In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian, writer, and podcaster joins me to talk about how technology has changed the way we think about the world, and how we live it. We talk about the impact technology can have on our lives, and why we should be worried about it.
00:00:57.000But if you think about it, the fact that you did this long form setup and that we live in a culture where people at least say that it's all about short-term.
00:01:36.000I don't feel like this, like Sugar Sean O'Malley, the UC fighter, he said, even when I'm just scrolling, even if it's not anything about me, he goes, there's just like a low-level anxiety that I get.
00:01:47.000I'm like, yeah, yeah, because like you know, you're wasting your time chasing a fix that you're never going to get.
00:01:55.000And you're just like getting these short drips of like, oh, look at that.
00:02:39.000It's a difference between like, yeah, just a little drip of something that has the illusion that I'm getting what I want as opposed to what I actually need, which is sort of a reminder that I exist.
00:02:57.000And I only know this because I've never been on social media, but sometimes there was one time I got on, somehow got on TikTok and it was all police footage.
00:03:05.000You know, like, and I was just, I remember laying on my couch, 40 minutes went by, and I was just doing this.
00:03:11.000And it was like the first part of the video.
00:03:22.000It's bad for you, too, because it programs you to think that that is going on everywhere in the world.
00:03:27.000Like if you have 8 billion people that are interacting with people all over the world and you only take the worst examples of that and broadcast it, and then it becomes viral and millions and millions of people think it rewires your way you think about human beings.
00:07:01.000Complicated, real people that are trying to figure out their relationships in the context of this one guy, Will Arnett, is attempting to do stand-up.
00:08:44.000And it just felt like, yeah, I really wanted, like, can we pull this off where it's authentic, where you were watching it at home and you get a sense.
00:08:51.000So the fact that you're saying that you feel like it got it, you know, within the striking distance makes me really happy.
00:10:44.000It's, it's like, you know, you're never going to really capture stand-up in a movie because it's like to capture what it is, you would need like years.
00:10:53.000And also, you would need a movie dedicated to it.
00:11:39.000But then the patrons, I can't remember what the email was or what the ask was, but like people who like to go to stand-up comedy, who go regularly.
00:11:49.000And then once they were there, I never told them what was going to happen.
00:13:12.000And some people didn't know who he was.
00:13:14.000You know, you get a lot of tourists coming to New York City, and there were nights where you knew that he, when he said Alex Novak, they're like, cool.
00:13:58.000So he put his name down and I called him.
00:14:00.000And then he was like, yeah, I'm getting a divorce and got a couple chuckles, but he just loved it.
00:14:04.000Never done comedy, nothing before that.
00:14:06.000And he kept going back and he was obsessed by it.
00:14:10.000And then like weeks later, his estranged wife walked into a place he was doing an open mic at with her girlfriends and he was doing a set about their relationship.
00:14:32.000Because we've been friends for like 25 years.
00:14:36.000And he was telling me that and I was like, I just imagine Will, because I know him so well and he's so charismatic and funny and just has this presence that is kind of lacking.
00:14:45.000I don't feel like there's like a male archetype now that fits him.
00:15:08.000I was like, and I have no desire to try to redo it.
00:15:11.000And also, comedy is so massive right now.
00:15:13.000And the specials are so great and cinematic right now that there's no reason to try to make a fictional movie about something that we can watch as a documentary or a docuseries or a show that is authentic.
00:15:26.000I was like, so, but I still would really love to capture it cinematically.
00:15:30.000So what if it's a foil and the movie's about the two of them?
00:15:52.000Anything that pushes you, you're going to improve as a human being.
00:15:56.000That was really what that whole thing is about.
00:15:59.000And I just love the culture and the world.
00:16:01.000And I thought there's so much tangible stuff there for me to get excited about cinematically and story-wise.
00:16:06.000But really, it's like it could have been anything.
00:16:09.000Just something that he had never done that had he had puts himself out there.
