text prompts.

One more thing:

We were joined by a new person, Eman, who is looking to connect with people in the Chicago area:

"My substack user name is @heretothere and my cell is 708-696-8771. And my email is emanhaaziz@gmail.com. Hope to hear from folks."

Save the Date! CAC Happy Hour on 1/29

One of the big requests we got in our 2025 member survey was for more casual and informal opportunities to gather. For that reason, we're kicking off 2026 with a CAC Happy Hour on January 29th at Sleeping Village.

Join us from 5:30-8:30pm at Sleeping Village for a nice evening. See you there!

Reminders:

Watchdog Award for Public Interest Journalism

Each year the Chicago Headline Club’s Watchdog Award presents a cash prize to Chicago-area journalists for enterprising journalism that defends and protects everyday folks.

The award honors and encourages outstanding reporting that calls attention to situations in which the public is being harmed or poorly served by the government, institutions or businesses at any level.

Past winners exposed decades of sexual abuse complaints by lifeguards in Chicago, identified a pattern of misuse of seclusion in Illinois public schools, and used data to uncover how property tax systems disproportionately benefitted wealthy homeowners.

Check out the contest page for details — the deadline to nominate work is Friday, January 16, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.

The Great Lakes Listening Series

Great Lakes Listening Series is a new experimental listening event that presents multichannel sonic artworks within a cinema space. The inaugural program will be hosted by the Union Cinema at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, with support from the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology and the UWM Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres.

This year’s open call is for new works of sound art, music and audio performance that respond to the acoustic ecology of the Great Lakes Region.

There are no entry fees! The early deadline for submissions is January 31st!

P.S. Special thanks to Lulu Miller for sending this our way!

Chicago Audio Jobs

This is a non-exaustive list of audio related job postings in the Chicago area. It's pretty short this month, but if you've got a job to share, shoot me an email at ian@chiaudiocollective.com

• Content Producer, Vocalo at WBEZ (link)