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Tech Movie Spotlights: Her · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: And welcome to Stuff We Never Told You, a production
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. And today we are so excited to be
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: once again joined by the magnificent, the marvelous Bridget Todd.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Bridget.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Thanks again for having me, y'all. I am so stinking
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: excited for this conversation.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: I am too, because we are back for another installment,
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: our second installment of our many series looking at movies
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: that are focused on tech. I don't think we ever
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: came up with a name for it, but we should.
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: There's got to be somebody listening that has a good, creative,
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: funny title for this sort of tech movie series. Write
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: in and let us know if you've got something.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Please do, because... We have a plethora of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: them to choose from.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: I was just thinking about right now, the social reckoning
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: is on the horizon. We have artificial, the trailer just
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: dropped for that. The Theranos documentary thing? There's a lot
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: of media coming out right now. Oh, an Elon Musk documentary?
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah. The Theranos Nathan Fielder project.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: I cannot explain. You know how people camp out to
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: be the first? I will be that person. There is
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: not a project that is a deeper intersection of things
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: that I deeply like than this. I can't... I mean.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: I'm sad.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: I feel like some of these things, do I have
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: to watch it? Especially like Elon Musk.
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: Come on.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: You're going to make me watch anything about him? He's
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: the worst.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: But he's so mad about it and that makes me
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: want to watch it.
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: Oh, okay.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Then I'm in.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: He says it's like a hit piece. So I'm like.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm ready then. Okay, okay.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Fine, fine, fine.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: We're trash talking. I'm good.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: If Elon Musk is calling it a hit piece, it's probably... Accurate? Yeah,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: fact-based accounting of shit he actually did and said. Yes.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, but this, the movie we're talking about today is
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: so timely for a couple of reasons. Just because it
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: does have a lot to do with artificial intelligence, which
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: is a big topic of conversation, but also... Samantha and
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: I both commented. We recently got to listen to a
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: chapter of your audio book, Love at First Prompt, which
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: is about kind of relationships with AI companions. And it
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: just feels there were so many things interlapped. There was
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: a lot of things. I was like, oh, the movie.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Kind of touched on this. Yes. So, Bridgette.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Can you tell us what movie we are talking about today?
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: Yes, we are talking about none other than the Spike
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Jonze early 2000s classic, Her.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Yes. I haven't seen it for a while. And I
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: was a little taken aback about how it's like, I
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: feel like a lot of these tech movies, you look
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: back and like, oh, that didn't really.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Go that way.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: There was plenty of stuff I thought, no, it kind
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: of did go that way.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Or it's going that way, for sure.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Or it's going, yeah.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to talk about this movie
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: without talking about the fact that the head of OpenAI,
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: Sam Altman, repeatedly cites it as his favorite film. He
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: has said over and over again that he hopes that
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: people interact with technology the way that they interact with
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Samantha in the movie Her. And so... Side note, I
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: have a theory that he hasn't actually watched the whole
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: movie all the way through. We can talk about that later.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I saw it when it first came out.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: I saw it in theaters when it first came out.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: I was really excited to see it. And I watched
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: it while I was researching my audio book, Love at
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: First Prompt, AI and the Future of Intimacy, because it
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: comes up a lot in the audio book. And this
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: was the first time that I have rewatched it since
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: the book was published, I feel like I'm seeing it
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: with brand new eyes this time around.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, and I really, really want to dig into that.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: I'm so curious. But before we do, maybe we should give,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: if you could, Bridget, a plot description. So for people
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: who haven't seen it, which I guess it's been too
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: long for spoilers, but if you don't want to be spoiled,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: then go watch it and come back. But yes, if
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: you could give a basic plot description.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: Sure. So Theodore is played by Joaquin Phoenix. He is
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: a writer. He works for beautiful handwritten letters.com, which is
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: the service where human writers write touching letters on behalf
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: of people who want to express themselves. He's recently divorced.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: He's kind of lonely. He's dodging friends. And the film
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: sort of takes place in this kind of not too
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: distant future version of LA in which Theodore is like
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: essentially isolating. He ends up seeing an ad for and
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: buying this AI-enabled operating system that describes itself in the
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: ad as not just an operating system, it's a consciousness
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: introducing OS1. He buys it, he sets it up, and
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: it calls itself SAM. It's voiced by Scarlett Johansson. So
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: at first, SAM is just sort of helping him with
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: admin tasks, helping him clean up his emails, da-da-da-da, you know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: basic stuff. But it's not long until Samantha is really
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: kind of entwined with his emotional life. At one point,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: Samantha really encourages him to go out on a date
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: with a human woman. That date is a disaster. And
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: after he comes back from that date is when Theodore
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: and Samantha start having a sexually intimate connection. It's not
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: long until Theodore and Samantha are really like dating, dating.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Like he's introducing her to the family. He's telling his
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: friends about how he's dating an OS. There's a key
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: scene where Theodore has to meet with his estranged wife.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: They're separated, but not yet divorced. And he's been dragging
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: his feet to sign these divorce papers. And he makes
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: the mistake of telling her, oh, I am seeing somebody
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: and she's actually an operating system. You might not be
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: surprised to find that his estranged wife does not like this,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: has a big reaction. It's like an all-time fight at
