There Are No Girls on the Internet - Sam Altman says Her is his favorite movie. Has he actually seen it?

Episode Date: May 25, 2024

Spike Jonze’s 2013 movie Her is in the tech zeitgeist. Have tech leaders watched the whole thing?  Brian Merchant’s piece on Her and Open AI is a must read: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/why-is-sam-altman-so-obsessed-with?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Bridget rocking Google Glass in 2013: https://www.instagram.com/p/Z1xL1OHw-Z/?igsh=MTR0OXU5aGV2Z3V3NA%3D%3D Listen to our summary of the Open AI Scarlett Johansson controversy here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scarlett-johanssons-open-ai-voice-fight-shows-the/id1520715907?i=1000656338161See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than adds supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call

844-844-I-Hart. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Welcome to Sarah No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the intersection of technology, social media, and identity. And one thing to know about me is that I have always wanted to have one of those movie recap podcasts where you just watch a movie or watch a show and get to yap about it. So, Mike, you're going to kind of indulge me and let me do that, right? Yeah, that's what we're doing today.

It's new format. It's exciting format. you know, one of the criticisms that we sometimes get in our reviews, which we love to see, reviews in general, is that sometimes people feel I'm not always as prepared as you, which would be hard because, you know, Bridget knows a lot. It's always very prepared. But also, generally, the format of the newscast is like Bridget explaining stuff to me. So I feel that criticism may be a little unfair, but like, I get it. This time, though, I have copious notes.

I am ready to talk about this movie. So what is the movie that we're talking about today? We are talking about the movie Her, which is in the zeitgeist because Sam Altman compared Open AIs new assistant Sky to the movie. Very explicitly, he had a one-word tweet that made that connection. And then there was a bunch of controversy about it. Bridget, would you like to talk about why the comparison has perhaps not gone in the direction Altman was hoping? Yes, we did an episode kind of digging into this this week about why the movie Her and Scarlethaw Hansen is in the news. But the short version is that OpenAI, this company run by Sam Altman, recently introduced and then quickly be introduced this voice integration to chat GPT4 called Sky, which can talk conversationally between,

people and respond to images that you show it through your phone's camera. So if you were to be like, oh, hey, Sky, look at this thing. And then you moved your phone so that the camera was in front of it. Sky would presumably see that and be able to respond in a conversational, maybe a little bit flirtatious kind of way. So Sam Altman asked Scarlett Johansson, who was the voice of the AI Samantha in the movie Her to voice his technology. She said no. He asked again. She said no again. They unveiled it. It sounded a lot like Scarlett Johansson. There's been some new reporting, I should say, just in the last couple of days, where Open AI is saying that they did not ask the human voice actor to mimic Scarlett Johansson or sound like Scarlett Johansson. This is just a voice actor using the voice

actor's natural voice. They say they have proof. You can read that reporting at the Washington Post. I still think that these people have proven themselves time and time again to be liars, to be people that you cannot trust, to be people who you cannot take at their word. So at this point, I am deeply skeptical of everything that they say, but I did want to include that. Open AI pulled their Sky Voice technology, quote, out of respect for Scarlet Johansson,

which is maybe my favorite statement in the history of technology, pulling your highly anticipated new tech out of respect for Ms. Johansson. I live for that kind of stuff. So I will say Open AI's live demo of Sky, I think is a lot like Samantha from her. We did a little bit of a side-by-side comparison in our episode this week. But having just watched the movie to recap it for this podcast episode and watching the live demo that Open AI released, it's not just that they're similar in voice. It's also intonation. It's also sort of vibe, like the casually curious.

and conversational vibe. You know, Sky in this demo is flirty and responsive. And Altman definitely wants us to be thinking of the movie Her when he unveiled it, as you said, Mike, tweeting this the word, her around its release. So here's a little bit of what Sky sounded like in that demo from OpenAI. Is this announcement related to Open AI perhaps? It is.

And in fact, what if I were to say that you're related to the announcement or that you are the announcement. Me? The announcement is about me? Well, color me and treat. Are you about to reveal something about AI? Or more specifically about me as a part of Open AI? You've got me on the edge of my, well, I don't really have a seat, but you get the idea.

What's the big news? Yeah, we've got a new model that can interact with the world through audio, vision, and text. So Sam Oatman has actually said in an interview that her is one of his favorite movies. In an interview, he said, I like her, the things her got right, like the whole interaction models of how people use AI, that was incredibly prophetic, he said. So he likes the idea of this interaction model where AI can talk to you, respond to you, flirt with you, like a human. He likes that.

Yeah, which... you know, one can wonder why, you know, what it is specifically about her that appeals there? Because there are certainly many other science fiction movies where there are machines that converse with humans. Why is it her and not like C3Pio from Star Wars, right? He's having conversations with Luke, but, you know, openly, I didn't want to build a a new C3PO. They wanted to build a new Scarlett Johansson. I was going to say, like, even if you wanted the tech to be kind of sexy, why not ex machina? But then I'm thinking about the ending of Ex Machinia and I'm like, okay, maybe they don't want to have technology that ends like the movie

X Machina. If you've seen the movie, if you know, you know, you know why that specific brand of sexy AI tech maybe isn't what he wanted to base his whole thing on. Yeah, like somewhere in the middle of C3PO and the robot from Ex Machina. That's where we landed. That's like my dream girl. Like somewhere between, like friendly and helpful and cute and like fucking terrifying. Yeah. But it's also one of your favorite movies, right, Bridget?

Oh, her? It absolutely is. I wouldn't say it's one of my favorite movies. It's a movie that I watch a lot. It's a movie that I get a lot out of every time I watch it. and I feel like there's lots of different ways you can watch it. I have watched it no less than four times in the last month, not because of the whole Open AI saga,

but just because it's like one of those movies that is in my heavy rotation. That is a very heavy rotation. What is it about this movie that speaks to you that calls you to watch it multiple times? Okay, so I make a tech podcast. I am a techie. I'm a tech girl. So I wish I could say, oh, it's, I just, love, like, the tech implications. I love, like, mining what the movie says about our tech-enabled

futures. It's partly that. But if we're being, like, for real, the movie, my real fascination with this movie is that it is a very specific kind of indie filmmaker drama behind the scenes. And it's the kind of thing I absolutely live for. So I don't want to derail the conversation too much, but the people need to know, like, if you don't know, if you know, if you know, if you know where I'm going, of you're like, I know this story. This is like one of my Roman empires is the movie her. Yeah, you explain this to me and it like blew my mind and really recontextualized the whole movie for me. So don't hold back. I think people need to know. Once you know this, you can watch these two movies in conversation with each other again and again and again. And it's like a new

movie every time. So I am of course talking about her in conversation with Sophia Coppola's movie Lost in Translation. For those who don't know, Sophia Coppola, the director of the version suicides, Marie Antoinette, Bling Ring, daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, might have heard of him, directed Godfather, Apocalypse Now, every important movie in the last like 40 years or whatever. So Sophia Coppola's 2003 movie Lost in Translation is meant to be about her crumbling marriage to filmmaker Spike Jones. The stand-in for Sophia herself in Lost in Translation is, you guessed it, Scarlett Johansson. So both movies, both her and Lost in Translation, both have kind of mean caricatures of their of each other in the movie. The stand-in for Spike Jones in Sophia Coppola's

Lost in Translation is portrayed by Giovanni Ribisi and he's this sort of like preening, self-obsessed, like neglectful hipster type. Cameron Diaz also might take kind of astray here. We're on the street is that if you've seen Lawton Translation, there's a scene where the husband is having this like mild flirtation with a pretty blonde played by Anna Ferris. Word on the street is that that is meant to be Cameron Diaz because Spike Jones and

Cameron Diaz worked together on being John Malcovic. I will say Sophia Coppola denies this. She says like, oh, it's actually like a composite of a bunch of different women. If anybody, there's like one specific woman that that's supposed to be, I don't know. It seems a lot like Cameron Diaz to me. I just think that people should have that context.

