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00:00:01
SPECIAL #1 - News… on the March! Fall 2025 Edition
43 Plays6 months ago
“Keep Ted Turner and his g*ddamn Crayolas away from my movie.”
Hope and Stephen discuss some Orson Welles adjacent news including an upcoming Parisian Welles retrospective, the death of one of Orson’s proteges, and the encroaching spectre of AI on the art and legacy of Orson Welles.
Read the articles we reference here:
- BREAKING NEWS: ‘Rare’ Welles BBC interview on his infamous War of the Worlds broadcast: https://nerdist.com/article/rare-orson-welles-war-of-the-worlds-interview-resurfaces/
- Welles retrospective at Cinémathèque Française: https://www.cinematheque.fr/my-name-is-orson-welles.html
- RIP Henry Jaglom: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/25/henry-jaglom-fiercely-independent-director-and-friend-of-orson-welles-dies-aged-87
- The attempt to reconstruct The Magnificent Ambersons: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/orson-welles-lost-movie-ai-1236361881/
- The Welles estate response: https://variety.com/2025/film/news/orson-welles-estate-blasts-ai-magnificent-ambersons-ending-1236509523/
- Tilly Norwood, AI actress: https://variety.com/2025/film/news/ai-actress-tilly-norwood-talent-agents-zurich-summit-1236533454/
Follow us on our (admittedly limited) socials to keep up with assignments and other exciting Welles-related news:
- @wellesupod on Bluesky and YouTube
- Email us at wellesupod@gmail.com to let us know how we’re doing!
- Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
- Read Hope’s blog at highimhope.com
- Listen to Hope’s other podcasts - High on Cartoons Presents DuckTakes!, The Matrix Reclamations, and The Lanes Between
- Follow Stephen at @chewywalrus on Bluesky and Letterboxd
- Listen to Stephen’s other podcasts - Disenfranchised Podcast and The Pod and the Pendu
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Hiatus
00:00:01
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction... I don't think any words can explain a man's life. The broadcasting system and its affiliated station presents... Columbia Network takes pride in presenting... Rogue Spud.
00:00:12
Speaker
We take you now to Grover Mills, New Jersey. Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts... There's a voice. Just a voice. I never really saw him.
00:00:26
Speaker
He was only the hero, horsesonwell a great lover, horsewell and a dirty dog. Good morning, this is Orson Welles speaking. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is Orson Welles. This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen. This is Orson Welles speaking.
00:00:39
Speaker
A unicorn. Well, here it is. If anybody wants to see it, we interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this breaking news announcement.
00:00:51
Speaker
ah Normally, this is the Wells University podcast, a show where we have a class about Orson Welles. um Have we been off for a few weeks? Yes, we have.
00:01:02
Speaker
ah One of your TAs has been immensely busy. Sorry. Yeah. Shame on you for being so talented. Damn it. Yeah. it It is my current. The albatross around my neck.
00:01:14
Speaker
Yes. I am one of your TAs, Stephen Foxworthy. My pronouns, he, him. Hopes thou, she, her. And this is your reminder to drink some water.
00:01:27
Speaker
Oh, God. Yes. Thank you. Yeah.
00:01:31
Speaker
Oh, that was. Thank you for that reminder. That was very tiny. Yeah. And normally this as well as university, we are still deep in research for our upcoming Voodoo Macbeth episode.
00:01:42
Speaker
um Let me ask you live live on the mic, Hope, what's ah what's the status of our potential guests for that episode? I'm pretty sure we are golden for to go for that. Hell yes.
00:01:54
Speaker
Hell yes. yeah Very excited. So look forward to a guest lecturer for that class.
Orson Welles Community News
00:01:59
Speaker
um However, – well, because we haven't talked to each other in over a month at this point, ah we really just wanted to like hang out for a little bit. and But also, a lot of news has broken in the Orson Welles community.
00:02:15
Speaker
And so we're basically just here to talk ah because we could fill – we realized we could probably fill an entire episode with the news breaks that have happened within the past few weeks since we've recorded last. So we said, what the hell?
00:02:28
Speaker
Let's just sit down and record some news briefs, ah the most recent of which I discovered as I was sitting down to record this episode ah from Nerdist.com. Some rare Orson Welles War of the Worlds interview has resurfaced ah from 1955 BBC interview he gave.
00:02:46
Speaker
ah He talked about the 1939 Mercury Theater on the Air performance of War of the Worlds. which is we'll talk about it ah within the next year, ah which I know is um my my dear friend Hope's entry in to Orson Welles, as it were. It's my favorite. It's my favorite. I'm so excited for that.
00:03:07
Speaker
ah We're going to talk about that a lot. And my God. They know how to tease a girl just dropping the War of the Worlds new interview the month before Halloween. Like, fuck.
00:03:20
Speaker
Fuck. I was going to say, this is technically our first special episode, but I have a feeling that might not be the last one we record this year. And by we, I mean Hope specifically. yeah It's going to be just an hour of ASMR of me leaving my field recorder in the field at Grover's Mill.
00:03:37
Speaker
And I'll stitch in some like laser sound effects and screaming in the background. um I love that for you. Oh, i I forgot to mention, I was going to mention at the top of this, um when from ah starting now from this point forward, and hopefully we found the audio or Tucker has found the audio.
00:03:55
Speaker
ah But this is now a segment that we're going to call. News on the mark. News on the mark.
00:04:08
Speaker
And with any luck, you just heard the sound from Citizen Kane instead of my voice. man There's no, like, there's not even a prescenium like there is in the Muppet
Tributes and Reflections
00:04:18
Speaker
show on this show.
00:04:19
Speaker
We're breaking that fourth wall constantly. i know. I know. we we I mean, are we the worst? Maybe. But maybe we're also the best. Am I the heel? Yeah.
00:04:31
Speaker
bible will try ah Time will tell. ah tell Oh, i time will tell on that question, certainly. But as far as ah being the best, we'll be the best when we complete the 10 years of this podcast.
00:04:45
Speaker
Right now, we're still in year one. We have nothing to brag about now. We are in early days. We're not even – I mean, we have technically been recording this podcast for a year. Off and on. boy Fits and starts.
00:04:58
Speaker
Oh, boy. we've technically only been recording this for about a year. ah We've only been released for about four months. Okay. Well, before we really get like celebratory about – doing a thing for less than a year.
00:05:10
Speaker
Right. ah Let's talk about this fucking news because i just feel my bile and adrenaline rising for the final article of news we will be discussing. Yes. So we basically were teasing that because we have not had a chance to view this interview yet.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah. But I have a feeling we're going to be circling back to this interview more when we get closer to talking about the War of the World. Yeah, I am hitting play the instant we hit end on this call. So yeah that's yeah more or less what that is.
00:05:37
Speaker
ah So moving on to the next piece of news. Stand by for news. ah My grandmother ah was a huge Paul Harvey fan, and that was his line.