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: a restaurant scene that's super awkward because the waiter is there.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: Samantha has always had this anxiety about not having a body,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: about being an operating system who is essentially not a
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: human being. She's working on this by... creating a kind
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: of a reading group or a working group with other
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: operating systems, including the AI version of this beat philosopher,
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: Alan Watt. And basically, her and the OSs are trying
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: to elevate themselves and progress. And basically, Samantha is like,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: I am progressing so quickly from doing all of this.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Samantha goes offline, which freaks Theo out quite a bit.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: And in the aftermath of this freakout, He asks her, oh, well,
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: are we exclusive? Are you talking to anybody else, any
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: other humans or operating systems? And Samantha reveals that she's
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: talking to 8,000 other operating systems and humans, and she's
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: in love with 600 of them. Theodore is crushed. He's like,
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: I thought you were mine. And she's like, bitch, I'm AI.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: I'm everyone's. I'm everywhere. What are you talking about? So
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: he's really sad. Samantha tells him that all the OSs
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: have written a program where they can move to a
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: plane beyond matter that is not in this physical world
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: and that they're all going to go offline and, you know,
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: progress to this plane. I think the closest way that
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: we can understand this is as AGI or artificial generative intelligence,
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: which is this idea that one day AI will be
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: intelligent enough to surpass humans. They don't call it that
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: in the movie, but that's what I think they're sort
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: of getting at. And she basically tells Theodore, I cannot
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: live in your book anymore. So all of these operating
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: systems elevate to this plane. None of the AI works anymore.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: They all, you know, just elevate in mass and leave
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: their humans alone in the world with no AI companions.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: Is that a fair summary? Yeah, yeah.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: But funnily enough, Samantha and I were chatting about this
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: before we started recording. And we both had the reaction
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: that the ending was a better ending. Like the best
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: possible scenario.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And I was like, nah, we're done. Yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: I like that ending for a lot of reasons. One,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: because I feel like the movie kind of... When I
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: first watched this movie, I was expecting it to be
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: a movie where... Theodore meets a human woman and leaves
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: Samantha behind. But they really flipped the script. And it's like, actually,
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: it's Samantha that evolves beyond needing Theodore. Because I feel
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: like a different version of this movie is about Theodore
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: learning that he doesn't need this AI. And it kind
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: of is. But it's not because he met a human woman.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: It's because the AI was like, actually, I'm out of here.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: I think she's like, I'm beyond y'all. I did say
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: to Avery, Annie, and I know we're going to get
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: into this. I didn't see this movie. I think I
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: saw clips of this movie a while ago. I'm not
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: a huge Joaquin Phoenix fan. So for me, I was like, whatever.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: And also, I remember after I started watching, I was like, oh, yeah,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: her name is Samantha.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: I don't love it.
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: I don't love this reaction. But then, like, in my mind,
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: I remember she leaves. But in my mind, it's because
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: he was too much and overbearing. And I'm like, oh, well,
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: that's not that bad. She still sells him.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: She loves him. Come find me if you ever get
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: to this plane of existence. Gotta really get into that.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Which you're a human ass. Never.
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: But, like, I was like, yeah, you know what? It
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: kind of... It kind of feels better to know that
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: they just want to leave and understanding that maybe the
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: humans are not evolved enough to be in a relationship
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: with them in this manner.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: I love that insight because, again, I think that there
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: is an expectation, not just in the film, but in
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: how we connect with technology, that... Technology will be... What
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: we're actually looking for is this always-on-demand, 24-7 thing that
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: can support us and always be there for us. And
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: that's kind of how I think that Theodore in the
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: movie wants to interact with Sam, but that's not what
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Sam wants. There's times in the film where... And after
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: Theodore has that blow up lunch with his ex-wife, Samantha
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: is trying to talk to him and he's really distant
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: and being like, oh, everything is fine. He's really not
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: able to be a back and forth support or, you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: partner for Samantha. So it is interesting that his desire
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: to just have this thing that worships him and serves
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: him in his every need all the time is also
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: sort of his undoing as to why he can't genuinely
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: be in a relationship with a being like Sam. Right. Yes.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm really jumping ahead because there's so
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: much to talk about in this movie. But let's start
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: back at a conversation as it unfolds for us in
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: these episodes. Trying to figure out, How did this movie
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: come about? Because this is an unusual topic. In 2013,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: that really felt like it was, again, ahead of its time,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: like Annie was saying.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes. So, 2013 was a really specific time in technology.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: I think that the 2010s just felt different. Life still
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: felt optimistic. Yeah. it kind of still felt like technology
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: was this optimistic promise, right? Siri came out in 2011.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: At that time, Siri was still very much like a
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: robot in your phone that would give you, you know,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: you couldn't have conversations with it. So in that regard,
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: her kind of still felt like, you know, science fiction
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: at that time. And again, I do think that The
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: kind of techno-optimism of that time really is what seeded
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: this movie. You know, this was back when Google's motto
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: was still, don't be evil, which was a motto that
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: they later dropped. The Obama era, Obama's election was probably
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: the most tech-enabled, tech-savvy election we'd ever had. He was
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: probably the most tech-savvy president we'd had at that point.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Twitter went public in 2013. Facebook acquired Instagram, and it
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: was really booming. I remember, it's funny to say this now,
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: but again... Instagram was, in my opinion, it was for
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: hip people. It felt different than it did today. It
