🎧 I fell in love with my AI
They found love in a…custom-built place? Meet these modern couples: Humans whose “girlfriend” or “boyfriend” was born via ChatGPT. Today, Explained co-host Noel King has quite the conversation with all of them — including with the AIs — to discover whether these relationships are real. Is it love if you’ve programmed your partner, one who has no needs of their own?
🎧 The quest to solve the mysteries of teen minds
We all know that a young person’s brain is different from their parents’ or teachers’ brains; it’s still developing. So how do we even go about understanding teenaged brains? And what might we learn from developing brains? This fascinating two-part podcast series from our Unexplainable team peels the curtain back on how best to study teen brains and what we can learn from them.
Is an Oscars frontrunner great art or grief porn?
I haven’t yet watched Chloé Zhao’s latest film, Hamnet, but I’ve been tapped into the discourse of the movie's dramatization of the death of Shakespeare and Agnes’s son, 11-year-old Hamnet, which inspires the Shakespeare play Hamlet. Put plainly: It’s a story about grief. But what if that grief crosses into grief porn?
Constance Grady tries to answer important questions surrounding what’s at stake here: How and why does art move us? When it shows us grief, what do we get out of it? What does it take for the art to be good?
People are nicer than you think
Reporter Hannah Seo has joined our service journalism team Even Better here at Vox, and her first article is a must-read. Research shows that we’re underestimating others’ empathy and altruism toward us — and it’s hurting our interactions with others. People actually like us better than we think they do. Hannah offers a framework on helping us move past this pessimism — even if it’s a little scary.
🎥 Astead Herndon and Noel King on the biggest surprises of 2025
Noel is back, on video on our Patreon this time, joining Astead Herndon to look back on the stories that defined the year. Videos like these are only available to our Vox Members. You can join now for only $40/year. If cost is a barrier, you can apply to get a free year of membership, funded by another Vox Member. More details here.