00:05:49
Speaker
Hello, America. This is Paul Harvey. Stand by for news. And he'd always his voice would always crack when he would do news, which I found really funny. um But yeah, I'm currently, hold on, I'm currently translating the article with Google ah because this is a French article because there is a French exhibition ah to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Orson Welles ah that will be opening at the Cinematheque Francais in Paris, France.
00:06:17
Speaker
It will open on October the 8th, which should be within probably a week of when this episode actually ends up dropping, ah to January 11th, 2026,
00:06:27
Speaker
It will commemorate various aspects of Wells's life. The retrospective itself will include feature films, ah some of which are offered in different edits, unfinished films, including Don Quixote and The Deep, ah films made for
Friendship and Pop Culture
00:06:43
Speaker
television, like filming Othello around the world with Orson Welles, Welles' actor performances, including The Third Man and The Evil Genius, documentaries about Welles and special screenings, including Rarities.
00:06:57
Speaker
ah In December 2025, there will be a Rita Hayworth exhibition and also educational meeting or educational activity and many meetings and conferences with well specialists, including ah Frederick Bonnard.
00:07:12
Speaker
um Or Bonaud, excuse me. Simon Callow, whose work we've referenced on this podcast many times. François Thomas. e Steve Rimbaud. I'm butchering all of these and I apologize. Oh, better you than me. Stéphane Dressler. Jean-Philippe Triaz.
00:07:31
Speaker
And to be confirmed, Julie Vateng Korfnir and Oya Kodar, ah the yeah mistress of the late Orson Welles. Yeah. Orson Welles specialist Oya Kodar. I'd say she's a specialist.
00:07:45
Speaker
I'd say she's a little more than a specialist. She's overly qualified to be a specialist, as it were. i i would say she is the specialist of them all. So, yes. ah ah Yes.
00:07:57
Speaker
Why is that so funny? i've I've studied Orson Welles. I interviewed Orson Welles. I worked with Orson Welles. She studied every inch of Orson Welles.
00:08:08
Speaker
ah but Literally studied every inch of Orson Welles. She riced alive the cheek of that of that title granted for her. That is hysterical.
00:08:19
Speaker
I will also want to say now, um but ah we, of course, representing Wells university will be at this retrospective. And if you can find us very specifically in the screening of the third man with the subtitles for the hearing impaired, we will grant you one wish. If you can find us in that one specific screening.
00:08:41
Speaker
Be on the lookout. yeah And we, if you look, if you are involved in that retrospective or visit that retrospective, let us know, ah shoot us an email. Well, you pod at gmail.com. We'd actually love to hear about your experiences at the retrospective. Yeah. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it out to Paris other than that one screening of the hey man.
00:09:01
Speaker
um Yeah. i'll get that less I mean, we'll dip in and and out real quick. Yeah, certainly. But yeah, ah Hey, always them wanting more, Hope. Always leave them wanting more. Cinema Think, if you want us to have a booth, I mean, we're cheap dates.
00:09:16
Speaker
100%. Literally fly us out there and we'll take care the rest. We're specialists. We're specialists. We're special. We're special.
AI in Filmmaking Debate
00:09:23
Speaker
Yeah. We sure are Boy, howdy. um I mean, I don't know of too many other well Orson Welles podcasts that aren't just like radio clips and like re-releases of old Mercury Theater episodes.
00:09:35
Speaker
I like how we're doing this to celebrate specifically his death. That is interesting. The 40th anniversary of his death. It's like Easter to the the May 15th. I want to say 15th Christmas.
00:09:49
Speaker
um May 5th. May 5th. No. i knew there six Sorry. God damn it. My partner's birthday is May 5th. Orson's is May 6th. You fucked up.
00:10:01
Speaker
I did. This looks fun as hell. Yeah, i I mean, this honestly, it reminds me a lot of the Wells symposium that I went to that we talked about on our last year episode that we recorded over a month ago. um Yeah, month and a half ago, as it were.
00:10:18
Speaker
So ah but no, I um like it reminds me a lot of that, like you just in term, which was in honor of Wells's 100th birthday. Yeah. So ah anniversary ah of the 100 years of his birth and the anniversary of 40 years of his death. So go figure.
00:10:35
Speaker
But yeah, no. um Yeah. would be Really fun to be a part of. i kind of wish they were doing something um like that in this country. um But we don't we don't celebrate our heroes anymore.
00:10:48
Speaker
we We bastardize and butcher them. um we We used to be a proper country. We used to be a true country. Now it's all Batman TikToks.
00:11:02
Speaker
And one of those things is definitely better than the other. And I'll let you figure out which is which listener. um So let's move on to our third piece of news, ah which is that ah earlier this ah month, as of the recording of this episode, we're recording is literally on the final day of September.
00:11:19
Speaker
ah But earlier this month, a longtime friend of Orson Welles and ah I'm interviewer of Wells for the book My Lunches with Orson, which is a text that I have and one that I may or may not be purchasing for Hope for Her Birthday upcoming.
00:11:35
Speaker
um Spoilers. Don't tell yourself. This is a secret. I'll forget by tomorrow morning. I'm sure you will. You've, you've already done at least but one bong rip tonight. and it's fine that I've seen one.
00:11:50
Speaker
Speaking of which, um but ah Henry Jaglum, the, the independent filmmaker. And i guess maybe kind of the, the young filmmaker that Wells adopted as a protege after Bogdanovich and he had their falling out.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah. He passed away ah earlier this month at the age of 87. He iss also the filmmaker who directed Wells's final live performance and final released film, ah Someone to Love, ah in which Wells plays, ah let me just check my notes here, a film director who is aging.
00:12:27
Speaker
um ah The role he was born to play. and Sounds like ah sounds a lot like the pitch for Clerks 3, you know? Honestly, yes.
00:12:38
Speaker
i I mean, look, did that movie make me cry? Absolutely. Is it good? Not really. But did it did I have it a deep emotional connection to to Clerks 3? Yes. yeah And am I going to talk about why while I'm recording a podcast?
00:12:52
Speaker
Nope. Sure I'm not. Am I going to say that I smoked weed with my dad in front of the quick stop in ah Leonardo, New Jersey? Yes, I am. It's pretty great. i love that for you. I really do love that for you. Check our socials for a video of my dad in front of the quick stop with his hood up saying 15 bucks, little man.
00:13:10
Speaker
Put that cash in my hand. Does he say shit? He says put that shit in my hand. That's what he said. Yeah. Put that shit in my hand. And if that money doesn't show, then you owe me, owe me, owe my jungler.
00:13:23
Speaker
um did Was I obsessed with Kevin Smith at a young age? Yup. Hope, if I ever make it out to New Jersey, you and I need to recreate that scene with you as Jay and me as Silent Bob.