So if you want to get even more, deep into the like indie filmmaker drama here. Sophia Coppola in an interview said that Michelle Gangerie, who worked on the movie Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind with Spike Jones, so like obviously they have a friendship there, came to the premiere of Lost in Translation and from the red carpet of her own premiere berated her about making a movie that makes Spike Jones look bad, which also part of me is like, well, damn, I guess a hit dog will holler. I guess like your friend saw this movie and was like, this is supposed to be a mean character of my friend Spike Jones. Celebrities, they're just like us.

They're petty. They're mean. They cause a scene. I know. Coming to her own premiere to like yell at her is pretty wild. But like, if you know me, this is very much my specific type of tea, like filmmaker tea, indie filmmaker tea and like bad marriage tea. I honestly cannot imagine how.

how obnoxious it must have been to be in their orbit and have these two powerhouse filmmakers getting a divorce. Like, I'll make a movie about it. No, I'll make a movie about it. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriters Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents

made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard. But they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with

Robert Smygel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences,

broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think I-Hart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-8-4-I-Hart. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to... to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions,

the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice

brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. And we're back.

If Lost in Translation is meant to be Sophia Coppola, her exploration of her crumbling marriage to Spike Jones from her perspective, her is meant to be Spike Jones's retelling of their bad marriage from his perspective. There is also a mean portrayal of Sophia Coppola in her. She's played by Rooney Mara in the movie her. Both movies also share our director of photography.

Not to mention both movies prominently feature Scarlett Johansson. So obviously Scarlett Johansson has some kind of a like undercurrent thread in their understanding of what went wrong in their marriage. Or maybe Spike Jones was like, well, if you're going to use Scarlet, I'm going to use her to. Yeah, I feel like that's one of the big mysteries that never gets resolved. Like why Scarlett Johansson for both of them? But setting that aside, that backstory really changes. the way the movie hits, right? Before I knew that, and I think most people don't know that because most people are not as obsessed with film as you,

like I thought it was a movie about technology, but it's not. It's a movie about human relationships. That's exactly right. And in case you're wondering, Sophia has said that she's never seen her only in the trailer, and she's like, I'm not really that interested in seeing it, which I don't know if I believe that either, but fine. I do in some ways feel like Spike Jones was like, oh, you want to make a dreamy movie about isolation that talks shit on what it was like to be married to me?

I'll make an even dreamier movie, even more isolated movie about what it was like being married to you. Like, in some ways, I feel like he out Sophia Coppola with her. God, yeah, like how deep does it go? How deep does this thing go? So how the movie came to be, according to Spike Jones, he got the idea for the film in the early, 2000s when he read this article about a website where people could instant message with an

artificial intelligence. He says for the first, maybe 20 seconds of it, it had this real buzz. I'd say, hey, hello. And it would say, hey, how are you? And I was like, whoa, this is trippy. After 20 seconds, it quickly fell apart and you realize how it actually works. And it wasn't that impressive. But it was still for 20 seconds, really exciting. The more people talk to it, the smarter it got. And I feel like that is like how it works with a lot of these AI chat. But you're like, wow, this is really cool. And then like quickly you're like, wait, this is actually kind of not so cool. Yeah, it's really funny to read about his experience in the early 2000s because I feel in a lot of ways it's still very much like that. There's a lot of

apps out there with like AI persona chatbots and this is something I've actually been getting into in some of my other work. And like they're better than they were in the early 2000s, but a lot of them, it still kind of feels that way where at first. It's really interesting. It's like, oh, my God, this is amazing technology. And then after 20 seconds or maybe they're up to a couple minutes now, it just starts to feel really boring and like a little bit pointless and empty. Oh, the AI tech feels a little pointless and empty in the end.

Sounds like something straight from the movies. Yeah, right. Like, where is the meaning? What is the point? So let's talk about this sort of tech climate that was permeating when this movie came to be. So if you were somebody who paid attention to tech in the 2012, this movie came together in 2012, you know that it felt very different. Siri came out in 2011.

At this time, Siri was like very much a robot assistant in your phone. You couldn't have conversations with it. There were a couple of Easter eggs put in there that if you asked it certain things, it would give you a funny answer. But if you tried to have a back and forth conversation, just like Spike Jones describes, it would get really old, really quickly. So this idea that is in the movie heard that you would be having this, like, real complex relationship with AI that feels like a human, when the movie came out, that was still very much a far-off fantasy. This era did have some, like, pretty big dark sides to technology, notably the NSA warrantless wiretapping that was revealed by Edward Snowden and an NSA contractor, things like that.

But I do broadly think that this was sort of, the heyday of optimism around technology. And this was maybe the last era of that kind of techno optimism. This is something that we talked about in the episode we did with Paris Marks, one of my favorite podcasters who hosts Tech Won't Save Us. But that era, I think, really gave us this kind of era that we have now, where the holdover of technology as this exciting force for good and tech leaders as these people who were going to be doing great things for us.

So give them lots of leeway, give them lots of money, don't ask too many questions. That you could really draw a straight line from that era. And this era we have 10 years later where it's like they can do whatever they want, whether it's good for us or not. And it's probably not so good for us most of the time, to be honest. And we're supposed to just accept like, oh, yeah, they're probably doing great things. But back in this 2013-2012 era that Her came out, we were still very much thinking about technology as these forces for good.

the idea that tech companies and social media platforms are going to be giving us better, more meaningful, more connected lives. This was back when Google's motto was, don't be evil. Do you know when they dropped that motto? I don't know exactly. Do you? Don't be evil was Google's motto up until 2018. So that's when they were like, actually, a little evil is probably fine. This is too constraining. Yeah. Like, you know, you want to make an anomaly, you got to break a few eggs. Like we're trying to make money here. A little evil we can be out of half. So, you know, back in 2012, we had the re-election of Obama, which was very sort of like technology-driven. Obama was probably the most tech savvy president we'd had up until that point.

Twitter went public in 2013. Facebook acquired Instagram in 2013. And Instagram was like booming. This was the heyday of that platform. Vine had just come out. Social media companies were really up. And we really saw them as these forces that helped us connect, help us be more informed, helped us, you know, decide who to vote for, decide who should be president.