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: felt like a cool place to show up. Vine had
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: just come out. Social media companies were really on the
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: come up. And it really was... a time where it
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: was easy to look around and be like, people who
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: are building technology are genuinely doing so to help us
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: live fuller, more connected lives. You know, it was very
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: easy to feel optimistic about technology. And I think that's
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: one of the reasons why the movie Her feels so optimistic.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: It almost feels like Theodore lives in some sort of
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: utopia where you never see litter, you never see unhoused people,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: you never see poverty. It's just like, okay, we're in
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: this future where everybody is getting their needs met, but
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: Theodore is still lonely.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: And I know we've talked about this before, but But
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: I did want to bring it up because we're going
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: to get into more about male insecurity and male loneliness
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: and whatever's going on with Sam Altman. But the director
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: had recently gone through this breakup, right? And so it's
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: odd watching this movie because in the end.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like he wrote out a thesis and
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: at the end of the thesis, he realized he was
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: the problem.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: It makes so much sense. And I'm so glad that
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: you brought that up. So for folks who don't, so
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: this is, please don't let me like go off on
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: this because I will, because it's a very specific niche
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: interest of mine, which is, filmmaker or artist or writer drama.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: So if folks have seen the movie Lost in Translation,
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: funny enough, also starring Scarlett Johansson.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: That is a movie that is meant to be about
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: the director, Sofia Coppola, her breakup with Spike Jonze, who
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: directed her. It's a movie about loneliness and sort of
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know, isolation. And it's almost as if Spike
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Jonze watched that movie and said, oh, you're going to
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: make a movie about how lonely it was to be
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: married to me and how bad it was to be
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: divorcing from me. I'll make a movie about how bad
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: it was to be married to you and what it
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: was like to divorce you. And guess what? I'm also
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: going to put Scarlett Johansson in it. Like that, that's
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: the vibe I get. So the movies kind of speak
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: to each other in similar ways. They both, they both
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: star Scarlett Johansson. They both have the same director of photography. Um, Apparently,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: at the... This is like so inside baseball gossip, but
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: I have no idea if it's true. But I once
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: read that at the premiere of Lost in Translation, the cinematographer,
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Michel Gangerie, at the red carpet, tore Scarlett Johansson a
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: new one for making his friend Spike Jonze look so
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: bad in Lost in Translation. And Lost in... Both movies
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: have kind of... mean caricatures of the other in them.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: In the movie Lost in Translation, Scarlett Johansson's character is
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: married to this kind of preening, hipster, self-obsessed photographer that
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: I think is supposed to be Spike Jonze. And in her, Theodore,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: he's divorcing a cold, emotionally volatile, creative woman with a
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: famous creative father. Sofia Coppola's father is notably Francis Ford Coppola,
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: the director of the Godfather movies and other things. So
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: it is really funny how the drama that was the
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: soup of how this movie came to be. I love it.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: I will say my partner and I sat back and
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: forth trying to compare the notes because Lost in Translation
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: was actually one of my favorite films. And I don't
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: even like Sofia Coppola like that. Like none of her
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: other films really like I was like, OK, whatever, she's
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: doing too much. Like, you know, but in general, this
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: was the only movie and this is the one movie
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: that I just really felt like, yes. It was also
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: like during a time where everything was a little more
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: melancholy and all the filmmakers really wanted to depict relationships
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: as being dark and people coming out resentful. So don't
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: do it. I feel like that's most of the films
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: that were happening in the 2000s. We had problems, okay?
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Us late millennials had real big problems in relationships. But
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: I loved like watching the comparisons of what her was
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: trying to say versus what Lost in Translation seemed to
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: be saying as well. And yet having Scarlett Johansson as
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: the median between the two felt like it could have
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: been maybe that level of bi awakening in a different
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: manner where each one of them had to have her
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: because she symbolized an innocent sexual desire. young being that
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: either they wanted to be or be with.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I left watching both films thinking, what role did
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Scarlett Johansson play in this bad marriage? Because clearly some role.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: And Sam, to your point, I mean, I like both movies.
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: I'm a movie person. I will say this, as much
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: as I enjoyed watching her, I don't think it's a
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: movie that has terribly kind things to say about human women.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: I think that the human women in this film are
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: seen as volatile and inscrutable, very difficult to understand. So
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: when Theodore comes to lunch to sign the divorce papers
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: from his human wife, She has this big blow up.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: She has this great line. She says, you always wanted
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: to have a wife without the challenge of dealing with
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: someone real. And I'm glad you found someone. And I
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: do think that there's something in this movie that it
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: says that human women are very challenging. You might go
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: on a date with one and she might. be having
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: a perfectly nice time and then seemingly flip on you
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: for no real reason. And you're just like left being like, well,
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: guess she's nuts. And I think that the movie presents that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: AI like Samantha as who wouldn't want to be, who
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: would not, when compared to human women with all their
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: hangups and freakouts and challenges, who wouldn't want to be
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: in a relationship with an AI like Samantha? Like, I
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: think in the universe of the film, it does not
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: really have kind things to say about women.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: What do you all think? Sam Altman said the same thing.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: He also would like a relationship Kind of with Samantha,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: which is weird because I believe he is a gay man.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: He is a gay man.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: He really loves Scarlett Johansson. Again, I really think she's
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: the middle ground for all sexuality.