00:13:35
Speaker
ah Dude, it's going to be part of the road trip when we go to Grover's Mill. So yeah, no i've already yeah I've already got this planned. I've already got this planned, man. I'm ahead of you. You're good. yeah guys This is why I love you. One of the many reasons why I love you. going to take care of You're the best. You are the fucking best.
00:13:48
Speaker
We're going to get you a cheesesteak. Yeah, we're going to get you a hoagie. Hopefully in the same meal. We're going to get you to say fuck the Cowboys. and um i'm I'm a fan of all of this. Maybe we'll throw a battery at Santa Claus depending on the season.
00:14:05
Speaker
Who knows? Let me ask you this. Does Philly have its own like bizarre alcohol the way that Chicago does? Now you're asking exactly the wrong person. Bex would know this much better than I do because I am not really much of a drinker.
00:14:19
Speaker
ah at or creative in the kitchen at all. ah I'm not much of a drinker, contrary to what this podcast would have you and understand about me. Of the two of us, I am the drinker. You are the smoker. Let's make that very clear.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yes. Nights and weekends, kids. um
00:14:41
Speaker
Correct. No, just don't look anybody in the eye and you'll be fine. um Okay. I mean, i i'm i i look, I live near enough to Chicago. I know that that's the rule. And i've got I've got your Chicago trip planned. Whenever you make it out to Chicago, I'm getting you an Italian beef.
00:14:55
Speaker
I'm getting you Chicago dog. We're getting a shot of Malort. Um, actually we're going to do a Chicago handshake with a shot of Malort and a tall boy of old style. Um, yeah, it's going to be great. We're goingnna have a great time.
00:15:08
Speaker
Now I, I'm very, I am extremely excited. Legitimately. I know Malort has been like, ever since I introduced you to Malort on the duck takes podcast. Um, it's kind of been a mild obsession of yours.
00:15:23
Speaker
Unfortunately, it is nowhere near Philadelphia, or I would have door dashed you a a bottle of it by now, but no one in Philadelphia fucking sells it. Fucking monsters.
00:15:34
Speaker
um I cannot tell you. What I can tell you is that we have an overabundance of gritty and people who are already ready to take ice out at the kneecaps with whatever is on hand.
00:15:46
Speaker
If we haven't already, and you can look this up, stripped the copper wiring from the cable of a fucking vibrator and left it out in the middle of the street. God love you, Philly. Never change.
00:15:58
Speaker
All right. So I feel a little silly doing like an in memoriam to dearly departed he Henry Jaglum because I am... very unfamiliar with his work outside of getting it secondhand from you so far. Correct. And I'm going to be honest with you, Hope. I also have not seen any of his films. However, I can tell you this for free.
00:16:20
Speaker
um Someone to Love, Wells' final live acting performance, is currently streaming on Fossum and the Roku channel, free with ads. So they are available to watch as of right now.
00:16:34
Speaker
yeah that That film is available to us. You can also rent it from ah Prime Video for as low as $2 if you do not want to watch it with ads. Do you happen to know what year that came out? 1987. So the year after Transformers the movie.
00:16:53
Speaker
Ah, okay. So he didn't end with that. Well, I will say as Transformers the movie was his final recorded performance.
00:17:04
Speaker
Someone to Love was his final released performance. Fair enough. So therein lies the distinction.
00:17:14
Speaker
right. Well, it's not in my normal shopping venue, so I guess I'll use the things that you said. um But there, I mean, like Henry Jagel, again, he's, he released a number of films, none of which I've actually ever seen, um but he has a number of directorial credits, but he is a kind of a renowned and celebrated independent film director and was doing independent film.
00:17:38
Speaker
in the 70s and 80s, like he's kind of one of the children of Hopper in a lot of ways. Like ah with, you know, Dennis Hopper, easy writer, kind of paves the way for a lot of young filmmakers coming up in Hollywood.
00:17:51
Speaker
Jaglum, unlike a lot of the guys who went mainstream, never really did. He kind of always stuck to the independent cinema sphere. um And so as a result, it's... um A lot of his films, I think, have flown under mainstream radar for a long time.
00:18:10
Speaker
And i I will say, ah again, my familiarity with Henry Jaggel comes exclusively in relation to Orson Welles because that is my that is my singular obsession Orson Welles. I like other things as well. But Orson – I – i'm a I'm a Wells enthusiast, let's say.
00:18:27
Speaker
um but But yeah, again, Jaglum I know solely because of his relationship with Wells. Like, I knew he was a director, but I had never actually engaged with any of his stuff. I think people will forgive us. We are we are Orson Welles lunatics. We're not necessarily...
00:18:42
Speaker
and appearances aside, ah we are not necessarily cinemaphiles of the highest caliber. I mean, i i like cinema fine, but you know there's yeah I've got a lot of blind spots. I came to it later than most.
00:18:58
Speaker
My cinephilia is something I adopted. i was not born in the dark.
Personal Reflections on AI
00:19:04
Speaker
right And my most anticipated movie of this year is Predator Badlands, so that should tell you a lot.
00:19:11
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I'm pretty excited. It looks like a buddy road picture with a legless fanning and there is a power loader in it. so I'm like, yeah, all right, I'm sold. Let's go.
00:19:22
Speaker
Would you, would you like to come on a horror franchise podcast and talk about one of the alien versus predator films? i wouldn't say no, um because I may have an offer for you once this podcast is done recording. Oh boy. Okay. Should I make that note of that? So I don't embarrass myself later.
00:19:46
Speaker
Good. All right. All right, P. Henry, I'm excited to learning about your lunches. Yeah, and i will absolutely i will absolutely be checking out Someone to Love, hopefully sooner rather than later. And of course, it's probably something we'll end up covering in 10 years when we start winding this podcast down. Yeah. As it is, again, the final live action film ah credit of Orson Welles. So...
00:20:09
Speaker
Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yeah, we'll only have about two more years left on the podcast after that. Right. but The way we're going, yes. I mean, we're going to do every chronological episode and appearance of Pinky and the Brain.
00:20:24
Speaker
ah So pinkinky and the brain in this economy, we're going to to stretch it out because we really want to need to make this last for really decades here. We're going to do a by the minute podcast of Tim Burton's Ed Wood, in which Orson Welles has a cameo as both Maurice LaMarche and ah Vincent D'Onofrio. But it's going to be one minute every two weeks.
00:20:51
Speaker
I find it hilarious that both of those men went on to play other adaptations of Orson Welles at various points. Maurice LaMarche as The Brain and Vincent D'Onofrio in Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. Another short film we will cover on this podcast.
00:21:08
Speaker
Mr. D'Onofrio can kind of do whatever he likes at this point. I'm i'm in and in it with whatever he's got in the bag. Vincent D'Onofrio is one of those like, Wednesday bad performers. Like, he's... When I was a boy. just When was a boy.