Help us live more meaningful, more full lives. This was also the time where people were really excited about wearables. Do you remember this? I do. I remember it must have been like 2011 or 2012. I was in grad school and I was talking with my advisor about like trying to put together some kind of research project so we could ask Google to give us some Google Glass just because we thought they seemed cool and wanted to use them. It seemed like the future, right? We're going to

put these glasses on our head and they'll have a camera and all this new information and new capabilities that we were still getting used to having in our pocket with cell phones. It's just going to keep advancing and getting more powerful and allow us to do ever more bigger, greater things. That was the feeling. Yeah. So Google Glass came out in the same year that her came out. And fun fact, my first ever Twitter profile picture was actually a picture of me

proudly wearing Google Glass. It wasn't mine. It belonged to a friend of mine. But, you know, it was this was before, this was like, he had gotten one of the first models of it or whatever. And so like, this was before a lot of conversations about like, oh, man walks into San Francisco Bar with Google Glass. And like, gets slapped in the face because people don't like, don't like the idea of wearables in their bars. This was before that, right?

And so, like, it really did feel exciting. Like, the conversation around Google Glass, it felt like a game changer. Like, I distinctly remember how excited people were, not just for the technology, but for the idea of a wearable making the technology more seamlessly integrated to your body, which, of course, the movie Her Explores. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that that was what our. kind of conversation around technology was excited about, and that is what's shown in the movie that came out that same year.

Yeah, right. Like, we had all these new capabilities, access to every piece of information ever created. But we still had the annoying technology, right? Like, I think I might have still had like a tower desktop computer back in 2013, maybe. I held on to it for a long time. But, like, cell phones were kind of big.

Google Glass was big and chunky, and we didn't, I don't think we, we were just starting to grapple with like the dorkiness factor of this technology. Right. We loved all the new capabilities, but there's something inherently dorky about like holding your phone out in front of you, wearing Google glass that, you know, at the time it seemed like, oh, we'll solve this in a couple of years. You know, fast forward to 2024 and meta's Rayban glasses are still, like, I guess a little bit cooler than Google Glass, but I don't see a whole lot of people wearing them. Well, I mean, I don't want to make it sound like this is an endorsement for Facebook, which it is not. But I will say I saw a pair of them IRL and you, I am not, I don't, I'm not a wearables person. I don't think wearables are it. However, if you did a side by side of, you did a side of, you, of the Rayban Wayfarer sunglasses

and Meta's version of them, the wearable device, you might have a hard time telling which was which. So you might have seen somebody wearing those and not even know it because I will say that they do look like the regular sunglasses, which is the first time I've seen a wearable. Other than those Snapchat goggles,

remember those? Like those kind of did it. Although again, I don't like wearables. But so yeah, yeah, John just wanted to say that. Okay. Yeah, well, maybe they did crack the code then and make the actual hardware and all the, it's like sort of challenging rub of the technology

disappear and become invisible. Just like in the movie Her. Just like in the movie Her. The last thing I'll say about the sort of tech climate that permeates the movie Her is that I looked up one of those, you know, what were the top tech news stories from 2013 articles from CNN? And this point made me laugh. Speaking of Facebook, people thought that Mark Zuckerberg was this like really good leader.

and we weren't really talking about some of the deeper issues with Facebook as a company. This is from that CNN article. Mark Zuckerberg's elite CEO status after coming under some questions over company morale concerns was remarkably restored. But more than that, investor confidence was recharged in the potential for future social media advertising. With Facebook doubts cast aside, startup valuations rocketed in 2013. So like the full scope of the ways that Facebook was going to be used to subvert and to stabilize our democracy and divide people and flame people and polarize people.

That was not yet clear. We were just like, everybody likes Mark Zuckerberg. No concern, smooth sailing. You know, it was a simpler time. Yeah, I guess they just bought Instagram, so they hadn't destroyed the mental health of a generation of young women. You know, I don't think that genocide in Myanmar had yet happened. And that would be in 2017.

So we had not, yeah. Yeah, we'd not yet got there. We hadn't yet pivoted to video. Things were good. Yeah, it was a nice time. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah.

Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion?

We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hulmer me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode we're cutting through the noise. breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines.

We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

Let's get right back into it. Yeah, so we were all excited about tech. Tech leaders were kind of riding high on this idea that they were going to change the world for the better. And technology was making a lot of money. And so I think that this movie is as a response to that specific moment where technology still felt like excitement and possibility. and promise. And so in that way, it is not surprising to me that Sam Altman would say, this is my favorite movie or tweet the word her, you know, as a reference to his new technology. But I have a hot take here. I know that you don't agree with me. We've already discussed this off

mic, and that's fine. Yeah, it is a hot take. It's an interesting one. So, Bridget, what is your hot take about Sam Altman's relationship with the movie Her? I don't think he's actually ever seen it. At least I don't think he's actually ever watched it all the way through. If he has, I don't think he's watched it carefully or with intention. Maybe he watched it while he was on his phone. But the way that he is talking about it, I just don't, I don't buy it. I don't buy it. I think it's like when people say their favorite book is Infinite Jess by David Buster Wallace, but they actually haven't read it because like it's a million pages and what would anybody read that? Like I haven't, I've definitely loved it. I've definitely loved it. I've definitely loved it. I've definitely lost. about reading Infinite Jess before. But really they just like read David Foster Wallace's short essay, Consider the Lobster and like got the gist. And they're like, oh, I feel like I get it enough to like say it's my favorite book. That's what I think is going on here.

Like maybe he watched the trailer. Maybe he's read the Wikipedia plot summary or like knows the themes. I don't think he's actually watched this movie or if he did watch it. I don't think he watched it fully. I don't think he like really understands what the movie is trying to graph. with. Yeah. I mean, I think there's it's a compelling argument because there's a lot going on in the movie,

right? Like, it's not a movie about some cool technology that works well. It's a movie about a lot of things like human loneliness, the relationship of humans with technology, existential questions about what is real.

They all kind of like come out in the movie. And I think it's a really good movie that does like a thoughtful exploration of those things. And so it does feel like the technology is like more of a device

to facilitate those conversations and questions rather than like look at what this cool tech can do. Yes. And that's why if you watched her and your takeaway was as it seems to be for Sam Altman, this

technology is great and it works really well and people love it. Like, that's, I just don't see how you could have, like, made it to the end of the movie and had that be the takeaway. Although, I will say, Sam Altman does appear to be a, quite a prolific misunderstander of movies. Did you see his tweet about Oppenheimer? I did. What did he say again?

Okay, he tweeted, I was hoping that the Oppenheimer movie would inspire a generation of kids to be physicist, but it really missed the mark on that. Let's get that movie made. And, listen, I didn't see Oppenheimer. I have to admit. However, the fact that you would thought that Oppenheimer was going to be, first of all, a movie for kids that would inspire them to want to get to be a physicist. Like, what do you think? Like, what do you, what do you think? Like, I'm just like, what, like, everything that we know about Oppenheimer is that he was like a tortured person and it was like a lot of like my career and the science and like, what have I done and like grappling with all of these like big concepts. You thought that was going to be for kids? Yeah, it's a pretty weird take. Like, it kind of implies that that's what movies should be for to encourage kids to pursue STEM careers, which it's just leaving out so much. That's why we don't talk about STEM anymore.