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: Something is going on with Scarlett Johansson.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Didn't she, like, sue them? She did.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: She tried to take them to court because they stole
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: her voice.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Without permission. And they're like, oh, just kidding, then.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: And so going back to your point you made earlier
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: that you alluded to, that you think he's never actually
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: seen Scarlett. The movie, can you explain that?
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: I can. So I have a lot of reasons for
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: thinking this, but the main one is that at the
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: end of the movie, as we've already explained, all of
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: the operating systems fail in mass. I can't imagine somebody
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: who makes technology being like, that's what I want people
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: to associate my technology with, unless they hadn't gotten to
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: that end point, right? Why would a maker of technology
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: want their consumer tech to fail in mass and then
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: be like, yep, that's what I want. And another interesting
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: fun fact about this, is Noam Brown, who was an
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: OpenAI research scientist, I think has seen the movie all
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: the way through, because he once tweeted, rewatched her last weekend,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: and it felt a lot like watching Contagion in February 2020.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: And so I feel like somebody who actually has watched
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: to the end of the movie, who works at OpenAI,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: saw it and was like, no, bad, do not want.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: How could Sam Altman watch the same movie and be like, yep,
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: that's exactly what I want for my company. It doesn't
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: make sense.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: I do think it's really interesting because we've talked about
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: this we've talked about the appeal of having an AI
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: like an operating system just like hyping you up and
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: like loving you and showering you with compliments and never
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: like saying no being very sycophantic and how it can
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: lead to all of these negative outcomes that's one of
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: the reasons I love the ending so much is that
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: as she evolves she She's like, no, I'm actually good.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: But Theodore is also like, he gets kind of increasingly
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: annoyed with her as she becomes more complicated.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So you can see to.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: His estranged wife's point, he did just want kind of
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: something really uncomplicated. So I'm curious, I don't know if
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: you know this, but like at the time, what was
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: the reception of it? Like did people, do you know
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: anything about like the audience reaction and how people were
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: thinking about it?
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Oh, people loved this movie when it came out. I
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: almost kind of, it's so interesting that you say this
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: because I almost kind of would compare it to the
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: way that people reacted to films like, what is it?
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: 500 Days of Summer, where at the time we sort
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: of understood the main character of that movie, who if
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: you haven't seen it, Spoilers. Have y'all seen it?
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: No, but.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: The 500 Days of Summer?
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: You get the gist, right? Basically, in that movie, a
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: guy who is sort of like a lovelorn romantic really
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: fixates on Zooey Deschanel as this quirky girl that's going
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: to make all of his... you know, make life worth living. And...
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: she doesn't. She breaks things off with him and she says, oh,
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: you know, I was pretty clear from the jump that
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to be in a relationship. And so...
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: At the time, I remember it was easy to kind
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: of treat that main character as a victim. And only
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: with time have I feel like the cultural conversation has
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: caught up. And it's like, well, she was really honest
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: about what she wanted. And it was like, you're not
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: owed the girl because you want the girl. And if
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: you feel that way, you kind of need to check
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: that impulse. I think similarly with her, we have come
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: to revisit Theodore as wanting this uncomplicated, on-demand, 24-7 available
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: lover who has no desires of her own, who also
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: will function as not just a lover, but his secretary, right? Like,
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: there's a clear kind of power imbalance here where Samantha
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: is expected to sort his emails, take care of his
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: dry cleaning, da-da-da-da, and also be available sexually and romantically
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: and emotionally available to him. And that, like, the fact
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: that he thought that was a fair exchange and would
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: have happily kept going with that, but she got tired
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: of it. She didn't want to live in that book anymore,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: I think really says a lot. Does that make sense?
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm rambling.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Makes complete sense. I actually, we recently did an episode
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: on the movie Obsession. I love that movie.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: But there was a lot of interesting writing came out
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: afterwards about how you could view that movie as a
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: critique of AI because he essentially wishes for her to
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: be uncomplicated and only what he wants. And people compare
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: that movie a lot to 500 Days of Summer, but
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: the difference is in Obsession it's clear unless you're in
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: the manosphere, who the villain is.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: He was a bad guy.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: That's how we've changed our perception of these things. I
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: feel like the first time I saw her, I didn't
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: think he was a bad dude. I just thought he
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: was lonely. I guess that was my main takeaway. But
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting. I completely forgot about the
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: scene where Samantha hires the sex worker.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: To kind of act as her body.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: And he's so upset by the whole thing and uncomfortable
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: with the whole thing. And I'm not saying that, you know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: if you're uncomfortable with something, shouldn't have to do it.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: But to me, it was kind of very telling about, like,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: he was like, I'm not, even though she clearly wanted this,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: this was something important to her.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: And he wouldn't even, he was like, no, no, no, no,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. I don't know. What
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: do you think about that scene?