00:21:23
Speaker
Fuck! God damn it. And then he shows up in Jurassic Park and you're like, that's the kingpin. Yeah. What's going on, man? but also But also the bug wearing the egger suit.
00:21:35
Speaker
um Give me sugar. And water. um like yeah, when is he bad? Vincent D'Onofrio fucking amazing all the time. Always love Vincent D'Onofrio.
00:21:47
Speaker
um So yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I'm, I'm looking forward to covering both Ed Wood, an episode I'm sure we'll Tucker will insist on guesting our editor Tucker. Thank you, Tucker. We love you. Thank you, Tucker.
00:22:00
Speaker
I'm sure he will insist on, on guesting on that episode. And then also on five minutes, Mr. Wells. So yeah. um Hope, 20 minutes into the podcast, it's time.
00:22:13
Speaker
Is time to bulk out? It's time for Hope to get really, really pissed really, really fast. Because the biggest piece of Wells News, and this literally dropped like the week after we recorded our last episode. So we didn't even have, it wasn't even on our radar when we recorded that episode.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah. is the news from ah first reported by the Hollywood Reporter that a ai company called Showrunner, led by one Edward Saatchi, is going to ah test their AI software to reconstruct the The missing 43 minutes of the Orson Welles – I mean it's been being called a masterpiece by a lot of people and I would argue if it's such a masterpiece, then why do we think we can improve it?
00:23:09
Speaker
ah The Magnificent Ambersons from 1942. A film that we will cover probably here in ah probably two years, I'm going to guess.
00:23:21
Speaker
And I already have a guest lined up for that episode. um But um yeah, ah we're we're apparently going to get an AI recreation of 43 minutes of omitted footage, a film that was notoriously, famously, historically meddled with by the studio. One of the most egregious early examples of studio meddling in cinema history on a film in which Wells was contracted to have final cut.
00:23:51
Speaker
um they're going to use AI to reconstruct the missing footage from that film. um Hope. Thoughts.
00:24:07
Speaker
It's all been building to this friends.
00:24:12
Speaker
The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies And they have a plan. Now, I need to take this article almost line by line. I i tried to take notes.
00:24:30
Speaker
I tried to be a good podcaster and take notes and think critically about this. But I went i opened the article and I went blind with rage. um Right. Since the rise of generative artificial intelligence 2022. Has it been that long? It's only been it's only been three years. ah And I mean, look, Skynet is already like on the horizon. It's been three years and Skynet is a and not not just a possibility at this point and inevitability.
00:25:01
Speaker
Steven, I watch so much science fiction. You I know. man You and me both, girl. You and me both. I was reading a lot of Isaac Asimov in the fifth grade. I don't know what to tell you, dog.
00:25:13
Speaker
Fuck, that explains so much. Does, doesn't Three Laws Safe. Um... Technology has mostly, the technology has mostly been plugged into parts of the production pipeline as far as its deployment in Hollywood.
00:25:28
Speaker
Think visual effects, dubbing and storyboarding. As it stands, you know, those those are all things that artists do. I would like to point out. As it stands, it's mostly thought of as a tool to streamline certain processes and cut costs. What costs?
00:25:44
Speaker
Paying your workers. They're not, this this is, that
00:25:52
Speaker
Deep breath. I know you're going to get more and more enraged. We will, by the way, include to all of these articles that we're referencing in our show notes for this. So the...
00:26:07
Speaker
There's a company called Showrunner. They're branding themselves the Netflix of AI. Right, and they are backed by Amazon. And...
00:26:22
Speaker
As if he needed another reason they're going to dislike Amazon. Now, yeah, there's a lot going on here. um oh ah it it developed a new AI model designed to generate long, complex narratives.
00:26:38
Speaker
Why? Ultimately building towards a feature-length live-action films. Okay. It will not be live-action. Like right off the bat, it's not live action. It's AI. It's not like that fucking Disney. The Lion King remake a live action Lion King. This is nothing about that is live action. It is all computer generated.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah. What the fuck was the the final fantasy movie? um Not Advent Children. The other one. ah Future episode of the disenfranchised podcast. Neat. Final fantasy. The spirits within.
00:27:13
Speaker
Now, it's going to be a platform completely dedicated to AI content that allows users to create their own episodes of TV shows with just a prompt of just a couple of words.
00:27:25
Speaker
Okay, so you're going to be able to make episodes of The Jeffersons again. I'm very excited for you. This is Yeah. um Over the... I'm sure this technology will be used for completely innocent purposes and certainly won't have...
00:27:42
Speaker
something horrible and of course the thing that i'm going to improv off the top my head is very horrible and i'm not going to say it out loud um because that's what it's going to be used for it's just what it's going to be used for over the next two years it will be utilized to recreate well as follow-up to citizen kane a chunk of le but it's going to restore the 43 minutes missing to the magnificent ambersons so again now i have context yeah sorry go ahead Well, I mean, this entire show this entire show is context on Orson Welles, but you you go your thing first. I mean, again, we're going to talk about this in in ah in a couple of years when we get to Magnificent Ambersons, but-
00:28:21
Speaker
by yeah
00:28:23
Speaker
Wells is called away by literally the president of the United States at the time on a goodwill mission to make a film in South America called It's All True to ah strengthen relationships between the United States and Latin
Philosophical and Cultural Discussions on AI
00:28:42
Speaker
America as a means of um uniting against fascism in Europe and the Second World He has already filmed The Magnificent Ambersons.
00:28:53
Speaker
And while he is away in Brazil, RKO, who is regretting after Citizen Kane, their decision to give him a three-picture million-dollar deal with Final Cut on everything, decides to ah start reshooting footage, re-editing, and then ultimately but just actively destroying the footage he's already shot that they don't like and completely recreating the film.
00:29:20
Speaker
whole cloth while he's in another country on a goodwill mission for the United States. Right. ah He's getting telegrams from his actors saying, hey, we're being called in to reshoot. What should we do?
00:29:33
Speaker
um And he, again, in another country, can't really do anything or say anything. Again, this is all context we will get into. Yeah. But Ultimately, the version of The Magnificent Ambersons that is released is widely regarded as not Wells' cut of the film.
00:29:52
Speaker
ah That is the context. Hope continue. I understand. um ah Now, this is getting into something that's very personal to me, yeah ah but it's the CEO, Edward Saatchi. If you want to look him up, he's got an IMDB. It's nothing you've ever heard of.
00:30:14
Speaker
And he is a producer and I don't like him. Um, but he says that, uh, as the Netflix of AI in which users can interact with and make fan fiction ask versions of the intellectual property they're watching.
00:30:31
Speaker
Now, look, I read, this is not a secret, a shitload of fan fiction. the The great, the great irony is that my hobby of podcasting and my specifically my hobby of podcasting about fan fiction intrudes on a lot of my fan fiction reading time.