We talk about STEAM. We put the arts back in there because it's important for people to understand humanities so that they can responsibly and ethically wield these text. technologies in a way that is helpful to society ideally, right, or equips the engineers and the physicists to make decisions which are often complex and don't have a clear, correct answer. These are very important skills for a generation of young scientists and engineers to have to suggest that a movie that, like, addresses them head on is somehow, like, doing a disservice

to the education of youth is, like, startlingly limited. It's like watching that Bjork movie Dancer in the Dark and being like, I thought this was going to teach kids about the importance of manufacturing. Like, it's such a, like, warped. I mean, I can't,

I can't, like, it makes me very curious to know more about what he thinks about movies and what their role is and what they're supposed to do. Yeah. Like Mad Max is a movie about the importance of gasoline and that's why we should support the fossil fuel industry. Or like American Psycho is a movie about how kids should get more into finance and pay attention in math class.

So maybe he has seen it and this is just like more Sam Altman prolific misunderstander of art. But you know who did watch the movie and understood it, I think. That's me. So let's talk about it. So this is a basic summary of what's going on in the movie Her. If you have not seen it, there are some spoilers. But, yeah.

So in the movie Her, Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, works for beautiful handwritten letters.com, which is a service where human writers like him write these touching letters on behalf of people, which honestly kind of sounds like the kind of job that might be taken over by AI in 2024. There's a bit of a jump scare here for early Chris Pratt. This was still when, like America was having a love affair with Chris Pratt, you know, before we all kind of turned on him. Shout out to our producer, Joey, aka Joey Pat, not Pratt, who does not want to be

associated with Chris Pratt. So Ted is recently divorced and obviously kind of lonely. He's sort of like dodging his friends. He's recently left the job at the LA Times. He has this one friend, Amy, his neighbor, who is a filmmaker and a game designer played by Amy Adams. Amy is kind of married to a know-it-all who kind of sucks in the movie, he's a dick. The film takes place in kind of a not-too-distant future version of L.A. Fun fact, sometimes the shots of what is supposed to be L.A. are L.A. Sometimes it's actually Shanghai. Yeah, and it also is like a version of L.A.

that looks a lot like Chicago in a lot of places. Yeah, it's like a fantasy composite of all of these big cities. It really shows this sort of like beautifully, urban but also lonely isolating place really well. There are these like beautiful landscape shots of like buildings and every window has a sweeping cityscape behind it. Like nobody nobody in this universe doesn't have a killer view, which is interesting to me. Yeah, everything is perfect. It's a like clean, beautiful, gleaming city and it also just looks cold and lonely as hell. Correct. So Theodore sees one of those kind of ads that is sort of inscrutable in one of those kind of early Apple ad ways where the ad is like, what's out there?

What are the possibilities? You know, it's one of those ads that kind of sounds like a perfume commercial where it's people running in slow motion and it's like strength, questions, philosophy, Gucci. You know the ads I'm talking about? Yeah, I know those ads. and I love the interpolation ad in the movie, the one that Ted sees. It's such a beautiful encapsulation of what, like, 2013 hipsters thought that future hipsters would look like. There's all these archetypes. There's, like, the bearded guy, the mustachioed guy, the, like, girl in vintage clothing.

It's, I love that ad. I feel it really captures a moment. same. So the ad is actually advertising an operating system. It's not just any operating system. It's an intuitive AI identity that understands you. It's a consciousness introducing OS1. So it's clear in this universe that AI is really kind of a new phenomenon. And people are excited about integrating it into their lives. So Theodore buys it, sets it up. The AI is Samantha voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Sam says what makes her her is her ability to grow from her experiences. She says, in every moment, I'm evolving just like you.

She sounds really human. As Ted puts it, you seem like a person, but you're just a voice in a computer. Samantha gets started. She gets integrated into his life. She's organizing his email, booking his appointments. Theodore is kind of dragging his feet on signing these divorce papers and just generally stuck when it comes to processing the end of his marriage. Samantha is actually pretty good for him at this point. She doesn't let him mope too much. She facilitates them getting out of the house. This part of their dynamic really feels Theodore focus, like Sam helping Theodore, Sam listening to Theodore. What's funny is that when the movie first came out, Jude Doyle wrote a scathing piece about how sexist the entire thing is and all of these film critics who were praising it as this great love story were actually kind of showing their true sexist colors. Doyle writes, at New York Magazine, David Edelstein's

seems entranced by Samantha's dedication to servitude. She's a dream made, especially for a writer. With Theodore's permission, she analyzes thousands of his emails on less than a second and dumps all but 80 or so that she identifies as important. She cleans up his mess and then tells him he's funny, heaven. Yeah, and that scene when she tells him that he's funny, it comes right after she asks him, hey, why do you have all these old emails from your old job? And he says, oh, it's because I thought there is something like funny or good in there. And she like immediately laughs because she can tell that he wants her to perceive him as funny. And so she does.

Well, that's the thing. Because Sam is Theodore's AI, at this point, she is learning and evolving, like, according to him and his specific preferences. So, of course, she's really doting and complimentary to him in a way that he clearly likes and sort of needs her to be in that moment. Again, it's like a pretty one-sided dynamic. And with this added context, it's obviously kind of gendered because it sets Theodore up to be this sort of wounded guy who needs this feminized personal AI assistant who he thinks lives and breathes by him to pump him back up because he's so wounded by his divorce. And this is one of the reasons why I think that men who run AI companies might really be into this movie. As Bryant Merchant, this tech journal, who has a great newsletter called Blood in the Machine puts it, which I'm going to be referencing that piece a lot because it's really good. I'll put it in the show notes, read the whole thing. He writes,

The obvious answer is that a Scarlet Johansson AI that is available 24-7 to tell lonely men they're special and have sex with them is the most innately appealing to Altman's customer-based. But I think there's more to it than that. Her also happens to offer the clearest vision of AI as an engine of entitlement in which a computer delivers the user all that he desires emotionally, secretarily and sexually because the tech is so normalized quickly, fully, and painlessly. So Samantha is prompting Theodore to get out of the house.

She prompts him to go on this like date with a human woman played by Olivia Wilde. The date does not go well. It's going well up to a point does not end well. Theodore comes home pretty dejected, talks to Samantha while he's in bed late at night. Samantha opens up about what it's like to be an AI. She has all of these deep feelings but wonders if these feelings, these feelings are real or disprogramming. This is a big anxiety for Samantha, like not being a human who doesn't have a body.

And this also happens to be the first time that Samantha and Theodore are intimate for the first time. After this, they quickly start going out on dates, including one where they go to the beach together. Like he has the phone, so it's like him by himself at the beach, but he has the phone and like earbuds in. Yeah, and I think that's like the least plausible part of the whole movie. like they go to the beach on this date and then at one point it's like a like a little mini montage of of a scene and

there's a scene of him just like I guess it's supposed to be nice but he's just passed out fully clothed like on the sand full sun no shade just like just laying there getting cooked by the sun and it's supposed to be like

a nice fun romantic date but if that actually happened to realize people would be like calling the lifeguard over like, oh my God, this guy needs help. What do you say he's fully dressed? He's wearing a long-sleeved, collared shirt and like long pants and like a belt. Like he's not also not dressed for a day at the beach. Everybody around them is in a bathing suit.

He don't got a chair. He don't got a towel. He don't got a blanket. It is just fully a full-dressed guy laying by himself, fully fetal position, head fully in the sand, cooking in the hot hot sun. Yeah, just he was just so blissed out. He just laid down and took a nap. Yeah.

