AISW Interview Guest FAQ
“OK, I’m curious (or interested, or onboard, …) to be featured as an “AI, Software, & Wetware” interview guest. Can you talk me through the interview process?”
Sure!! I’m excited to hear about your experiences and stories with using AI 😊 Let’s try this FAQ format and see if it answers your questions - if not, DM me!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Are these written, audio, or video interviews?
These interviews can be published either written-only or audio with written transcript. No video.
Some interview guests have asked to have a live Zoom discussion with me, to have a more engaging and interactive conversation, but without publishing the audio - I publish just the transcript. This ‘hybrid’ interview is totally fine too.
2. Where will my interview be published?
AISW interviews are published online in the People section of the newsletter on Substack. Newsletter subscribers will get the interview via email and/or via the Substack app.
I will also post a link to the Substack article in a LinkedIn newsletter edition (“AI, Software, and Wetware” on LinkedIn). Subscribers to this newsletter will be notified by LinkedIn about the new edition with your interview.
3. If I want to publish as audio, will my voice recording be shared on external podcasts, or only on Substack?
Whatever you prefer. It’s easy (and slightly less work for me) to only have the audio voiceover on Substack and not share it externally, if you like. Just let me know.
4. How many interviews have you done so far?
These AISW interviews started on August 1, 2024. For all but 1 week since then, I have published 2 interviews per week - usually one written only on Monday, and one audio+written on Thursday.
As of Sept. 29, 17 are published, 7 more are finished and queued to be published, and more are in the works. You can find the full list, with links, here:
5. What’s the time window for me to do an interview?
Flexible. There’s no set end date for this series. I’ve adapted to people’s schedules around travel, school, family commitments, work and writing commitments, conferences, etc. Let me know what works for you.
If you have an upcoming event you’d like to publicize as part of your interview (conference presentation, online publication, book launch, etc.), let me know and I’ll do my best to align the publication date of your interview.
6. Can I be anonymous?
Absolutely! We’ve already published several completely anonymous interviews, and have several more ready to come out. You can be totally anonymous, partially anonymous, use an alias, share only a small amount of demographic information … whatever works for you.
Anonymous interviews are written only (no audio), for obvious reasons. No pictures are required; we can use the standard interview series photo (shown at the end of this article).
7. Can I be credited?
Absolutely! Most of our interviews to date are credited. Also:
If you’re a Substacker, I’ll add you as an additional Writer on the post (you just have to accept). This will make the interview article show up automatically in your Substack profile, and Substack will include your bio at the bottom of the article. I will also “at” you in the Note that I’ll post with a link to your interview.
If you’re on LinkedIn, I’ll “at” you in the LinkedIn newsletter edition (“AI, Software, and Wetware” on LinkedIn) and when I share the newsletter link on LinkedIn.
If you have your own newsletter (Substack or LinkedIn), website, blog, upcoming book, speaking event, etc., we can include those links in the article.
You’re welcome to reshare the Substack interview link on your own site, blog, etc.
Profile pictures are optional; you can also share artwork or some other photo, or we can use the standard interview series photo (at the end of this article).
8. Can I see the interview questions before I commit?
Absolutely! Here they are. You can also see the questions in the already-published interviews 😉
As you’ll see, I have 10 standard questions that I ask, and an 11th “anything else” question where we can explore any other AI- or data-related topic you like.
Once you commit to the interview, I’ll make you your own editable copy of the file in my Google Drive, and we can collaborate there. (Just DM me with a Google email address that works for this purpose.) You can “at” me in the document if you have questions, or I’ll post follow-up questions or clarifications and “at” you.
9. How detailed do my draft answers to the interview questions need to be?
That depends on whether your interview is written only, or written + audio.
Obviously, if you opt for a written interview, your answers have to be fully detailed - that’s what we’ll publish. :)
If we agree on an audio interview, the draft answers don’t have to be fully written out to the word. They can be, if you like. Some guests like to write everything out. Others prefer writing bullets. Some folks like to mostly read their draft answers during the audio recording. A few audio interview guests have preferred to talk “off the cuff” without writing much in advance. My experience has been that, if we’re going to record audio, the interview will go much more smoothly, and overall will use less of your and my time, if we’ve taken the opportunity to collaborate and iterate on the answers in advance. Most riff at least a little bit on what they wrote during our audio call 😊 which is totally fine.
10. What happens if my words don’t come out right while I’m talking, or there’s a background noise? Or I say something that I later realize I don’t want to go into the interview?
No worries. During our call, just pause and say ‘strike that’ or ‘let me try that again’ and do a retake. Or just pause and repeat the part you want to replace. (You’ll probably hear me do this, too. 😊)
If we’re going to publish the audio, I’ll take care of retakes in audio editing before creating the transcript. If we’re only doing the audio call to generate a written transcript, I’ll handle retakes when editing the text.
After the call, you’ll have a chance to flag sections to cut when you review.
11. What happens to the audio recording after our call?
I do some cleanup on the audio file to handle ‘retakes’ and remove ums and such. I want both of us to sound good and be proud of the interview :)
I create a secret Substack draft post and attach the MP3 file to it.
I use an ethical shoestring tool to generate a transcript from the MP3.
I edit the transcript a bit to fix obvious errors (such as mis-spelled names of people, companies, or tools like ‘ChatGPT’).
I paste the transcript back into our Google Drive doc, along with a link to the secret Substack draft post, and let you know it’s ready for your review.
You review the doc and the MP3 file, and mark the transcript to flag any parts you may want to cut, or fix any incorrect words in the transcript.
What happens next depends on whether you want to publish the audio of your call.
Audio+Written: If you want some cuts to it, I do another editing pass on the MP3, and update the transcript to match.
Written only: I detach the MP3 from the Substack draft.
These last two steps apply to both written and written+audio posts:
Once we’re agreed on the text / transcript in the Google doc, I paste the text into the Substack draft post, format it, and add links and photos you may provide.
You review the Substack draft post. When you give me the thumbs-up, I schedule it for publication.
12. I’m an artist. Can I include photos of my artwork?
Yes, that would be awesome! Also, if you have an online portfolio, or you’ve created videos, or have a podcast, … we can definitely include those links in your interview.
You might want to consider using Nightshade or Glaze on the photo image file(s) to ‘poison’ AI scrapers from using it. (This is worth considering for anywhere online that you would post an image or work you created, not just Substack or this interview). Interview guest Roberto Becchini did this with his drawing photo (his interview will go live on Oct. 3).
13. Will an AI tool be allowed to train on what I say in my interview?
I have Substack configured to block AI models from training on content I post to my newsletters. So in theory, no, AI tools cannot train on our interview content.
However, I’ve seen reports about unethical AI bots that don’t respect that setting. (Substack warns us writers about this, even though there’s not much they can do to prevent it.)
If you have any concerns about your interview words potentially being available on the internet, or accessible to (unethically scraped by) third party AI, let’s talk. If needed, I can find another way to tell your AI stories.
14. What if I can’t talk about work?
I totally understand the need for work confidentiality. And we absolutely do not want to discuss or share anything that would infringe on anyone’s personal or corporate rights or privacy.
If necessary, we’ll just focus on AI / ML experiences outside of work. We ALL have them nowadays if we're online at all, have a cell phone, ... See:
(This article is a work in progress - more Q&A to be added)
🤔What other questions do you have that I can answer?