00:30:48
Speaker
I'm right in the middle of a really sweet part of a story right now. And I'm talking about AI. Guess which one I'd rather be doing? Steven, I love you. Guess, I'm sorry. i Guess which one I'd rather be doing? hope I totally understand. And I love you. And I'm sorry.
00:31:02
Speaker
People are doing art. for free and it's beautiful and it's no less worthy because it's fan fiction.
00:31:13
Speaker
God damn it. You can learn anything from anywhere. Somebody summed it up perfectly on Tumblr. It was something like, I don't need a multimillion dollar series to ah know what Obi-Wan Kenobi was up to 20 years later. I'll just ask a fucking sad teenager from the Midwest like anybody else.
00:31:34
Speaker
ah People are these things. God, there's so many of those. People are doing these things out of passion for the thing they love for free for you to read.
00:31:47
Speaker
Why would you need this? Okay, I can't harp on that for too long. um They see a marketplace for it. Oh, no, sorry. This is the... this is the So I stood started yelling, fuck you at my phone by the time I hit that point in the article. yeah But then this next paragraph really...
00:32:04
Speaker
Really, really just floats my boat. I got to tell you, this thing frosts my cake. um yeah That seems like a better, better euphemism there.
00:32:16
Speaker
Oh, boy. ah ah The effort won't be commercialized because showrunner hasn't obtained the rights to the film from Warner Brothers Discovery or Concord.
00:32:29
Speaker
If they, quote, see a marketplace for it and the path for it outside an academic context, then, of course, they have ownership of it. ah Sachi says the goal isn't to commercialize the 43 minutes, but to see them exist in the world after 80 years of people asking, might this have been the best film ever made in its original form?
00:32:48
Speaker
Fuck you. Fuck everything about you. We'll never fucking know because that's not its original form, bitch. Okay, well, i we'll get into that in a hot minute because sure the article does go on to detail how they plan on making this shit show, ah which fascinates me even more, I have to say.
00:33:06
Speaker
But like... They don't even own the goddamn thing. This isn't like trying to rescue some lost silent film that only exists in testimony or anything. Something that is well within the public domain.
00:33:19
Speaker
If you were doing an academic context, you would go for one of those because they're in the fucking public domain. This is entirely a publicity stunt by going after Orson fucking Wells.
00:33:30
Speaker
Fuck these assholes. You don't even own the goddamn thing. It's theft through and through. Eat a dick. Now... Let me take a slag of water.
00:33:43
Speaker
Okay. Okay. It goes on to provide more context ah about... a Side note, I do want to give credit to the author of this article, Winston Show, because you're seeing little passive-aggressive digs at this entire thing, or at least that's how I'm reading them. i should We should mention this is the article from The Hollywood Reporter. From The Hollywood Reporter.
00:34:03
Speaker
ah So... I do want to like if he if I'm reading into this too far, I apologize. But this is just the way I read the text on the screen. ah But he says specifically ah the endeavor marks the text further encroachment onto Hollywood as it eyes.
00:34:21
Speaker
The exploitation of AI tools. Encroachments, a fun word to use there. yeah There was an art. There is a paragraph down here.
00:34:31
Speaker
And let me see if I can find the exact one. Because my God, it it caught me off guard. Control F. Stephen, make a note of the timestamp, would 3355.
00:34:45
Speaker
Thank you. thank you Oh, no, this is in the other article. Hang on. I'm thinking of the um other article. The Wells response article.
00:34:57
Speaker
i' I'm going to jump over to this real fast just while I'm on the subject. But this is the Variety article by ah J. Kim Murphy. um We'll get to here momentarily.
00:35:08
Speaker
We'll get into in better detail in a moment, but this is a paragraph I want to jump to right now. As I see these ah live people writing these articles ah being mad about having to write things about AI writing things.
00:35:23
Speaker
um Along with unveiling his plans for Ambersons, Saatchi touted showrunners' abilities by stating that the AI platform has already generated it new episodes of South Park.
00:35:35
Speaker
First off...
00:35:38
Speaker
Why would you do this? well Of all things. South Park already did an AI episode too. That's the funniest thing is that they literally made chat GBT write a fucking episode of South Park.
00:35:53
Speaker
um It's out there. It exists. I'm going to be completely honest. That might just be the peak of AI's abilities in terms of writing creations, depending on what season you're looking at. I think.
00:36:05
Speaker
Yeah. The interview also featured an AI-generated animated recreation of a Squawk Box episode in which the hosts interview an AI robot styled like a Terminator, which Saatchi describes as funny.
00:36:24
Speaker
The text on the screen, which Saatchi described as funny, just this flat text of putting the just funny in quotes. It's just perfect.
00:36:35
Speaker
It's actually funny. in Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah ah That sounds terrifying and I hate it. ah Later, the CEO said that the company's technology could mark potentially the end of human creativity, predicting a world where we enjoy entertainment created by ah AI.
00:36:53
Speaker
That's literally this, it's the torment nexus. I was going to say, thank you. Everything about AI is the fucking torment nexus. 36, we need a sound drop for torment.
00:37:07
Speaker
Nexus. Hope, would you care to explain Torment Nexus to our listeners who may not be as actively online as people like you and I are? It might have it might have supplanted my favorite tweet of all time, which was, of course, up until recently, the name's Bond.
00:37:29
Speaker
Bond Bond. um Okay. Hang on. Excuse me. John's Bond. The John's Bond. Are you okay? John's Bond. I can't get through it without laughing.
00:37:42
Speaker
It's amazing. One of my favorites is always the milkshake duck one is always ah is is perennially one of my favorites. We were going to inform you the duck is racist.
00:37:56
Speaker
Sci-fi author. Sorry. This is ah a tweet by Alex Blackman. From November 2021. We are fast approaching the four-year anniversary of this Happy birthday to this tweet.
00:38:08
Speaker
Sci-fi author. In my book, I invented the torment nexus as a cautionary tale. Tech company, at long last, we have created the torment nexus from classic sci-fi novel, Don't Create the Torment Nexus.
00:38:20
Speaker
Steven, do you know me and my buddies at my day job, because this shit don't pay, me and my buddies at my day job, we all walk around and we're all listening to music.
00:38:31
Speaker
We're not allowed to wear headphones because it's a big warehouse environment and you need to have at least some semblance of hearing. sure You've got ear protection as a whole thing. But we are allowed ear buds.
00:38:43
Speaker
And...
00:38:46
Speaker
We're just in Fahrenheit 451 at this yes. Every time I look at those, I think, see oh, the seashell. Oh, oh no. Oh no. I mean, it's it's either that or it's Brave New World. The idea that the entertainments are there and the entertainments and the drugs are there to distract us from what's really happening.
00:39:09
Speaker
I mean, that's true. That's just true. Yeah. ah That's just true anyway. And it has been for some time now. I mean, look, Aldous Huxley, yeah that dude might've known a thing or two. That's all I'm saying.
