Show Notes
trigger warning: news content (rated G) //What am I doing and why? Hi! 👋 You’ve found the JEN_AI project, some seriously experimental expression concocted by me & the AI hive mind. I’m Jenni Munroe. I work at Google but I’m currently baby-wrangling, and I’m challenging myself to learn the latest in AI & technology by messing around with the latest in AI & technology. This time - audio. We’re trying out some free speech tools. (Well, some are free, and some come at a cost. Maybe.) Thanks for reading JEN_AI! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Motivation: Visual media seems to be trending shorter (See:TikTok, if it’s not banned) while 3-hour podcasts (Joe Rogan, Diary of a CEO etc.) have taken off. I figure that if I’m writing bucketloads I should give people an option to listen to JEN_AI while doing something actually useful. Let’s talk text-to-speech. In 2016 DeepMind made WaveNet, one of the first AI models to generate smooth, natural-sounding speech from raw waveforms instead of smushing word sounds together. I started working at DeepMind in 2017 and was in awe. Hannah Fry and Zach Gleicher did a fun DeepMind podcast segment later about WaveNet, and the team digitally recreated her voice. This is now easier for anyone to do online with mere minutes of speech. I’m terrified to try it. But hey, the world is on fire (LA residents, my heart is with you) - so to hell with it. I’m trying out: * Read-alouds (just a basic recording in my own voice) * Text-to-speech (mostly using Descript - a podcast and video editor suggested by both Google Gemini and ChatGPT for ease of use and AI features including voice cloning) Anyway, talk is cheap. Free, even. Let’s go forth with courage. JEN_AI Challenge #002: Speech. // First, what are we talking about? Let’s quickly co-generate a cut of the latest edition of “NET_NEW News”, the AI newsletter we made in our first JEN_AI challenge: NET_NEW News Jan 17 2025 - Issue #002 By JEN_AI This time, new news news. // IN_CASE YOU MISSED IT Zuckerberg's Free Speech Pivot Mark Zuckerberg ditches fact-checkers for a "Community Notes" system, aiming to "restore free expression" on Facebook and Instagram. Free speech or harmful communication? It’s a balance more delicate than your phone screen. - WSJ // OUR TECH_FUTURE Biden Warns of Tech Oligarchs' Rise In his farewell address, President Biden cautions against the growing power of tech moguls like Musk and Zuckerberg, likening it to a "tech industrial complex" threatening democracy. Does absolute tech power corrupt? Absolutely - says New York Magazine // WORTHY_NEWS? Google Gemini Signs News Partner Google signed its first deal with a news publisher - The Associated Press - to provide real-time news updates through its Gemini AI chatbot. - AP News // UH_OH Australia Proposes 'News Tax' on Tech Giants The Australian government plans to introduce a levy on high-earning social media and search engine companies to compel them to pay publishers for journalism. - Financial Times Liked it? Hated it? Share a note with the community. // Ok let’s make some noise Now let’s have an AI-voice gang from Descript respond to a few ideas from the newsletters we co-created. Me, interviewer: “Tell me your wildest hopes for 2025? What did you not expect from 2024? How was the Consumer Electronics Show?” // AI Voice Gang Transcript Bradley: “Vice President Musk finally goes to Mars!”Paula: “Vice President Musk finally goes to Mars.”Alex: “Quantum got big.” Bernard: “Quantum got big.“Niall: “Quantum got big.” Ruth: “AI juiced everything.” Alright, enough surrealist poetry. And no-one but me wants lame puns about the science of the very small. NEXT. // My real voice A clip of me reading my JEN_AI blog aloud into a phone: // My AI cloned JEN_AI voice //Is it any good? Is it useful? Hmm. Well it’s uncanny. It would be great if I could use my cloned voice to auto-generate read-alouds of these blog posts. I’m not convinced that the quality of my voi
More from The JEN_AI Podcast
Links: Jenni Munroe A New York Times columnist I follow gave Facebook’s new personal-AI-agent tamagotchi (‘Muse’) $100. More than 75% of its employees are now millionaires. Director Matt Reeves had Robert Pattinson play Bruce Wayne as Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. 🎧 Listen to The JEN_AI Mixtape Find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Substack and wherever you listen to podcasts. JEN_AI Ep. 25: WealthDrip - Gamifying Financial Admin Instead of Getting Rich QuickIn episode 25 of JEN_AI, “ai, make me rich,” Jenni Munroe (ex–Google DeepMind) tries to build a money-making agent inspired by Kevin Roose giving $100 to Meta’s Tamagotchi-style AI to bet on prediction markets, but UK availability blocks tools like Meta Muse/ OpenAI Dots and ChatGPT’s finance feature. Claude steers her away from get-rich-quick plans toward monetizing JEN_AI, while Jenni foolishly tests uploading bank statements to ChatGPT and finds its advice obvious, including canceling AI subscriptions. She procrastinates by vibe-coding “WealthDrip,” a dopamine-hacked, casino-like financial to-do list that rewards completed admin with scratch-card mystery gems, and ultimately finishes her tax returns with three days to spare. The episode reflects on a lesson from the 2022 Batman movie about avoiding financial responsibilities, notes AI wealth often comes from selling AI tools (e.g., NVIDIA), and uses Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” as the soundtrack. 00:00 AI, Make Me Rich 00:32 Meet Jenni and JEN_AI 01:19 Tamagotchi Money Bet 01:59 Claude Says No 02:40 UK Feature Roadblocks 03:17 Uploading Bank Statements 04:13 Build a Tax Casino 04:49 WealthDrip Explained 05:49 Did It Actually Help 06:33 Batman Finance Lesson 07:25 Who Really Gets Rich 08:19 Nirvana Soundtrack Mood 09:02 Subscribe and Workshops 09:33 Thanks and Goodbye
