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The Story: How Science Fiction Changes the Real World
30 minutes Posted Jan 14, 2026 at 11:00 am.
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Eliot Peper gets paid to dream about the future. He’s a science fiction writer who has stumbled into an unusual position: writing speculative fiction for Fortune 500 companies. He is also the Head of Story at Portola, which is an AI-companion company. Eliot is responsible for developing a whole new alien culture and forming the personalities of your new favorite AI creature. Karah and Eliot discuss the overlap between art and AI, what science fiction reveals about our current reality, and how he uses storytelling to help create ethical AI companions.

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