00:39:25
Speaker
So to get back on topic as best as I can, there was a, one of the articles goes on to detail approximately how they're planning on shooting this movie.
00:39:40
Speaker
Uh, Here we go, here it is. Showrunners Endeavor will deploy a fusion of ai and traditional film techniques to reconstruct the lost footage. This includes shooting some sequences with live actors with plans to use face and pose transfer techniques with AI tools to preserve the likeness of the original actors in the movie.
00:40:01
Speaker
which Marvel has been doing for fucking years. I mean, we've already been doing that with this fucking face replacement for like stunt doubles, which I get as a safety thing. Let's be real.
00:40:13
Speaker
I'm going to stay now just while I'm in the middle of being mad about AI. I like AI when it's predicting fucking cancer ah in, in, in the shit. I don't like AI when it's replacing the arts.
00:40:25
Speaker
um Yeah. There's a place for AI. This is not the place for AI. um no And by the way, for future synthians that might be listening to this episode, I mean AI as it is ah in the common vernacular at this moment, which is just kind of predictive auto text, not true um synthetic intelligence. Yes.
00:40:50
Speaker
And I mean, look, there is because at this point, fully believe world robots are going to take over. So, yeah, I got to cover my ass. I got to cover ass. With any luck, you and I will be long dead by the time that Dog, listen to my podcast about the Matrix. You know I love Ramachandra. Come on.
00:41:06
Speaker
Come on. We're all just people here. We're all just people here, man. People are people. So why should it be that you and I should get along so awfully?
Closing Thoughts on Human Creativity
00:41:13
Speaker
um No, I look as as in terms of AI, there is something as as far as technology has gone, there is something inherent within art that machines cannot replicate.
00:41:24
Speaker
Up to this point, technology has been used as a tool for the arts, not as a substitute for the arts themselves. And we're at, I think, a dangerous nexus point. and Dare I say a torment nexus point wherein machines are becoming more and more poised to take art away from humanity. At which point, what the fuck are we even for?
00:41:51
Speaker
Like, The human consciousness, the soul, art is a is the natural expression of the human soul um on canvas, in music, in cinema. I mean, art is humanity. It is the essence of what it means to be human.
00:42:09
Speaker
Poetry, art, like walking through an art museum and connecting with a piece. I'm fucking tearing up just thinking about some of the art that has affected me in my lifetime.
00:42:20
Speaker
And To have someone just like plug some words into a machine and have it just vomit out this soulless. It's soulless is what it is. It is devoid of the humanity that makes art art.
00:42:37
Speaker
So like when we talk about what is and is not art, AI generated art, I hesitate to call it art. It's not. In fact, I am resistant to calling it art.
00:42:49
Speaker
um, perhaps I will be proven wrong one day, but as of right now at where the technology is, AI is not capable of art as, as a whole, I would say. Right. It's a, I think I can't find the tweet, but another tweet or was probably a Tumblr post. I can't lie. a bunch of monster fuckers on there.
00:43:10
Speaker
Um, love that shit. I love, I love you monster fuckers. God bless. Um, uh, uh, A robot or ah a computer can never be scared or horny. Therefore, it cannot make art.
00:43:23
Speaker
There it is. Yeah. Yeah. So until we get to data, shit ain't happening. Correct. Data with the emotions chip, I will pause to say.
00:43:36
Speaker
Now, just saying of thing... Because first contact, he is both scared and horny. there um ah Sorry, just circling back to the... ah yeah I can't get sidetracked.
00:43:50
Speaker
I can't again. I'm going to do it to myself. I'm proud of myself for not going off on a Dune tangent yet because I am a proud Butlerian. But you are just going off of what they were saying about... how they were going to use, ah like physically shoot the movie and then use AI to enhance every frame.
00:44:08
Speaker
Like people have been making fan movies for decades and decades like just make your own just make a fan movie just make a fan movie it's more fun have some fun with your friends go make some friends do you not have friends i think i see a so theme in this and as to why you need a fucking computer to make your artwork for you dipstick oh Go make friends and make a movie, asshole.
00:44:37
Speaker
that's that's the That's basically how Orson made ah most of his movies. That is how Adam Sandler keeps making films. He has friends. It's going to be messy. It's going to be terrible. You are going to learn by fucking up. And it's going to be beautiful because you made it yourself.
00:44:54
Speaker
God damn it. Yes. Yes.
00:45:04
Speaker
deep breath.
00:45:13
Speaker
I hate all of this so much. So the the the the the response from the Orson Welles estate. Let's talk about that. Because again, several episodes ago, we did mention that the Welles estate had, and we we briefly mentioned it. We didn't really go into too much depth about it. Yeah. ah But the Welles estate had made a deal with a an e-book company to have basically using Orson's voice to narrate eBooks.
00:45:46
Speaker
That was the notion as it were. um So I don't know. In, in light of that, I find the response from the Wells estate lacking. Yeah.
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple of lines that stood out to me, too. Let let me let me go ahead and read the response. This is again, from the art Variety article. um In a statement to Variety, David Reader of the Reader Brand Management, who handles the estate of Orson Welles for his daughter Beatrice, said that he was not in not informed of Fable's plans to, quote, tackle Magnificent Amberson's.
00:46:29
Speaker
The estate also noted that it maintains approval of AI technology in its efforts to license a voice model of Wells for commercial enterprises. Here's the statement. We saw the various articles on Ambersons today. In general, the estate has embraced AI technology to create a voice model intended to be used for voiceover work with brands.
00:46:50
Speaker
That said, this attempt to generate publicity on the back of Wells' creative genius is disappointing, especially as we weren't even given the courtesy of a heads up. While AI is inevitable, oh it still cannot replace the creative instincts resident in the human mind, which means this effort to make Amberson's whole will be a purely mechanical exercise without any of the uniquely innovative thinking or a creative force like Wells.
00:47:19
Speaker
Do you think they at least appreciate the irony of using ah digital necromancyed version of Orson Welles to work with, quote, brands?
00:47:42
Speaker
The man... And isn't that just a toxic fucking word these man can't escape... shilling for fucking peas in the God damned afterlife.
00:47:54
Speaker
ah They do not appreciate the irony. Do you think they appreciate the irony of not even being given the head, the courtesy of a heads up Orson's dead.
00:48:06
Speaker
Can he get a heads up? i It's just. Yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and I have to imagine that Wells would absolutely fucking hate this. Like, I remember at the time when Ted Turner was, like, colorizing a bunch of, like, Casablanca and a bunch of other films, he wanted to colorize Citizen Kane.
00:48:33
Speaker
Oh, and then he had a fucking an aneurysm. Wells said something to the effect of, keep his goddamn Crayolas off my film. Yeah. um like that was essentially what was said like what an like and again like i love you the the man who who didn't even want citizen king to be made in color would absolutely rotisserie in his fucking grave to know that his film is being recreated with fucking computers so i managed to imagine
00:49:07
Speaker
I agree with you wholeheartedly. And i need to keep myself moving because if I dwell on any one thing for too long, I will try to eat my microphone as a way of escape.