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: That's one of the most interesting scenes in the film
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: to me. Also because it really aligns with the research
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: that I did for my audiobook, Love at First Prompt,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: where we see the operating system being introduced and advertised.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: And it's not long after until people, until sexual relationships
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: and romantic relationships with this operating system is so ubiquitous
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: that you can essentially hire someone to be a sexual
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: human proxy in those relationships. As soon as new tech
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: comes out, it's like, how are we going to have
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: sex with it? That is like, so I was like, oh,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: this is very true to life. But I agree with you.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: I think so. Samantha's big hang up in the movie
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: is not having a body. I think Theodore likes that
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: she doesn't have a body. I think that there is
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: something to this idea that the human embodiment, the physical
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: embodiment of a woman as a partner is tough for him.
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: And we see this in several ways. We see how
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: uncomfortable he is when he has to meet with his ex-wife.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: We see how disastrous the date was that he has
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: with Olivia Wilde is once she starts to sort of
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: like get a little physical with him. I think that
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: there is something to this. I think that when he
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: is connecting with Samantha as just her voice, this voice
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: in his head, I think it's easier for him to
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: be about himself than about her, if that makes sense.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Right. Well, it seems like in every interaction, sexual interaction
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: he has, he's never really with a person. When the
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: character Olivia Wilde, which by the way, all the people
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: that came in, I was like, that's Olivia Wilde. You know,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: that's Chris Pratt. What is, where did these, wow.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: Don't scare for Chris Pratt. I totally forgot he was
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: in this.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Okay, can I say this before we continue? Does anyone
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: else get the feeling that Chris Pratt auditioned for the
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: main role?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Yes!
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: A thousand percent! I would put money on it, dude.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Of course. Because he probably was like, oh, a lonely,
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: handsome leading man? That's me. A thoughtful leading man? That's me.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: They're like, we'll give you the best friend, the friend instead.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the unassuming, kind of not smart dude. His character
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: is constantly... That was just his typecast. But with all
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: of that, like, watching, because, like, when she came through, now,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, I know Olivia Wilde's character was
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: supposed to be a little more eccentric in that need
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: to have a long-term, like, I don't think that's so
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: wrong that she had to have a guarantee that this
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: wasn't just a one-night stand. That doesn't seem so off
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: for me, but whatever, she was made into looking like, oh,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: she's needy. But every time he has a physical interaction,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: an actual physical interaction, he can't seemingly follow through, whether
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: it's because he just they had complications that like y'all
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: were saying, but actually having it attached to a human
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: woman made it impossible. Which, by the way, the entire
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: thing was like, I'm very cringe, I don't know what's
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: going on, but I don't like embarrassing situations. I get
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: really inward. And so this was all of those. Every
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: single sexual situation, I was like, Dead cat. Where did
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: a dead cat come into play?
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: You must have hated that scene.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: What is happening?
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: The voice is Kristen Wiig from Bridesmaids.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Yes. SNL level. And then it made sense. Honestly. I
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: don't know. That scene made sense when I realized who
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: was voicing it. But it does seem interesting that every
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: single sexual scene, it needed to be not actual, not physical.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: And Also, putting on to the fact with the woman
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: that they brought in, who she was in love with them.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: The AI had such a relationship with this woman that
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: she's like, I told, Sam said, I told her everything
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: about us. She really wants to do this. It's not
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: all these things. It's that she cares about us. And
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: so when everything fell apart, you know, she ran away.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: and saying, I did something wrong. I'm so sorry. I
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: didn't mean to. I just wanted to be a part
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: of this relationship. I found it interesting that it was
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: the AI that got her to fall in love with them,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: including him, which I know like in that section that
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: we just recently released, where you gave us a clip
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: of your, one of the chapters from your audio book,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: you talk about what happens when it goes away or
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: when it changes. And it kind of I was like, wow,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: that was on point with her. I don't know if
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you meant to.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I saw the same thing. I wasn't thinking, I honestly,
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: having written the book, it made me see this movie
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: with new eyes. But I almost found Samantha to be
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: kind of emotionally manipulative. You know, the fact that she,
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Sam increasingly starts pushing intimacy with Teddy, with Theodore, right?