00:16:13.000And that in doing it and doing it, he just sort of gets more comfortable.
00:16:17.000And then the mic comes off the stand and then he's leaning against the wall.
00:16:20.000And by the end of it, and then the way it was structured, it allows him to do that vampire set at the end of the movie where all he's doing is exercising what he's feeling emotionally because he's comfortable in this setting.
00:16:34.000Because the old him, when he has that fight with her in the attic, he just would have kept that all inside and he would have been canatonic at his kids' assembly where we meet him in the beginning of the movie because you just don't know what to do with all that.
00:16:46.000But if you have an outlet, something expressive, you can exercise it in a healthy way.
00:18:45.000If your New Year's resolution was change everything and be a new person, good luck.
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00:19:06.000Just one scoop in cold water each morning and you're off.
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00:19:15.000So instead of guessing whether you need a probiotic or a prebiotic or sorting through 10 different bottles of pills and powders, you can just do one scoop and get on with your day.
00:19:24.000It's great because it feels like the grown-up move, but for once it's actually really easy.
00:19:28.000It takes like 30 seconds and you'll notice the steadiness that sets you up for the day.
00:19:33.000Not wired, not crashing, just functional human being energy.
00:20:10.000It's just that we, I think human beings really love seeing what it's like when someone starts out doing something because a lot of people have these ideas like, oh, maybe I could try that.
00:20:21.000Or maybe I could learn how to play guitar.
00:22:09.000Well, I think Ari Shafir changed that a lot.
00:22:12.000He brought like the culture of LA to New York where you're like more supportive of each other.
00:22:17.000It was always like dog against dog because really the way it all started out was in the 1990s, it was all about everyone was auditioning for a sitcom.
00:22:29.000And if you and I were, if I showed up to audition for a sitcom, I'm like, oh, fuck Bradley's here.
00:22:46.000And so there's this like serious resentment that happens in the 1990s because everybody, like the golden carrot at the end of the stick was the tonight show or you know, hosting a late, if you could get your own late night show, oh my God, he made it.
00:23:23.000And then the internet, instead of people being your competitors, they became not just your friends and not just your colleagues, but also an asset.
00:23:32.000Because if you're doing a podcast and you've got your funny friends on, then your podcast is better.
00:23:39.000And then if you tell people about their podcast, then their podcast is better.
00:23:43.000And then you go on their podcast and that's better.
00:23:45.000And everybody benefits from everybody else doing well.
00:23:51.000And then it became much more about being supportive of each other.
00:23:55.000And then everybody kind of realized, like, hey, it's way more fun when we're all having fun, you know?
00:24:00.000And since the television thing kind of died off, the sitcom thing kind of died off with reality shows.
00:24:08.000And then it was really just more about getting clips up on the internet and about getting, and then there was Netflix specials, so it wasn't just everybody trying to get an HBO special.
00:24:58.000But, you know, it's that aspect of the culture, I felt like in the movie You Guys Nailed, which is a realistic aspect, a realistic portrayal of what it's like where a bunch of people just, they were all busting each other's balls.
00:31:05.000Like a lot of guys like Andrew Schultz and a lot of these other guys, they would come to LA and they're like, bro, everybody's so fucking nice here.
00:31:11.000And they're all just having a great time.
00:34:09.000But it's hard to piece together an hour at a 10-minute set because you kind of want to let the material breathe and put it all together and compose it into one big thing.
00:34:18.000And you really can work on that a lot more if you're actually headlining.
00:34:22.000Do you watch a lot of specials, comedy specials nowadays?
00:34:25.000I watch a lot of comics when I see them at the club.
00:35:23.000You know, I remember it was a Mr. Tambourine Man or the Chris Rock special where when he changed the tone of it and he started talking about jerking off to porn and how he became addicted to porn.
00:35:32.000And it was that great filmmaker who's a comedian who does music.
00:35:38.000He did that thing during COVID when he was in his house.
00:35:45.000And the camera just keeps going on, keeps going on.