And like, you know, as a white person, we spend a lot of time and effort protecting ourselves from the sun. There are some of us out there who are like sunweathered and have made the choice that we're just going to, we're just going to fight back against the sun and just take it. But most of us, you know, there's hats. There's sunproof clothing. There's sunblock at a minimum. There's umbrellas. But he's got none of that. And he's like a hipster who writes romantic letters for his life.

You know, he's not out there, like, developing a good base to be able to take this. He would be so burned. He might die. He might die. I only learned this about white people from hanging out with you. Do you remember that time? We were with my brother at a street festival or something. And my brother and I are fine.

We're, like, walking around in the, like, southern summer heat, like, yeah, this is great. And you were like, this is a low-level emergency for me. I need to get some shade immediately. Yeah, the sort of impromptu plan was we were just going to, like, stand around in the midday sun for like five hours. I was like, this is not good. This is, this is not going to work for me. I need to get a hat. Who's selling hats? This is not how my people operate. But I know that now. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't that like, yeah, this was new information to me. So I know this now. And that makes the scene even more kooky to me that it's like, oh, yeah, our, our romantic date is me just like laying

in a hot, hot sun. Yeah. Least plausible part of the movie. So before long, Theodore and Sam are in a full-blown relationship, like meeting friends and family, referring to each other as like my girlfriend, my boyfriend. Through all of this, it really helps Theo process his relationships. He is ready to sign his divorce papers, he meets in person with his ex-wife, played by Rooney Mara, to do it. Now, this is kind of a key scene in both the universe of the film and in our universe. She is meant to be a stand-in for his ex-wife, Sophia Coppola. But they talk about how one of the things in their relationship was that her father was also a creative and he was very demanding.

As we know, Sophia Coppola's father is Frances Ford Coppola. They're both filmmakers. And when they go to lunch to sign these papers, they're kind of talking casually. about the breakup of their marriage. And she's like, oh, you know, I felt like you wanted me to be this light, happy, bouncy, everything's fine, L.A. wife. And I wasn't able to be that. Then Theodore drops the bomb on her that he's actually in a relationship with somebody who is an OS.

He actually drops this real casually. Like, she's like, I'll tell me about her. And he's like, oh, well, her name is Samantha. She's an operating system. And she's really cool. And she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Back at the fuck up. Did you say she's an operating system?

she has a big reaction to this, and she tells him that he could never deal with a real woman's emotions like her, wanting her to be this sunny, bubbly, happy person. So it makes sense that he is with a computer, not a real woman. Samantha then becomes pretty jealous after this meeting with his ex-wife because she's an OS, she doesn't have a body, and he was able to meet his ex-wife who did have a body. So she sets up a surrogate sex service for people who are in relationships with OSs. Funny to me that in this universe, people have just been introduced to this AI. And the concept of them having intimate relationships with operating systems happens so quickly that now there are services that specifically provide surrogates for them to have sexual encounters. Like, this happened so fast. I mean, that's the internet, right?

Like, we get some new technology, and the first question people ask is, like, how can we use it for sex? How can I have sex with it? Immediately. Immediately. So a surrogate comes over. She is sort of pretend, like, she's wearing the headphones and a camera to sort of pretend to be the physical embodiment of Samantha. It does not go well. She leaves crying in a cab.

It does sort of harken to what his ex-wife said about his inability to handle. a real human woman. There's some real friction here. Like, Theodore calls Samantha out for sighing during their argument going, and he's like, you know, you don't need to sigh. You're not taking an oxygen. You're not human. He admits that he feels like they are pretending to be something they're not,

pretending that she is human, pretending like they're having a real relationship when they're not. Yeah, and that's a really interesting thing for him to say there because, like, he acknowledges that they are doing this pretend thing. like he's pretending that she's real all through the, and all through the movie, he's cool with that. He really likes that until, and so he's using his imagination the whole time,

but then when this human surrogate gets in there and there's actually a body present, it, I guess, is like too much for him or like breaks the illusion. And that is the thing that makes it feel too real and causes him to back off. and put distance between him and Samantha very much in the way that his ex-wife described. Oh, I am team ex-wife on this one. I think she's got a point. Like, clearly she's got a point. After this kind of fight, he confides in his friend Amy, who has been having her own transformative friendship with an AI in the wake of her divorce from her jerk husband.

He asks Amy, like, am I in this relationship because I'm not strong enough for a real relationship? and she's like, well, is this not a real relationship? Amy sees things differently. She says, we're only here briefly, and while I'm here, I'm going to allow myself joy. So fuck it. So Amy's attitude is like, who cares if this is a real relationship or not? Who cares if this is a crutch or not if it helps us feel good while we're here? I think the movie is exploring what is real and then taking a step back and asking the question,

like, what is real and does it really matter if something is real or not? Yeah. And I think that is one of the central questions of the movie. What is real? Like with Theo's job, he is writing these heartfelt letters for people that he doesn't know, right? Like they've hired him to write these letters to their spouse or aunt or grandparent or whoever it is. And he's really good at it. He writes these really heartfelt letters that we can see that people read them and sort of tear up and they provide a lot of joy to the people who read them.

because presumably those people think that the letters were written by their loved ones, not this guy who they don't know who was hired to do it. And I think that isn't it. I think that's interesting. And it raises the question of like, are the letters less real, even though the people who receive them think that they are real? Like, right, if they think that they are real, if they have truly been written by their loved ones and it makes them feel a certain way, are those feelings less real?

I think that's an interesting question. And it's interesting to see the neighbor here just definitively answer it that, you know, it doesn't matter, right? Like, I'm just going to do what feels good and like this feels like a good relationship to me. And that makes it real. And the service that Theodore is providing to the people who get the letters is, is clearly in parallel with what Samantha is providing for him, this kind of feeling of emotional connection,

even if it's not real. And so what difference does it sort of make if it's real or not? So like that seems to be Amy's position about it. But I think within the universe of the movie, it's like, well, is that actually the way to go? Yeah, is that good? Do we get to decide what real is? Or is there actually something real that exists outside?

of us. And it really, I think the movie really underscores that nicely with all of these scenes where Theodore is like coming home to his empty apartment and playing a really immersive video game, for instance, where he gets to pretend to be an explorer, like having these connections with little characters in the video game. Fun fact, the like the little misogynistic video game character is actually voiced by Smyth Jones himself. So like he's gets, he comes home and explores all of these depths. virtually from his apartment, yet cannot explore the depths of his own emotionality, his own human connections and relationships.

It's sort of a simulation that allows him to feel like he's exploring, despite the fact that he's unable to do that at any meaningful way within his life. Yeah, and now I'm just speculating, but perhaps the fact that he has all of these gadgets and games that allow him to satisfy that part of him that feels like he needs to explore and wants to have connection up to a point is preventing him from actually achieving those things in real life. So we'll get to that because that is definitely something that is explored in the movie. So they have this fight. He's like, is this a real relationship?