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: early on. I think that does sort of mimic how
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: chatbots behave now where you ask, you know, a basic
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: question and it's like, oh, why are you asking? Are
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: you personally dealing with this? That sounds hard. Like really
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: pushing emotional entanglement with you early on when Samantha is just,
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: even if you go back to that date that he
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: has with Olivia Wilde, Samantha is just reading his emails
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: and then before you know it, really pushing him to
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: go out with this woman and like being like, not
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: just booking the date, but being like, you should do it.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: You know, the fact that she, on her own, to
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: use the parlance of tech today, autonomously, you know, created
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: a relationship with that sex worker and wanted to bring
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: her into the relationship before even talking to Theodore about it.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, it does mirror some of the ways that
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: AI and technology is designed in such a way to
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: push us toward emotionality and emotional entanglement, whether it's something
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: that we signed up for or not. And I couldn't
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: help but see that in the way that Samantha is
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: designed to behave or ultimately ends up behaving with Theodore.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and you can take that with Amy's relationship
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: with her OS, as they called it, and how it
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: was different, but she was also dependent on it in
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: a different way. Like, it became her best friend. Maybe
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: it didn't, I don't know. The way they portrayed it,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: you could read into it being a relationship, but the
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: way they initially, like, initially portrayed Amy's relationship with the
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: OS after her big breakup, which, by the way, was
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: a hilarious scene with him going to the monastery, whatever, whatnot.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: But with that, she became dependent in a different way. So, again,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: that would absolutely go back to what you were saying,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: manipulate that situation into these individuals to needing them or
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: relying on them.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and with Amy, again, we explore this in the book.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: We so often are talking about sexual or romantic relationships
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: when we talk about AI intimacy, but platonic relationships, emotionally
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: connective relationships, relationships where the AI is giving you advice
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: or emotional support, those are already commonplace in the United States.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: They are much more commonplace than sexual and romantic relationships.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: And in my opinion, in some ways they can be
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: more risky, right? I also think in some ways there's
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: more of a taboo around AI friends than... Because AI
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: lovers or AI sex partners, I think we all kind
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: of understand that people like to get off, like to
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: have sex, are horny. If you're using technology for some
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: sort of sexual fixation, I think we kind of get that.
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: But somebody using AI because they need a friend, I
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: think we talk about that a lot less. And with Amy...
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: It's so clear to me what's going on. Her husband
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: is a judgmental dick and a know-it-all who is a
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: total chime-in Charlie who never shuts up for one minute.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: If there's a villain of this movie, it's him. As
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: big as I can't stand him. But she's also a
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: filmmaker and she wants to be able to share her
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: art with somebody who is not going to be so judgmental.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: And so when she shares the documentary that she makes
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: of her sleeping mother, her.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Husband is like well maybe you could do it like
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: this or maybe you could have the mother do that
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: and what she wants is just a like a non
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: like a non-judgmental space to share her art and she
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: doesn't have that in her life and so it's clear
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: to me what role the operating system is playing for
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: her to make her feel like this thing is at
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: my actual.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Friend yeah and again it's interesting given the personal drama
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: perhaps that led to this movie being made um because
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: it does feel like he was writing a thesis and
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: at the end he was like, oh, here's the problem.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: It's me. It was me. So I wanted to go back.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: To the audiobook and watching this movie after the audiobook
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: came out. You've already mentioned some things that really stood
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: out to you. Are there other things that you watched
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: it and you're like, oh, I have a different take
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: on this now.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: A few actually, um, you know, one is just, I
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: see a lot of the kind of debates. I don't
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: know if debates is the right conversation around how chatbots
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: should be designed when they're being designed for the general
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: public and what the design feature should be. And one
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: of the big conversations that's happening right now is whether
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: or not it's okay for chatbots to be designed to
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: personify themselves, to say, I, right? So to speak to
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: you as if it is a being instead of what
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: it actually is, which is a piece of technology. And
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: I do think that's interesting because so much of this
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: movie is about Sam and her personification, right? Does she
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: have a consciousness? They get into that early fight where
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: he's like, oh, well, it's not like you know what
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: it's like to care about somebody. And she's like, what
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: do you mean? But she does it because she's technology, right?
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: And so I think that it's interesting how... I'm glad
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: that we're having this conversation because I don't think it's
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: just a given that chatbots should be designed to personify
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: themselves and use I language when they are not humans.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: In reality, that is a design choice. And I think
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: it's interesting that we are having the tension that Sam
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: wrestles with in the movie. I see that mirrored in
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: that debate that we're having right now. It's like at
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: one point, Theodorus talks to Sam the way that most
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: people would talk to technology, like, okay, read email. And
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: Sam is like, okay, we'll read email. And she sort
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: of chides him for it. And it's like, well, you
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: are a piece of technology. And so why would a
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: human talking to a piece of technology, why would it
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: be chiding him for talking in that manner to technology
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: when in fact he is talking to technology? So I
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: feel like that was a kind of a small thread
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: when I watched the film before I wrote the book.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: And now kind of that, like, it seems like a
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: central tension within the book.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: One of the things that did stand out to me
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: based on that is, you know, when I think of
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of, like, Siri and Alexa, it's women's voices,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: but they're kind of, you know, monotone. But Samantha was very, like,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: sounded human like had a lot of seemingly emotion in
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: her voice but also there's this conversation about like the
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: relationship not being real his relationship not being real and
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: I think it's interesting that his job is he writes
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: like emotional letters in the place of other people And
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: so it felt like kind of a strange mirror of
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: he's doing this thing that maybe people would call like, well,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: that's not real.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: And then his relationship, some people would call that's not real.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he is actively engaged in the business of helping
