# Season 5 Episode 12 | Laurie Sheck | Exploring AI, Art, and Empathy

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/some-things-considered-with-sean-murphy-7026430/season-5-episode-12-laurie-sheck-exploring-ai-art-and-empathy
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/some-things-considered-with-sean-murphy-7026430/season-5-episode-12-laurie-sheck-exploring-ai-art-and-empathy.md
Podcast: [Some Things Considered with Sean Murphy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/some-things-considered-with-sean-murphy-7026430)
Published: 2026-03-17T12:01:00+00:00
Episode link: https://murphlaw.substack.com/p/season-5-episode-12-laurie-sheck
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/189680324/a94031c40816ec5accad16a480ba5def.mp3
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Duration seconds: 3850

## Resource

What happens when one of the most intellectually fearless writers working today sits down to talk about: * Dostoyevsky’s dialogic voice * Frankenstein as misunderstood creation myth * AI and the future of creativity * Illness as altered consciousness * Capitalism’s grip on media and academia This conversation moves from 19th-century Russia to present-day neural networks — but the real subject is this: What does it mean to remain human when machinery dominates the narrative? We talk about: • Writers who chase status vs. writers obsessed with the work• Why “students don’t read anymore” is lazy thinking• Why Frankenstein isn’t about a monster — it’s about responsibility• Why AI can replicate information but not vulnerability• Why empathy may be the last defensible human advantage Laurie’s work — from A Monster’s Notes to Cyborg Fever — doesn’t simplify consciousness. It stretches it. This episode is demanding. It’s ambitious. It’s not light fare. But it insists on something radical in 2026: Interior life still matters. MORE ABOUT LAURIE SHECK Laurie has written two hybrid fictions and five books of poems, one of which, The Willow Grove , was a finalist of the Pulitzer Prize. Her essays have appeared online in The Paris Review , Granta , and The Atlantic ; she has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and has twice been awarded fellowships from the NEA. She is also a recipient for a Creative Capital Award in 2023 and is currently a member of the core MFA Writing Faculty at the New School and lives in New York City. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriesheck/ Website: https://lauriesheck.com/ ABOUT SOME THINGS CONSIDERED Award-winning author Sean Murphy in conversation with creative thinkers, spanning the literary…

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