In conversation with Merv Emre on The Critic and Her Publics
Welcome to season four of The Critic and Her Publics: The Art of the Interview. This season, host Merv Emre talks to professional interviewers of all types about how they get the answer they’re looking for, what makes a good question, how do you hear what’s unsaid, and how much pressure do you have to put on someone before they say something new?
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From the episode: “In late 2022, I saw novelist Shelia Heti give a presentation on her interactions with early AI chatbots. Their names were Eliza, Alice, and George, and they had wild, undisciplined opinions about art, self-interest, and God. It seemed natural for Shelia to talk to them: For several years, she had been an interview editor the believer and his novels motherhood And pure color Featured narrators who ask difficult questions of non-human entities like the I Ching or a leaf on a tree. A few months after OpenAI released ChatGPT-5, Sheila and I talked about the role of interviews at a time when human thought and emotions are being overpowered by artificial intelligence and whether machines can help us unlock the mysteries of consciousness.
for one full transcriptgo towards New York Review of Books.
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Critic and his public
Hosted by Merv Emre • Edited by Michelle Moses • Music by Dani Lencioni • by art
Leanne Shapton • Alfred A. Sponsored by Knopf
Critic and his public is a co-production between the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of BooksAnd Lit Hub.