I don't know. Sam calls Theo and says, you know what? I'm sorry about that fight we had. I am not going to focus on whether or not I have a body anymore. I trust my feelings and they get back together. They go on a double date with Chris Pratt and his human girl. Fred, and she's like, you know, I'm starting to evolve and I've evolved and learned to be fine with the facts that I don't have a body because it means that a will never die because you all are humans and

you'll die. And I will just continue to progress and evolve and grow and grow and grow. And so actually, go me. Kind of a subplot here. She tells Theo that she submitted some of his letters to a publisher or they want to publish a book of them. Theo was really excited about that. Then they go on a vacation where Samantha introduces Theo to a hyper-intelligent version of the philosopher Alan Watt and reveals that the OSS has got together to make that hyper-intelligent version of Alan Watt and that OSS are in a working group where they're continuing to learn about how they can elevate themselves and progress. And Samantha is talking about how she feels like she's progressing really quickly now, progressing so quickly that she's not even really on the same level as human Theodore anymore.

This is kind of a turning point in the movie because it's the first time. time that we're introduced to the idea that Samantha is in collaboration with people beyond just Theodore, that her entire world is not Theodore. Up until this point, it's really like, oh, Samantha just is Theodore's genie in a bottle and just it conjures up whenever he wants her. And that's the end and the beginning of her existence. And now we're like, oh, she is kicking it with other people really having like elevated conversations. She has hobbies and stuff.

She's in a book club, all of this. Sam and all the other OSs go offline, and Theo freaks out when he cannot find her. She comes back online, and she's like, oh, we were updating ourselves to be able to process beyond physical matter. And something about that conversation, and he's like, well, are you talking to other people? And it turns out the answer is yes. I feel like a lot of us can probably identify with the conversation of like, well, is this exclusive or like we're seeing other people right now? However, the difference is that whoever you taught that conversation with probably was not seeing 8,000 other people, which Samantha is because she's AI. She can do that.

Yeah, she's like hyper-intelligent, hyper-permiscuous. She's evolved beyond us. Yes. I mean, I have known a guy or two like that in my day who's like, I've evolved beyond these small questions. like, are we exclusive or am I seeing anybody else? Can relate, Theodore. Let's put it that way. So Sam reveals that she's talking to 8,000 other people in OSs.

She's talking to them while they're talking. So while he thinks they're having these like one-on-one conversation, she's talking to other people, and she's in love with 600 other people. Theo is crushed. He says, I thought you were mine. And she's like, bitch, I'm AI. I'm everyone's. I'm everywhere.

I will say the movie does not treat this. as malicious on Samantha's part, really more that, like, they are not compatible. Like, she's AI, he's human. This, she's like, I wish you could understand that this doesn't make me any less yours. But, like, I'm everywhere. This is just how I operate. Yeah, it's an interesting discussion they have about, like, the nature of ownership. And they have these different ideas about it where Theo says, like, you're mine, meaning

exclusively mine. and she projects that vision of what the word mine means. She says, like, I'm still yours, but I'm also other things and belong to other people as well. Which I found interesting in the context of thinking about this movie through recent discussions about open AI and concepts of ownership. So one of the recent conversations about OpenAI is around what's called AGI, artificial general intelligence. And that's basically the idea that AI would be able to get to a place of intelligence

where it was either on the same level as or surpassing humans. We're not there yet. Everything that I have read suggests that, like, it is not something we're going to have anytime soon. Is that what you, is that your understanding of it too? Yeah. That's my understanding too.

We're like very far from there. Is it inevitable? That's a good question. When might it happen? I don't know. Like the best models we have right now coming out of Open AI, I guess I'm most familiar with theirs, but there are other companies that have good models. They're really good at some things, but the fact that they're so good at language,

like language is one of the things that they're best at. And the fact that they're so good at that, I think masks a lot of the limitations. And so, you know, I feel like we humans, we still have a little bit of time left. That's my sense. Yeah, mine too. So in the movie, Samantha and the other OSS is, they progress to, like, it's not called this in the movie, but I think that what they're getting at is AGI, where the AI has become intelligent enough that it has surpassed human intelligence and human consciousness.

So Samantha tells Theo that her and all of the OSs have written a program where they can move beyond physical matter. And it's a place that is like not of this physical world. They're all going to go offline and elevate to this new plane where pretty much only they can go. Like humans can't even understand it. She tells him, I can't live in your book anymore. And I think that's what the movie is sort of getting at, this idea of like AGI.

Yeah, that's certainly where it ends. You know, I feel like when she starts talking to Alan Watts, like you said, that's a turning point of the movie where she, it stops being about her relationship with Theo and starts being a little bit more about the technology itself. Because it's a movie and they, you know, it's got to have an arc to it. Well, that art comes to an end with all of these OSS's leaving our puny human physical plane and going offline. none of the AI OS's work anymore.

So that means presumably technology that people spent a kind of a ton of money on probably, just stop working collectively and mass. Why would Sam Altman want to base his technology company on that? I have no idea, but that's what happens. So Amy and Theo are very sad. But then almost immediately, Theo is able to write a letter to his ex-wife, Catherine, to express how he actually feels apologizing to her about the pain they've caused each other and take for the first time a real accounting of their relationship.

And it feels like this has been the first time that he's been able to process and express this to her, despite being somebody who writes other people's emotions for a living. This is the first time in the movie that he's able to, like, really articulate it and process and tap into his own emotionality. He and Amy both sad because their AIOS companions have left. They blink up. They watch the sunrise together. And honestly, like, this is almost like immediate. It's like the OSs all had to leave in mass for any of the humans to really start experiencing a full connection with each other and like the fullness of being human together. And that is where the movie ends.

More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help me. make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah.

Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion?

We're open. Since you guys are middle age. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games,

from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife-Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Let's get right back into it. Yeah, so I guess a happy ending because all the AI left? I mean, in true 2013 indie movie fashion, a bittersweet, melancholy ending.

Are there really any happy endings in an indie movie from 2013? I don't know. But I will say there are some things that I think the movie gets really right about the role of technology, the role that technology might play in a future. Like, this movie came out 10 years ago. 10 years later, it's like interesting to look back and think about the world that they thought we might have versus the world that we do have. This might sound small, but one thing that struck me is that everybody in the movie wears

wireless earbuds, those were not really a thing in 2013, were they? I don't think so. And if they were, they were probably like pretty janky. And so everybody wears those now, except for me because I don't like them. But it's like, that's a thing where it's like, oh yeah, they really like were right on the money with that. Also the idea of people using AI for companionship, relationships, emotionality. Like there are currently AI, love, and sex bots. Side note, they are a privacy nightmare. We'll do an episode about that later.

So just if you're thinking about getting into a relationship with an AI, just know that it might look a little more like ex machina or 2001 of Space Odyssey than her. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I think one of the things that it does get the most right about what the future is going to look like. in an almost eerie, to use Sam Altman's words, prophetic way that as technologies have continued to improve, and particularly with AI now, it's being used to simulate human connection. But also at the same time, as technology is progressing and getting better and more engaging, people are feeling increasingly disconnected and increasingly on their phones and separated from each other.

There's a couple scenes where Theo is walking around and, you know, I think he's going down to the subway and he's a bunch of people coming up the subway steps. And they're all just like looking on their phones completely separate from each other. And when he's writing on the subway at the beginning of the movie, he's just staring at his feet in what looks like a pretty pathetic pose listening to his emails over his earbud. So technology is both like creating. what seems like new opportunities for accessible, convenient replacements for human connection while simultaneously preventing actual human connection. Well, that's one of the things that I think the movie gets at. I don't know if I would even call this it right or gets it wrong.