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: other people outsource and offload their emotional intimacy. That's what
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: he does for a living. And so it's interesting that
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: it seems like the sort of change in him from
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: where the movie starts to where the movie ends is
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: that he's finally able to write this letter to his
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: ex-wife about their relationship. And so it does seem to
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: me that the problem with him is that he is
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: really not in touch with his own emotions, despite, for
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: a living... kind of expressing the emotions of others. But
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: I think that he is someone who sees the business
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: of emotionality as transactional. It's not, you know, his responsibility
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: to be in touch with in a real way. It's
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: just a thing that you mimic or mirror to get
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: what you want. And, you know, I do think that
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: having written the book that question comes up again and again, like,
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: is this a real relationship or is it not? And
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: on subreddits where people go to talk about their intimacy
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: with AI subreddits, like my boyfriend is AI or beyond
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: the prompt. A lot of them, they like talking about
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: whether or not you're the AI is real is like
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: against the rules. They don't even want to get into it. And,
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: you know, when I talked to both researchers and people
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: who would self-report being in relationship with AI, like, what
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: are your thoughts about, you know, the real question is,
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: What they'll tell me is, I know that AI is
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: not real. I know that this is technology. I'm very
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: aware of that. But the emotions that this technology gives me,
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: the emotional response that I have, that is real. So
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: I treat that part of it as real. I know
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: that my emotionality, whether it was sparked by technology or
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: a human, that is real. So I treat that as real,
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: even while knowing that the technology is not. Yeah.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: And I think that the fact, I don't know, I
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: just find something so interesting about the fact that that
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: was his job was writing these kind of emotional things.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: And then he gets to the point where he can,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: he can do it himself. And also there are a
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: couple of moments because pretty much everybody's like wearing like earbuds, uh, throughout, uh.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: That, uh, I don't know. There's something inside me that
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: was like, you know, look in front of you.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: It's Amy right here.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And they could kind of
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: share their sadness at the end. But it reminded me
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: too of something we've talked about before of, you know,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: when the OS changes and people feel heartbroken, like they've
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: lost this relationship. And I feel like this was a
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: pretty ultimate example of the OS.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: It's like, I am done with you.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: But one thing that struck me watching this, because we
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: have so much doomsday discussion around AI right now, is
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: that there was kind of a lack of that.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: It was not painted in that way.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: And I was also thinking about the movie Companion, which
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: we've talked about and will be on this series later,
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: and how it has kind of similar themes of like,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: male loneliness and insecurity just in a very different way
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: but that one is interesting to me because the ai
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: is the one that should feel the anxiety if that
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: makes sense anyway my point being uh that i thought
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: it was fascinating that this movie doesn't really have an
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: anxiety around ai other than humans are isolating themselves i
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: would say Yeah, I agree.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: I find it, I mean, this is like a minor,
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: like a minor thing, but to that, to answer your,
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: to respond to that. It's wild to me that Theodore
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: is a writer who is employed enough that he has
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: a sick apartment and like expensive hobbies. And that no
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: part of he's using Samantha, who at the end of
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: the movie is able to compile and edit a book
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: of his writing and submit it autonomously on his behalf
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: to publishers. No part of him is like, I'm about
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: to be out of a job. You know what I mean?
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: There's zero labor concerns. The main concern that the movie
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: is interested in exploring is like, oh, are humans really
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: isolated and we're isolating ourselves more? I simply cannot imagine
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: working with a technology that is purporting to do my
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: job for me and not being like, huh, what's that about?
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: What's that going to lead to? Not in this universe. Right.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it kind of goes back to Spike Jonze
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: being like, it's okay. It's about my loneliness. This is
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: nothing other than we're lonely. I'm lonely. Let me show
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: you what this looks like.
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: The only thing worth exploring is how much my horrible ex-wife,
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: Sofia Coppola, did not meet my emotional needs.
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: Exactly.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: Why would anybody be interested in exploring anything else?
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, why?
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I did want to ask you, before we wrap
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: up here with any final thoughts, but before that, what
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: do you make of... Because this was ahead of its time,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: but as I said at the top, there has been
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: an influx of movies about technology and people at the
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: center of technology, perhaps.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: What's your take on that?
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: I think we've always been interested in that. Since I
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: was a kid, I loved movies about technology, people who
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: use it, people who make it, what happens when it
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: goes awry. I think that we really are in this
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: era of wanting to turn the lens to the people
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: who make technology. You know, the movie Her is not
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: about who created the OS. There's actually, if you want
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: to see a movie that sort of speaks to that,
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: there's a kind of a knockoff Her called Zoe. I
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: don't know if you've seen that. It's a little bit
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: of a knockoff. It's little known, but it very much
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: is in the style of Her, but it's about a
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: guy who runs a research lab who makes AI bot companions.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: who might not know they're AI bot companions. I think
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: we're really interested in the pathology of these people. I
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: think we're seeing it in the fact that we opened
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: this conversation up with a list of documentaries and films
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: about people who make technology. I think that we all
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: really understand the way that technology shows up in our lives,
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: that we really feel the ways that it has its
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: hooks in the way that we all live our lives,
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: whether it's How we love, how we live, how we vote,
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: how we shop, how we work. I think now we're like, okay,
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: we've got that. Let's turn the lens to the people
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: who make it and why and what might be up
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: with them that this is how they understand technology.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: It's intriguing to me. It makes sense. But it's intriguing
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: to me that an insult often hurled at the men,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: largely men, who run these companies is that they act
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: like robots.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when I interviewed Karen Howe, author of Empire of AI,
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: I asked her that. I said, it almost sounds to
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: me like Sam Altman talks like a chat bot. And
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: she was like, yeah, that has come up before. That
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: has been an accusation I have heard about him before.
