Talking to Nobody: Stories from Both Sides of the Code
A podcast about the humans who need AI—and the humans who build it. Through honest, curious, and timely stories, we explore how loneliness, connection, and the search for meaning are being reshaped by the machines we talk to when no one else is listening. From everyday users seeking comfort, to engineers shaping the future, this is a journey into the human side of AI—and what it means to be heard.
“We’re witnessing a quiet revolution—where more people confide in chatbots than counselors, not because they’re better, but because they’re there.”
Chris Rhyss
Host, Talking to Nobody
The Rise of Emotional Machines
How AI is learning to listen, reflect, and respond to our emotional lives—from lonely late nights to clinical interventions.
Mental Health in the Age of Algorithms
Exploring how chatbots, data, and design are reshaping how we access support, feel understood, and manage wellbeing at scale.
Connection, Loneliness & the Digital Self
A look at the social, psychological, and ethical implications of forming emotional bonds with machines.
Building the Bots That Listen
Inside the minds of engineers, therapists, designers, and founders creating emotionally intelligent AI—from first line of code to global rollout.
Upcoming episodes (August)
Can a Chatbot Really Understand Me?
In this episode, we explore whether AI can truly grasp our emotions—or if we're simply feeling alone and projecting humanity onto machines that are designed to sound like they care.
Emotionally Intelligent AI: Just Code, or Real Care?
We dive into the mechanics of emotionally intelligent AI, unpacking how chatbots simulate empathy, what that means for mental health support, and whether code alone can ever care.
Better Than a Friend? Why People Trust Bots with Secrets
We explore why people often feel safer sharing with bots than friends, what that reveals about digital trust, and whether AI companions offer real support or just a comforting illusion.
Exploring Data, Ethics, and the Digital Couch
We explore how AI chatbots collect and use our emotional data, raising critical questions about consent, ownership, and the risks of sharing our vulnerabilities with machines.
The Loneliness Epidemic Meets the Algorithm
We dive into how AI companions are filling emotional gaps, offering comfort to the isolated while redefining what connection means in the digital age, what some call the age of isolation.
The Race to Clinical Validation: Can Chatbots Prove They Work
In this episode, Chris sits down with TBD to explore the growing demand for scientific proof that mental health chatbots deliver real, measurable benefits.
Talking to Nobody partners
The show is proudly supported by a growing network of partners committed to advancing ethical, accessible, and human-centered AI for mental health.
Meet your host...
From everyday users seeking comfort to engineers shaping the future, this is a journey into the human side of AI—and what it means to be heard. Show host Chris Rhyss is a twenty year veteran of the tech sector, a global award winning innovator, and a PhD candidate at QUT’s Digital Wellbeing Lab, where he researches how generative AI voice agents can support the mental health and emotional wellbeing of everyday people.
The show brings together the voices of consumers and industry to pull back the curtain on one of the most quietly transformative technologies of our time—conversational AI—to reveal how it’s reshaping the way we connect, cope, care, and communicate. Through real stories, expert insights, and behind-the-scenes perspectives, Chris hopes to uncover the human impact of machines designed to listen.