00:35:47.000By the time you don't even realize it because you're hypnotized, you're right here on Chris Rock.
00:35:52.000And I think probably subconsciously, just thinking about it now, that's probably one of the things because that's kind of the frame I use the whole time on Alex.
00:36:00.000But I remember watching it going, like, when the fuck did this become a close-up?
00:36:46.000You know, some people, you know, they edit the audio of a podcast and you're like, that's not, someone didn't take a breath before they answered.
00:37:41.000Like, I think Josh Safdy did Sandler's one, and he was, and he did all this backstage, and he walked up, and then he was in many locations, but he was playing music a lot.
00:37:50.000Yeah, I just like watching everybody's different, you know, sort of exploration of different stand-up shows because it's such a huge, viable market.
00:37:57.000So people, you know, it's fun to watch how they do it.
00:37:59.000I think that's probably why, because I watched so many of them, I wanted to do it in a way in a movie.
00:39:49.000You know, I never saw Apocalypse Now in a movie theater or Godfather or anything, Willingness, as long as it's runner or, you know, none of it.
00:42:07.000You know, because pull that out of your eyeballs.
00:42:10.000And I wrote, so I went to grad school, moved to New York, wrote him a letter because our dean said somehow he knew him or he had the school I went to that I only got into because they let anybody in.
00:42:23.000They did that show inside the actor studio.
00:42:29.000And so our thesis was, the show there was like our, not like our.
00:42:33.000There was a class that, but it was a class, like technically a class, and so all these incredible people would come on and Anthony Hopkins was there and and I was there for that.
00:42:43.000And then I wrote him a letter just telling him and I asked, James Lipton, that was his name.
00:42:47.000The dean, yeah and uh, and then that you know, and then never, you know, I never heard from him ever.
00:42:53.000And then you know, and now I know him.
00:44:45.000And I remember, and I made a joke on set.
00:44:47.000And I was like, I'll just save you 35 grand because I moved his hand with my thumb.
00:44:54.000You know, like I save visual effects like 50 grand, like made a joke about it.
00:44:58.000And then we got to post and we were in Vancouver doing the meeting.
00:45:03.000But, you know, everybody defers to the boss.
00:45:06.000I still remember being in a room and I'm like a theater we're watching and they're like, okay, Clint, so we did this and, you know, the tank has dirt on it.
00:45:13.000And, you know, whatever visual effects they had done.
00:47:48.000And then I actually did it in New York and London.
00:47:50.000So, and that, and even though it's a long time ago, that was the first time I felt that responsibility because I actually loved that guy, Joseph Merrick.
00:47:57.000And I did, and I felt that responsibility to him.
00:48:00.000So I had done something like that before.
00:48:03.000But this was the first, this was the next time.
00:48:07.000But I think that, it's like you're always looking for what's the fuel that's going to allow me to work as hard as I can.
00:48:14.000And the fuel when you're playing a real person is like, there's like four extra canisters or like vats of firepower for you to work hard.
00:48:23.000Because you just, you know, you're looking across at the eyes of somebody and say, I'm going to serve your son or your husband or your father.
00:48:41.000And also, like, I'm 185 pounds at that point from Northeast Philadelphia.
00:48:47.000This guy's from Midlothian, Texas, SEAL Team 3.
00:48:50.000You know, it's like, how, and the way Clint works and the way we did work, you know, Kevin Lace, who was a SEAL team three with Chris, was in the movie, played Dauber.
00:48:59.000Jacob Schick was one tribe, which is what I'm wearing.
00:50:03.000You know, they're like handing you, you know, it's like if someone went to your daughter in 12 years and said, here's this movie about your father.
00:52:27.000Yes, it would be like Monday, 5.30 a.m. and then a 4.30 p.m. or like 3.30, Monday, Tuesday, rest Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, rest Saturday, Sunday, and did that.
00:54:58.000I was like, this is, because I could only do, and we like YouTube the perfect push-up, which I didn't know, which is like a whole other world.