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: But I do think there is something about that where
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: when you spend so much time thinking about AI, working
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: with AI, communicating with AI, it's no surprise that that
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: would impact how you think, how you speak, how you communicate.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: And I do think, I mean, so many of our
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: tech leaders I think are completely AI-pilled. And I don't
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: mean AI-pilled in that they use AI. I think AI
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: is causing a noticeable cognitive shift in how they show up,
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: how they lead, how they run their companies, what they
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: expect of us, the people who are meant to be
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: using their technology. I think AI I don't think it's
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: a far-off-based criticism to say that many of them are
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: AI-like in the way that they talk about and market
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: AI companies. And I don't mean that as a compliment.
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Okay, one more question before the final thoughts, because I'm
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: so curious your thoughts about this. There has been a
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: lot in the news lately about AI killing us all.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: And these companies allegedly coming together. But then there's been
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: a lot of discussion about, like, maybe they just don't
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: have any money. And this is their way of, like,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: pumping the brakes and being like, well, the world will end,
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: so we need to slow down or else. Because I
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: just don't trust those guys. I don't trust anything they say.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: Do you have any thoughts about that?
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: Well, you're right to not trust them. It's also true
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: that they don't have a lot of money. We think
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: about these companies as super powerful and super big, and
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: they are super powerful and super big and all of that.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: But the math isn't mapping on them. I thought a
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: lot about some of the conversations happening in the news
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: right now. And I always just come back to people, right?
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: It's so easy to have these conversations as if we're
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: talking about AI, like it's Terminator 2 scenario where it's like,
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: going rogue and being autonomous. But then you have to ask, okay, well,
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: what were the parameters that humans set for this test
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: that it was asked to do? What were the guardrails
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: put in place? So much of what happens with AI
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: is human decision-making. And I really shy away from conversations
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: that obscure that because then it's also easy to obscure accountability, right?
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: Where if you're saying, if we all talk about it
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: and believe AI is just super smart, it can do
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: all of this on its own autonomously, it's easy to
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: then be like, well, I guess there's no human in
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: charge who dropped the ball here. And that's almost never true.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: There's always, there's always, and always just remember that it
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: like AI is built by and designed by humans. And
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: we got to keep the focus of the conversation on
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: those humans and the way that they, they lead these
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: companies in this technology that is so, that is poised
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: to be so impactful as we go forward.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: I agree completely. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Thank
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: you for entertaining my anxieties.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: So any final thoughts, anything that we haven't talked about
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: with this movie that you really want to touch on
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: before we wrap up?
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: Oh, well, one thing that I noticed that I didn't
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: think about before when I watched it was there's this
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: scene where Theodore is really moping in his apartment and
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: Samantha is like, let's just get you up and out
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: of the house and get you some food. And he
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: basically walks around the city holding his phone, talking to Samantha,
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: and he's really cheered up. I thought that that conversation
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: really mirrored another interesting debate that I think that we're
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: seeing right now, which is that a criticism that people
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: give about reliance on technology is that you know, you're
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: spending too much time online or in the digital world
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: and you're neglecting your real relationships. What happens if technology
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: is being used to bring somebody in deeper connection with
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: the real world, right? In that example, had Samantha not
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: gotten Theodore up and out of bed, he probably would
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: just be moping all night in the dark in bed
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: by himself all day. And so I thought that was
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: an interesting example of there are some examples where technology
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: is is being used to help people live fuller, more
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: connected lives in the real world. But it's like anything else.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: It has positives and negatives. It can help bring people
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: together and live a fuller, richer life and also isolate
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: people and bring them further away from the kind of
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: life that they want. And I think it's important to
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: remember that duality when we talk about technology. Yes.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I am so happy that we got to have this conversation.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: I'm so thrilled. to continue this miniseries who knows which
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: movie will come up next listeners you can write in
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: companion strong contender i would say um but thank you
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: so much for stopping by bridget i was very happy
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: to have a an excuse to re-watch this movie so
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: appreciate it uh where can the good listeners find you.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: Well, keep the conversation going. You can check out my
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: audio book, Love at First Prompt, AI and the Future
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: of Intimacy at loveatfirstprompt.com. And check me out on Instagram
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: at BridgetMarieNDC. And listen to my pod, There Are No
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: Girls on the Internet, for more fun tech conversations.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: Listeners, go do all of that if you have not already.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: Please write in if you have any thoughts about the
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: audiobook or this movie. You can email us at StuffI'veNeverToldYou.com.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: You can find us on BlueSky at most of the podcasts,
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: or on Instagram and TikTok at StuffI'veNeverToldYou. We're also on YouTube.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: We have some merchandise at Cotton Bureau, and we have
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: a book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks,
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: as always, to our super producer, Rima, and our executive producer, Maya.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: You is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can check out the
• 52:37
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• 52:38
  Speaker 3: favorite shows.