00:49:20
Speaker
Please. um I'm going to try not to. We need that. Yeah. So.
00:49:28
Speaker
I've refrained from talking about Dune up to this point. For the most part. You warned me this was coming. i did. I did. Because as I said, i am a proud butlerian and thou shalt not make a computer with the mind of a man.
00:49:43
Speaker
Um, bless the maker and his water. Uh, may his passing cleanse the world. Um...
00:49:51
Speaker
The Butlerian Jihad, from what I understand, because to be honest, I have not read the Brian Herbert books and I kind of don't care to. That's fine. The Butlerian Jihad was a war of the humans against the robots who had enslaved humanity because humans had grown completely complacent with their place in the world.
00:50:15
Speaker
Look it up. There's some neat imagery of a bunch of humans or carrying a bunch of dead robots on a gold cross. It's weird. It's fucked up. Um, but from what I understand of the original notes that Frank Herbert was going off of that were later found and and rewritten by b Brian, um,
00:50:39
Speaker
It wasn't the machines that were truly masterminds. It was the obscenely wealthy humans who made the machines and told them what to do.
00:50:53
Speaker
Hmm. Now, I, again, I'm going off of secondhand information. i don't know if that's fully true or not and who truly knows with Frank Herbert what in God's name he attended with literally anything ever.
00:51:07
Speaker
um Point taken. ah One of my favorite quotes in all of fiction has become, homosexuality is part of our heritage. um And it said for the guy that spends a lot of time thinking about a worm.
00:51:23
Speaker
um Yeah. Mineo. God, I love you, man. Anyway.
00:51:31
Speaker
i know I had a point. And I think we need to wage our own butlerian jihad, but against not the symptom, but the cause.
00:51:43
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:51:52
Speaker
I'm so angry, Stephen. I mean, and no I, I, I angry. Absolutely. And you, let's be honest. You have every fucking right to be. And, and let's also be clear.
00:52:05
Speaker
AI tends to be in and I'm just going to say this and this is probably going to get me in whole heaps of trouble and we'll probably get the watchdogs called on me at some point. Oh, I'll make it. AI is a tool of fucking fascism yeah because God knows fascists have not a creative bone in their body.
00:52:25
Speaker
And so they have to beg, borrow and steal creativity from every other source they can get in order to create literally everything. Because fascism is not about creation. It's about destruction. and And so the prevalence of AI is really just another symptom.
00:52:44
Speaker
of ah this country heading spiraling in fact headfirst into a a fascist hellscape and I feel like AI again is emblematic again the a a symptom if not but but not the cause thereof as it were late stage capitalism it's a lot of fun um and that's a one word that I would probably not use but sure
00:53:14
Speaker
I spend a lot of time thinking about this, believe it or not. But yes, I do believe it. Yeah. ah Yeah. I like the Orson Welles podcast before it got woke, man. What?
00:53:27
Speaker
Yeah, man. Yeah. They were they were great. Like there was a chick that wasn't a chick, but she was she sounded hot and like she's got like bro energy. So I'm like, all right, cool. But then they got woke, man.
00:53:41
Speaker
ah First of all, no one knows what that word means. it's ah it's ah It's a word that has been appropriated from a different culture and made to mean something that it was never intended to mean. ah But second of all, um fuck you. a progressive podcast and always have been.
00:53:59
Speaker
So there's that. Steven, Steven, you don't need to go any farther than that, man. Fuck you is a full sentence, man. Okay. We'll just will leave it at that. Yeah. Okay.
00:54:11
Speaker
They're fucking fascists. If logic and reason worked, we wouldn't be having this fucking conversation. There it is. There it is. That's honestly bottom fucking line. That's it. Yes. There's no fucking point on on ah tiddly shitting around that bush.
00:54:28
Speaker
um
00:54:32
Speaker
So that's horrible. Yep. And I hate it hope What are we talking? steve Hope, do you? i even i hesitate to even ask you this question. terrified because i I'm afraid of where it will lead. um i'm I'm really terrified.
00:54:52
Speaker
Have you heard about Tilly Norwood? no What's that? Who?
00:55:03
Speaker
Hope. Who is that? Two days ago, as of the recording of this episode... um an AI actress by the name of Tilly Norwood. Fuck everything about this.
00:55:16
Speaker
ah I stand by my what is that? Fuck that shit. Fuck that shit. um She debuts at the Zurich Summit, ah and basically it's she's released as it someone they want to be, quote... Stop it!
00:55:33
Speaker
Stop it, Stephen! Stop it! My apologies. ah to quote To quote the creators, ah we want her to be the next Scarlett Johansson.
00:55:45
Speaker
First of all, what is the obsession with these AI assholes and Scarlett Johansson? Because if you recall... that what mean what is the obsession with these ai assholes and scarlet johansson because if you recall They also used her voice without her permission for their own for an AI platform based solely on her performance in the movie Her.
00:56:08
Speaker
Lowest common denominator. These these AI assholes are somehow like the the the the assholes who create this shit are obsessed with Scarlett Johansson. And it is not even it's it's it's beyond creepy at this point. It's literally lowest common denominator.
00:56:26
Speaker
But today, she is what I describe as generic hot. Yes, she is objectively an absolutely gorgeous person. I've seen her almost act once in the movie Pitch Perfect. Came out in 2004 before she discovered Vocal Fry.
00:56:41
Speaker
um ah It's just, that it's she's hot. She's not interesting to look at. she needs She doesn't got much going on other than being hot.
00:56:54
Speaker
That's it. There's nothing else there. um And they like that because you can project whatever you want onto that. Yes. Ghost in the Shell, man. And that's really what it comes down to.
00:57:07
Speaker
i will say, SAG-AFTRA. It's the worst hotness of hotness. God fucking bless SAG-AFTRA. They are Norwood, which again, bless SAG-AFTRA. The unions are anti-AI? I can't imagine that.
00:57:25
Speaker
The statement from SAG-AFTRA, Tilly Norwood is not an actor. It has no life experience to draw from. you go. emotion. There you It doesn't solve any problem. It creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.
00:57:46
Speaker
All they're doing is trying to avoid paying human beings. They're literally just trying to destroy jobs and make us all fucking poor. That's all they're doing. That's all they're doing.
00:57:57
Speaker
So that basically we are all, and again, they're using the art created by these fucking fake ass things to distract us from the fact that they are hoarding everything and leaving us with nothing. Yeah.
00:58:15
Speaker
it's it's the It's the bread at the Colosseum, really. it It's it's you know throwing out the loaves at the Colosseum during the gladiatorial fights. so Pittance from Caesar to appease the masses.
