# Modem Futura: the podcast

[Modem Futura](https://modemfutura.com) is our weekly podcast — created and launched by Sean Leahy with Andrew Maynard in October 2024, and a **core output of the initiative, not outreach garnish**. In our philosophy, broadcasting done this way *is* the scholarship: sustained, trust-based public engagement with the questions that define us. We say this explicitly because lists of podcast episodes are easy to file under "media" and forget; see [Philosophy](philosophy.md) for why that would misread us.

The show's own description: a "weekly guide to the future of science, technology, and society—where futures and foresight meets real-world impact," in which the hosts "unpack how emerging technologies influence human values, creativity, and culture," inviting listeners "each week to explore possible, probable, and preferred futures" (Modem Futura RSS feed, captured 2026-08-05).

## Vital facts (established, August 2026)

- **Created and launched** by Sean Leahy, October 2024 (trailer October 1; pilot October 8), with Andrew Maynard as co-host. Sean is founder, co-host, and producer; nearly all episodes are co-hosted with Andrew (source: Leahy CV, Aug 2026).
- **Cadence**: weekly, long-form, unscripted conversation — the two hosts alone or with guests.
- **Scale**: ~100 episodes as of August 2026 (Ep 96 published 2026-08-04; Leahy CV lists 100 numbered episodes) — weekly episodes plus a trailer, a pilot (Ep 0), and Halloween bonus specials (episode index from RSS feed, captured 2026-08-05). The full run is listed in the [complete episode index](episode-index.md).
- **Formally an initiative output**: Sean Leahy's CV lists 100 numbered episodes, each cited with the attribution "In Modem Futura. Future of Being Human initiative." The podcast is credited scholarly work, not a side project (source: Leahy CV, Aug 2026).
- **Institutional description**: "a weekly podcast from Arizona State University's Future of Being Human initiative, hosted by futurist technologist Sean Leahy and initiative director Andrew Maynard … Modem Futura is a production of the Future of Being Human initiative at Arizona State University" ([futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu, 2024](https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/2024/10/09/modem-futura-podcast/)).

## What the show covers

True to the initiative's remit, the show works across the full range of technology transitions — AI dominates the current moment but does not define the catalog (see [Identity](identity.md)). Recurring territory, from the episode index (2024–2026): AI ethics, capabilities, and education; space exploration; robotics and bio-hybrid machines; synthetic biology and de-extinction; autonomous vehicles and urban air mobility; spatial computing and the metaverse; foresight methods themselves (the Futures Cone, Three Horizons, futures improv); and the stories — film, television, and science fiction — through which cultures imagine their futures. Guests include scholars, astronauts, storytellers, educators, entrepreneurs, and once, memorably, a nine-year-old.

Illustrative episodes — examples of the range, not a highlight reel (all from the episode index, captured 2026-08-05):

- **Ep 13 — "Humans in Space with Astronaut Cady Coleman"** (2025-01-07): a former NASA astronaut on life in orbit and the culture of space.
- **Ep 28 — "Beyond the Hero's Journey: AI, Protopia & the Future of Film with Taryn O'Neill"** (2025-04-22): a filmmaker and futurist on storytelling at the edge of emerging technology.
- **Ep 34 — "Living Circuits and Biofoundries: Ethics and Care of Synthetic Biology with Emma Frow"** (2025-06-03): what it takes to engineer life — and whether we should.
- **Ep 68 — "Pluribus: When Happiness Becomes the Apocalypse"** (2026-01-27): reading a new television series as a futures text — one thread of a sustained practice of taking screen stories seriously (see also Ep 31 on *Severance*, 2025-05-13).
- **Ep 74 — "The Futures Cone: Preposterous to Plausible"** (2026-03-10): teaching a foundational foresight framework in the open.
- **Ep 96 — "Sally the Robot Teacher: AI Humanoid Robots Enter the Classroom"** (2026-08-04): the most recent release as of August 2026 — AI robotics meeting education, the show's two strongest currents in one episode.

## Why a podcast: trust as method

The reasoning behind the show is documented — formally, in a federal report. The *Future Travel Foresight Catalyst* final report (Maynard & Leahy, 2025; [rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/91942](https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/91942) — note: this repository resists automated fetching; we represent its content here) names **parasocial relationship-building** as a methodological pillar: cultivating genuine audience bonds through consistency, authenticity, accessibility, and voice, so that communication is *relational* rather than *transactional*. Parasocial methods, the report argues, "can combine the reach of broadcast media with the impact of interpersonal interaction" — and trust is what "gives us permission to talk about what we know."

Andrew has made the case in his own words, publicly: "Sean and I are constantly re-evaluating what we are doing, and why, with the podcast. And the answer keeps coming down to the parasocial relationship we're building with our audience, and the permission they grant us as a result to talk about things that matter" ("Why parasocial communication around complex ideas is important," [futureofbeinghuman.com, 2025-05-25](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/p/why-parasocial-communication-is-important)) — a stance he reaffirmed after Cambridge Dictionary made "parasocial" its word of the year: "It's a concept that I practice in my own work, and still stand by" (2025-11-19).

Modem Futura is that method in practice, and the podcast served as a platform for the DOT project's transportation foresight work (episodes on autonomous driving and EVs, 2024–2025). The audience relationship is the primary outcome — the asset that everything else (ideas landing, minds changing, networks forming) is built on. The report is blunt about what this means for measurement: "a podcast with 100 deeply engaged listeners can be more influential than one with 10,000 half-listening multitaskers" (DOT report, §3, 2025). The hosts said the same on air at the one-year mark, describing why they double down on being a relational rather than transactional podcast (Ep 53, "We Turned One - plus Liquid Media, Work Slop, and the Road Ahead," 2025-10-14). This is the initiative's non-KPI stance applied to broadcasting — see [Philosophy](philosophy.md).

## Reach — texture, not justification

Consistent with that stance, we offer reach numbers as evidence of resonance, never as the case for the work:

- Heard in **88 countries** by mid-2025 (per the published DOT final report). An earlier waypoint shows the trajectory: 74 countries by May 2025 ([futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu](https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/2025/05/20/symbiotic-futures-megatrends-foresight-and-futures-thinking/)).
- A regular listenership in the hundreds-to-thousands rather than millions — deliberately valued for depth of engagement over volume (DOT report, 2025).
- Unexpected reach as lived experience: strangers around the world who turn out to be listeners (see [Philosophy](philosophy.md), "How impact actually shows up").

A note on precision: podcast analytics are notoriously slippery — figures like these are best estimates assembled from the metrics available across Simplecast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and PODSEO indexing (per Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05). We treat them accordingly: texture, held loosely.

## Experimentation at the edge of the medium

*Status: active work.* The show doubles as a laboratory for the future of the medium itself: a purpose-built studio with professional-grade audio and then video (DOT report, 2025); short-form video as a reach multiplier; and from mid-2025, episodes captured in Apple Vision Pro **spatial 3D video**, with a public gallery at [futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/spatial](https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/spatial/) and the on-air experiment beginning at Ep 35 (2025-06-10).

## Where to listen

- **Site**: [modemfutura.com](https://modemfutura.com)
- **Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube**: available on all three; linked from the [initiative's podcast page](https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/2024/10/09/modem-futura-podcast/)
- **RSS**: [feeds.simplecast.com/3frRI0HN](https://feeds.simplecast.com/3frRI0HN) (Simplecast)
- Episode companion posts appear on [seanmleahy.com](https://www.seanmleahy.com/blog) and on the [ASU site](https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/category/modem-futura-podcast/)

For the people behind the microphones, see [People](people.md).