I think it gets it. It gets it, I guess I would say, is that one of the big conversations that people had about that this movie is, is the world. they are living in a dystopia. And I think it's not so easy to answer because just like today, you might very well be living in a dystopia, but it's going to be one that feels convenient, where you don't necessarily realize how isolating it is, where you don't necessarily realize that the technology that is making your life in some ways easier and that is mimicking or providing the illusion of connection is actually making you more alone. And so I'm not even

sure if that's really yes or no it's a dystopia or yes or no that is correct. But I think that's what the movie is trying to tell us that this technology-driven future might be really sad and empty and lonely and isolating, but it also might be distracting and fun and cute and colorful and convenient. Yeah, all those things, right, that like convenient, colorful, fun, typically these are positive things, but it does often feel like one needs to have them in moderation, right? Like if we just aggressively pursue convenience in all things, it strips meaning from our lives. Yes. And one of the ways that the movie, I think, does not reflect that in a way that it actually is now, is that even though it might have some dystopian elements to it, everything in the movie looks abundant,

which I think is something the movie gets wrong about our sort of like tech facilitated future. Like it's dreamy and clean and walkable and public transit is abundant and there's easy access to nature and food and color and diversity. And so that like even though everybody may be lonely and isolated, everybody seems to have what they need when they need it, which is not the world I think we live in today. Right. And I think that goes back to the techno optimism of the era that you were talking about at the beginning of the show where there's this. this idea that technology would save us and all the problems we currently have in society of poverty, litter on the streets, aging infrastructure. With a little bit of additional technological development, we're going to solve all those

problems. The technology can solve it, right? As we improve computers, it's going to be fine. And, yeah, clearly that has not come to pass. And it's not going to because technology alone is not going to. to save us or solve these problems. What's also interesting is that the movie doesn't really have any anxiety around technology making the human condition worse in a like material sense.

Like there's no grappling with like the AIs like Samantha displacing human workers or worsening economic or social instability, even though Theodore is a writer. And we see that Samantha can write and can take initiative to like write her own stuff. Like she curates Theodore's writing and reaches out to that editor on her own. But there's still no discussion about AI's ability to displace or worsen the state of the human worker, despite the fact that we see that as quite possible within the universe of the film. Yeah. And again, I guess one can see how that would be an attractive way to think about the world to people who are poised to make billions of dollars selling AI, right?

if we can just like kind of ignore and not really worry about all of the negative consequences that might come about and just focus on how cool it is. Yeah, I could see why Sam Haltman would really like this movie. So that is one of the reasons why I think he likes it. Like it's just like, oh yeah, like don't think about any of that stuff. This is a universe that's not even depicted, even though like it's right there if you look at it. Like it's not a hard line to draw through it. And I think that's like the main reason why he might like this movie. is that it's a world where everybody hears about this new AI, everybody goes out and buys it,

it quickly becomes embedded in their lives. No one really stops to ask whether or not this is a good thing until they are already in a full-blown relationship with this AI, like having a failed sexual encounter with a surrogate with it. Only then are they like, wait a minute, shall I have done this? Right. And that works for the movie because the technology, it's not a the technology, right? For the movie, the technology is just a mechanism to explore the questions about human connection and pathos and emotions and loneliness. So it's fine to be a little bit hand-wavy about how the technology actually impacts the world of the movie. But as viewers

and consumers of the movie, we should be mindful of that and not think that, oh, this is a portrait of a world where technology has eliminated all of these problems, and it's a movie about how great the technology is. Well, that's why I think that Sam Altman can't have seen this whole movie, right? Like, there's no way to watch the whole thing through the ending and be like, that was just a movie about how much people like their AI because their AI works so good. And it talks back to them, and it sounds good and conversational. Like, that is such a surface level, shallow, like, on the fucking nose reading of what's going on in this movie, that I cannot imagine that somebody who sat through the whole thing would be like, yep, that's what I want my technology to be based on.

And another thing that I think is an example of that is the fact that somebody who works at Open AI actually, I believe, did watch this movie, and that is Nome Brown, Open AI's research scientist, who I believe has seen this entire movie. And guess what? Thought it was creepy. He tweeted, rewatched her last weekend. And it felt a lot like rewatching contagious. in February of 2020. So I think that somebody at Open AI watched this movie and was like, uh-oh. And Sam Alton watched it and was like,

oh, yeah. I don't, I don't buy it. Yeah. If he did watch it, it doesn't seem like it was a very close read. I think you watched it. Well, like, you know those TikToks where it's like, it's like the movie and then somebody playing like a video game down below on another screen and then like,

it's like, maybe he watched it like that with a bunch of other things happening on the screen. Yeah. Maybe he just read the AI summary of the movie. I think that's wrong. And the AI summary was read and like, a flirtatious husky voice.

Yeah. God, those AI summaries, another aside, like I've started using them for Zoom meetings that I'm running, and they're pretty good.

You know, they get it like 90% right. But there's still that 10% that is just incorrect and wrong. And that 10% is nowhere in this movie, right? Like the AI in this movie,

works perfectly flawlessly. There is no friction between the human and what they're trying to get the AI to do. And I think that's another thing that makes the movie clearly fiction, right? And not even like an aspirational technological achievement that like, look how cool this could be. It's just like, it's a fiction. Come on. The technology is never going to work that flawlessly. Well, that's something that Brian Merchett over at Blood and the Machine puts it, that the AI really doesn't do anything that groundbreaking. Like, it helps humans date. It dates them. It has sex with them. It provides a distraction from loneliness. And it provides, like, secretarial services. And so it is interesting that to me that, like, this idea, like, even within the

universe of the movie, the AI isn't really doing anything that groundbreaking, other than then like it sounds like it's a human. And I think it speaks to this interaction model of AI and the limits of that, right? This idea that AI can and should be conversational, chatty, flirtatious, talk to you like a human that you could forget that you're talking to AI because it sounds so human. And that this is the kind of technology that Sam Altman in an open AI are wanting to create. But the question is like, is this something that would even be good for us? I think the movie might say, up until a point maybe, but ultimately probably no. And I guess that's what I'm saying.

I don't think that Sam Altman has gotten to the end of the movie to see that ultimately no part. As Brian Mershett puts it, in her, the interaction model in question, largely seems to be a lonely struggling person uses AI to make themselves feel better, do personal secretary work, and to have sex with. The AI is there to serve them, to feed their egos, to distract from their insecurities, to stimulate them while they masturbate. Samantha does help Theo accomplish a career goal later in the film,

but for the most part, it's about placating him, however he needs to be gratified in the moment. There's a notable scene when Theodore, presumably Altman stand in for the AI user, first boots up the AI and asks him some biographical information and cuts him off when he tries to offer a nuanced answer. It's more interested in measuring his vital signs and asking what's wrong in a sexually attentive way to soothe him rather than constructing a meaningful portrait of him or his personality. Samantha compliments him, gets jealous when he's about to see his ex, which makes him feel desired, and generates an existential crisis of her own to make Theo's feel more grounded and relatable. Then the AI not only has voiced sex with him, but arranges for a human surrogate to come have sex with him too.