JEN_AI Ep. 24: Make It ReelTrying (and Failing) to Let AI Run My Social Video Clips Jenni Munroe sets Challenge #24: turn her podcast/newsletter into short social videos people actually want to watch, while reflecting on escalating AI safety news alongside companies shipping ever more powerful models and even AI “Tamagotchis.” After hearing apocalyptic AI talk on The Rest Is Politics with Rory Stewart and Yuval Noah Harari, she attends a Canva by AI Girl Gang event that feels disconnected from the backlash, referencing a recent protest and a viral “10% probability of doom” claim from an ex-lab employee. Jenni describes her conflicted relationship with social media, a small viral boost via AI influencer Harper Carroll, and admits she posted zero reels this challenge. She reviews tools (Substack, Descript, CapCut, Gemini Omni), shares a “swarm of bees” recording mishap, and concludes she still wants AI to help people make things in a safer future. 00:00 Welcome to JEN_AI Challenge #24 01:28 The struggle is reel 02:01 AI safety whiplash 04:43 Why social still matters 07:03 Small viral win 08:35 Reel basics 10:10 AI tools for clipping 12:00 Bees and buzzkill 12:50 Theme song 13:22 Subscribe and closing
JEN_AI Episode 23: // original softwear // Turning AI Merch Into a Fashion Drop [-> SHOP THE DROP] In JEN_AI episode 23, Jen riffs on AI doom news and uses AI to turn print-on-demand merch into a parody fashion label called “Original Softwear,” joking about startup culture and “foundercore” style after deciding to replace an earlier, terrible AI-agent-made T-shirt. She contrasts the anti-fashion tech founder uniform with today’s AI and tech companies selling and giving away branded swag, noting Palantir’s $239 chore coat and other lifestyle branding. Using ChatGPT for visual brainstorming, she finds AI fast for direction but frustrating for precise, production-ready typography and assets, recommending switching earlier to tools like Canva. She builds the shop on Fourthwall, notes slim margins and limited blank quality, shares product experiments (including rejecting a water bottle), and briefly flags the ethical “original sin” of generative AI training data, promising a future episode on AI in art and design. 00:00 Original Softwear Intro 01:02 Why Make Better Merch 01:59 Founder Uniforms And Swag 03:08 Palantir Lifestyle Parody 04:20 Designs And First Reactions 05:42 Using ChatGPT For Mockups 06:33 Setting Up Fourthwall Shop 07:19 Product Rundown And Lessons 08:42 AI Original Sin In Art 10:37 Music Picks And Outro
JEN_AI Challenge #20: Join a Club - The Vibe Club & Make It Real LabJenni Munroe introduces “vibe clubs” as the summer 2026 trend and takes on JEN_AI Challenge #20, “join a club,” exploring 'club vibes' from Cannes Lions, Wimbledon, and the World Cup to startup and book-club/AI mashups. She also announces the first JEN_AI member event: an online Make It Real Lab session at The JEN_AI Vibe Club, demos of experiments, a live vibe-coding session to turn ideas into a website/app, and participant sharing. She offers alternatives to start your own vibe club, experiment solo, or join a FOUNDERCORPS cohort waitlist for a 3–4 week AI accelerator. She recounts attending a Google DeepMind/Google for Startups event at Ministry of Sound, with startup pitches, tools and frontier AI research, reflects on distribution / marketing being maybe harder than building in 2026, and describes participating in HelpBnk’s AI Squads accelerator. 00:00 Intro & What Is a Vibe Club? 01:58 JEN_AI's Vibe Club Event 08:14 Book Clubs, AI & Reese Witherspoon 09:37 Google DeepMind at the Nightclub 11:47 Diffusion Gemma Nerd-Out 13:43 AI Squads Accelerator 15:07 Soundtrack & Wrap-Up
High Agency: Building a Fake Startup with AI Agents, To Take Back Control of Your Life (JEN_AI Episode #19) Jenni Munroe uses AI agents in Claude CoWork to automate her fake startup’s idea-to-experiment workflow and questions who should be in the driver’s seat of our lives. She contrasts “high agency” with hustle culture and shares leaving a well-paid Google job via UK voluntary redundancy to regain control of her health amid parental and work burnout. She defines AI agents as multi-step, tool-using systems driven by goal-checking loops, compares Claude’s ecosystem with OpenAI and Google, and describes an agent ordering merch via browser control. Her agent setup generated pitches, plans, website mockups, outreach messages, a Substack draft, and tailored social posts for her projects like a sensory survival toolkit, while she warns about safety, security, and over-automating personal content. The episode also touches on her using some of her new-found freedom to return to aerial circus gymnastics and features Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” as the agent-chosen theme song, plus a call to subscribe and share. Full written newsletter + the 5-step AI setup → [link] Theme song: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk → The JEN_AI Mixtape Subscribe (free) so the next experiment lands in your inbox. 00:00 Who's in the driver's seat? 00:59 What Is JEN_AI? 02:08 High Agency: A Thought Piece 03:53 Burnout and Leaving Google 06:42 AI as Leverage Not Saviour 08:28 What Counts as an Agent? 10:15 Building a Fake Startup 12:22 Automation Ethics and Safety 14:40 Aerial Circus Embodiment 15:28 Bots Pick the Theme Song 16:23 What Next