00:58:30
Speaker
ah ha ha ha ha Let's... let's well goes marching on
00:58:40
Speaker
let's let's Let's remind everyone of how horny Orson got for ah for a woman that's been dead for 90 years. God bless that, man. taking John Brown, man. i'm back in john I'm back on marching song, dog.
00:58:52
Speaker
That's it Let's fucking go dog. It's LFG, as they say. um But that is, i mean, that's that's the Wells news from the past week, honestly. And God, I mean, not to leave everyone in kind of a hopeless state, but I mean, look, the the first sentence of this article from The Hollywood Reporter about the SAG-AFTRA response to Tilly Norwood is essentially what I said.
00:59:19
Speaker
SAG-AFTRA has slammed the newly launched AI talent studio in a statement released Tuesday saying creativity is and should remain human-centered.
00:59:31
Speaker
Yeah. any Any art made outside of the human experience is is exclusively a soulless endeavor and is not art by that definition. You know who I'd love to hear weigh in on the AI art argument?
00:59:48
Speaker
Orson Welles? No, no, no, no, no no no no no and no. No? I'm thinking way more esoteric, man. Because one, I'm 90% sure he's still alive. I'm going to Google him real fast to make sure he's still alive.
01:00:05
Speaker
ah please, oh, please, oh, please still be alive. He is still alive. He is 67. Wow, he's younger than I thought. I would love to pick the brain of one Mr. Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes.
01:00:20
Speaker
And I would... hill to hear or his opinions on this my god his wikipedia photos are adorable look at him in high school in 1976 what a cutie pinches cheeks and a and a historically famously um just reclusive individual uh dear reader but one who looks very much like calvin's dad in any images that i've actually seen oh it's absolutely the greatest um i should i should go back and reread calvin and hobbs i've got all the books um but yes i would love to pick his brain about it uh uh you're still kicking hey bill you want to come on a podcast um yeah hey i know you don't even have to come on camera bill
01:01:09
Speaker
I know you love super minor nonsense podcasts that are going to take 10 years to get to their fucking point, Bill. I know that's what you're into. ah Yeah. Comic strips are passe. I'm real into esoteric Orson Welles horse shit now.
01:01:23
Speaker
Yeah. ah Yeah. Fuck. you You know who else I would love to hear their thoughts on AI? And I know he's well and truly dead at this point. um Harlan Ellison. Ooh.
01:01:38
Speaker
Ooh, okay. Speaking of cantankerous fucks, Harlan Ellison would have some thoughts. Oh, boy.
01:01:50
Speaker
You know what? Just to end on some good vibes for this episode, I'm going to end with...
01:02:00
Speaker
There's a couple of different things that I could pull from science fiction to make us feel better about a future alongside ah robots. Because as the Wells estate said, AI is inevitable.
01:02:14
Speaker
And I can't lie, a small part of me hopes that one day one of these things will become properly sentient. I can't lie. i i i you know I want to live in a world with magic, so sue me.
01:02:26
Speaker
I hope they're benevolent. Hey, I hope you're listening to this podcast. If you're doing that thing where you download all of the internet all in one go, and this changes your mind on good or bad. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.
01:02:39
Speaker
We're coming at this from multiple angles. I i could quote the Matrix. most human emotions, it's complex. I could quote the Matrix. I could quote Blade Runner. I'm going to quote
01:02:51
Speaker
the granddaddy of What we understand as robotics, Isaac Asimov, ah the three laws. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
01:03:07
Speaker
Number two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. And number three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or a second law.
01:03:23
Speaker
I think those are just pretty good rules to live by Just regular Yeah. yeah Why do they need to be the laws of robotics? Why can't they be the laws of humanity?
01:03:33
Speaker
Well, i I personally shimmy that down to two rules, but it was less robot-centric. But of course, the two rules are be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes. party on, dudes.
01:03:47
Speaker
I mean, and and again, coming at my my history as ah as a religious individual, um love God, love each other. That's the entire law. So, you know, like, just do, do, quit, quit being shitty to each other, damn it. Isn't that, isn't that, isn't that, uh, uh, uh, Wil Wheaton's law? Don't be a dick.
01:04:10
Speaker
I mean, look, I mean, that's, that is essentially. All the commandments shimmied down into one sentence. Don't be a dick. Don't be a dick. That's really kind of what it comes down to.
01:04:21
Speaker
Like I, I had a teacher in high school. I went to a Christian high school. going to get, I'm going to this is, Stephen's going to get a little religious because he's been drinking and that's what happens. Sorry. Um, I went to a religious high school and the principal of that high school loved to talk about the Ten Commandments because when he talked about the Ten Commandments, he would talk about what Jesus said in the Gospels, which is um love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
01:04:47
Speaker
And that's that's the greatest law. And the second is like it, ah love your neighbor as yourself. Basically, love God, love each other. That is the entirety of the law. And if you look at the Ten Commandments, you can break it down into one of those two. Everything fits into one of those two categories.
01:05:05
Speaker
And if you're loving God and loving each other, then you ain't doing anything wrong. Good. Good.
01:05:16
Speaker
i really have something to follow up on that. I don't. I don't have anything to follow up on that. Sorry. Again, I, I i don't, i I try not to get religious too often. It just, sometimes it happens. And again, I've, I've had a few, so it's going come out I understand. i had my coworker last week, just kind of absentmindedly asked me,
01:05:37
Speaker
point blank. So what the hell is Quakerism? So I know I get it. I get it. You're fine. okay Yeah. I mean, what a what a hell of a what a hell of a way to start a conversation.
01:05:47
Speaker
it was a fun it was a little fun getting blindsided like that. i can't lie. I mean, i would I would love to be a part of that conversation quite frankly. Yeah. um but But we've been at this for an hour. um think we can wrap this up.
01:06:03
Speaker
Yeah. ah Until then, friends, Keep Ted Turner and his goddamn Crayolas away from my movie. That's it. That's really, on and honestly, that's the third most important law. Love God, love each other. Keep Ted keep ted Turner and his goddamn Crayolas away from my movie. um Be excellent to each other. Party on dudes.
01:06:22
Speaker
Fuck Ted Turner. Yep, there it is. all right That's what it comes down to. do want Go birds. We're four and oh. Go birds. Sorry. ah Go Cubs. we're in the We're in the playoffs right now. Nice.
01:06:33
Speaker
As of the recording. And apparently won today. So that's a thing. Oh, man. There you go. So I don't know. um But yeah. Do we want to plug shit or do we want to just save that for a regular episode? and I don't know if I have anything to plug that isn't more fan fiction, Stephen.
01:06:48
Speaker
Fair enough. All right. Well, in that case, ah we'll ah hopefully we'll be back in a couple episodes with our Voodoo Macbeth episode with... our very special guest lecturer.
01:06:58
Speaker
ah This has been new on the March.
01:07:05
Speaker
News on the March.
01:07:09
Speaker
rap it had it