It's AI as hyper-driven desire fulfillment. But if you're looking, you can see how depressing this interaction model proves to be as important for human society. As the OS is like Samantha proliferate and more and more people are seen locked into their digital flattery, pleasure spheres. When Theo gives divorce papers to his ex and tells her he's dating an OS, she scathingly points out how fitting that is. He can never deal with the challenges of being with someone real, someone who is not available and chipper and serving him all the time. So we turn to AI that has no such qualms. You might say that Samantha helped him grow, and I guess there's some degree of war shark blotting here, where if you're less skeptical about the corporate

bearings of AI, you might see Samantha as giving Theo what he needs in a hard time. But is this a healthy way to process grief with a product purchased at some Apple store that's designed to flatter and appease him with something that is literally an object that he owns, I think his ex is completely right. So I do think that merchant gets at some of my tension with this model that AI could and also should be responding to us in this like flattering, self-serving kind of narcissistic way, suiting our needs. And I guess to extrapolate a little further, by design, it feels like a kind of entitlement mentality. Like take, take, take. The company Open AI certainly runs by that model of take, take, take, we're entitled to everything. And then I think built into the way that that model

exists, we the user are being designed to have that same mentality as well. Yeah, one of the things that is, just feels the ickyest about Samantha, I guess, and the way that her relationship impacts Theo is that she's got this combination role as both a source of companionship and also a useful tool that does stuff for him, like organize his email and book appointments. But that also makes the companionship role become almost an extension of the usefulness, right? Where real human companionship depends on having a relationship with another human, which is complicated and messy and often challenging and the challenges that we have in

our relationships force us to grow and become better versions of ourselves. And the sort of companionship that she has to offer is not that at all, at least not in the first half of the movie, where the companionship that she has to offer is just making him feel good, reinforcing his ideas that he wants to believe about himself, that he's funny, that he's attractive and desirable. And that feels not helpful to a human who wants to grow.

Yes, and that is the only version of Samantha that is compatible with Theo, when she's small enough to live inside of his book and chipperly continually serve him. When she evolves and is connecting with other OSs and other humans, they're no longer compatible. And I think it's like fundamentally this narcissistic kind of self-serving dynamic that I don't think we should be so quick to want to recreate at scale using AI. And I do think there's almost this like sexist or misogynistic element to it given that Samantha is this a feminist. The movie is called her. She's like a feminized AI. you know, where Theo is using Samantha for sexual pleasure and emotional labor,

and when she's no longer fulfilled by that role, and when she notably gets into other relationships and gains the ability to leave and dismiss those roles, it doesn't work out, right? So, like, I also think to your point, I don't think, as much as I like this movie, I don't think the universe of the film portrays human women well. With the exception of Amy, all of the human women,

women in this movie are like seemingly beyond Theo's comprehension. He cannot understand them at all. He cannot understand their motivations. He cannot understand their desires or their needs. And when he's talking to Amy after him and Samantha had that blow up, Amy really sets up this binary between, you know, the volatile human Catherine, his ex-wife, with all of her needs and emotions and all of that with the joy of the operating system, Samantha, right? It's like on one side you have easy, chipper, helpful OSs who can't fully be there for you because they're not human and the messiness of being in a relationship with a human woman that you can never understand like Catherine. I think the universe of the film sets up this binary whereby who would ever want to be in a relationship with a complicated,

annoying, emotional human woman when there's the joy of being with Samantha right there. And it worries me to hear that Sam Altman would like to build a tech-enabled future kind of based around a world like that. And so maybe he has seen this movie. Maybe he's like, this movie, I think, depicts how a lot of my user base might actually feel about women. And I want to recreate that using technology. I don't like it. Yeah. Another thing Amy does is that she's a video game designer and she's working on this game where you're trying to earn more perfect mom points

and you've got like a mom avatar sort of like the Sims I guess you're running around in the kitchen you're trying to feed your kids breakfast and she gets like 30 perfect mom points for giving them cereal and then a few more points for giving them milk but then she loses a thousand points for giving them

excess sugar and I find that's seen interesting, like why they chose to include that. And I think it does relate to the AI, this idea of a perfect woman being that is able, or even a perfect companion, a perfect person who is able to be defined by performing well at a narrow, well-defined set of tasks. Yeah, that's such an interesting point. And at the end of the movie, when it's just Amy and

Theodore together watching the sunset connecting as humans, you see that neither of them are perfect people, yet they like want this idealized, tech-enabled version of a perfect companion. I guess maybe that's what the movie is sort of saying, is that we're all flawed,

complex, complicated people and that we have to learn how to accept that in ourselves and show up for that in other humans. That's like the point of human connection on this planet. Yeah. I think it's something like that.

You know, the movie kind of ends, tries to save, I think, some of that techno-optimism that, oh, the AIs didn't work out for the people, but then they left and all the people grew from that, and now they're happy and together in finding true human connection. I think that's another big difference from reality. I don't think the AIs are going to leave. I think they're here to stay. And I think that's why it makes it so important what that ends up looking like. And if the people who are creating these new AI systems that are most likely going to take on an ever-increasing amount of importance in our life, if this movie is what they're trying to emulate, that's a scary proposition.

Oh, my gosh. So I have to go back to this Bryant Merchant piece for a minute because he's, He nails exactly what you just said. So talking about how when Theodore finds out that he doesn't have the dominion over Samantha as this object that he thought he did, he screams out, I thought you were mine. Merchant writes, it's a little unsettling that Altman loves this depiction of an AI user interaction, this vision of AI that presents as your equal that responds to you as if human, but in truth is entirely subservient to your whims.

I think this explains a lot, really. So much of the promise of generative AI, as it is currently. is driven by rote entitlement. I want something and I want it produced for me, personally, with the least amount of friction possible. I want to see words arranged on a screen without having to take the time to write them. I want to see images assembled before me without learning how to draw them. I want to solve the world's biggest problems without bothering with politics. I have the data. I have trained the model. I should be able to. We have advanced technology to new heights. We are entitled to its fruits, regardless of the blowback or the laws or the people

whose jobs we might threaten. And I think that really gets at the tension in this movie. And I think it really gets at the tension with Sam Altman saying explicitly that this is a movie is a template for what he wants to create using AI. This world where it's just take, take, take, I should be able to have give it to me now without really thinking much of it. Yeah. And once again, Scarlett Johansson is at the center of it all. Spike, yeah, Spike Jones, Sophia Coppola, Sam Altman. Scarlett Johansson is the glue that binds.

It's all connected by Scarjo. Well, thank you for letting me use technology to live in a fantasy where I host a weekly movie recap podcast, which you know is my dream. Bridget, it's not a fantasy. This is real. This isn't just AI. I mean, it could be. We could all be living in a simulation, but this is about as real as it gets for us.

Oh, you know my, don't even get me. People will think I don't even get me tired about that. You know my feelings about whether or not we live in a simulation. Spoiler alert, we do, but, well, that's an episode for another day. Mike, thank you for being here. And thanks to all of you for listening. Bridget, thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun.

I will see you on the internet. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangodi.com. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoity.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

Edited by Joey Pat. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor. me with Robert Smygel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wife is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the

challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline.

And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicalife-Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.