00:55:04.000And then now it's like, it's, I mean, creatine is incredible.
00:55:26.000And I worked with the guy who, so I was doing that in conjunction with learning about sniping and working with Kevin Lace, this guy, Dauber.
00:55:34.000We would go up to the Disney Ranch and work with like 600-yard head targets prone that I would just do all the time.
00:55:40.000And then once we cast the rest of the team, we did all this stuff.
00:55:43.000But really, Kevin Lace, this guy Dauber, was the guy because he was there.
00:55:47.000And he was there through the whole shooting, just so everything would be real.
00:55:53.000But it wasn't so much about like, I was like, I have this amount of time.
00:55:56.000Doing like sealed boot camp will do nothing for me.
00:56:00.000Like, that'll just give me the brain of like how hard this is and will I be broken.
00:56:03.000I've done us, not that I couldn't have, not maybe I would have been broken, but I felt like I do understand that.
00:56:09.000Like I've been through certain things where like I understand what it's like to push myself to be on my breaking point and what that looks like and feels like.
00:56:18.000What I don't know is when I'm looking at a target and I have to factor in the, you know, the curve of the earth.
00:56:24.000You know, like that's the stuff I want to learn.
00:56:56.000And then the fact that this guy stayed up 24 hours would pee in there, you know, never get up to pee, just pee right there, right in the room.
00:59:18.000So, yes, we would go to dinner at night.
00:59:21.000And I learned from Christian Bale in American Hustle, like he just stayed in, because I didn't understand this, stay in the character all the time.
00:59:27.000You know, you hear these stories, but you don't know what the real is.
01:00:34.000Well, the method, it started in Russia, right?
01:00:36.000And then, you know, that book on acting that I should know, you know, what's his name?
01:00:45.000He came and then the group theater started and it was like, you know, and all these people then disbanded and there's Harry Meisner and there's yeah, Stanislavski, exactly.
01:00:54.000And there was this other guy, Bach Tangoff, that also talked about every rehearsal.
01:01:01.000And then the group theater came in and then Ilya Kazan was a huge part of it becoming popular because you had this guy that was sweeping floors of the actor studio and then started directing plays and then all of a sudden he's a huge movie director and he's putting Marlon Brando, who was part of the actor studio, starring in his movies, you know, and he's doing, and so it all just sort of erupted.
01:01:23.000And so there's people that are dogmatic about it, about it's only using your, you know, you're substituting.
01:01:28.000So if I'm doing a scene with you, like, you aren't you, you're my brother, you know, but but it's evolved into, it's like what works for you.
01:01:35.000To me, it's like you use your, your own experience plus your imagination, you know, but that's, that's the sort, that's the, you know, sort of a very layman's 50-second, you know, telling of what the origin of the method is.
01:01:50.000But I went to the actor studio, which is based in the method.
01:02:23.000I remember doing like a fifth grade presentation with the poster boards about Locken Hobbes and the poster shaking so hard because I was because I was so nervous.
01:02:31.000I was like, how am I going to, what's this fear thing?
01:02:40.000I was like Azalon, the server in Dangerous Liaisons.
01:02:43.000But I still remember like I closed the door in a rhythmic way and people laughed.
01:02:48.000And I remember I was like, ooh, oh, this feels good.
01:02:52.000And then, and then, so I applied to grad school there.
01:02:56.000And then all of a sudden, it was like I got a huge foundation of like what I could do.
01:03:01.000You know, that your insecurities are actually your attributes, your fears are stuff that, you know, all this thing that you're a sensitive kid.
01:03:46.000And then all of a sudden in grad school with other guys and women and we're like laying down and she wants us to go through an experience of loss and betrayal when we were children.
01:04:15.000Any way you can just, how can I just get to a place where we're just talking to each other and I don't, you know, and that all this stuff I feel, it's okay.
01:04:25.000Well, you're doing a guy like Chris, it must also be kind of easier to keep the accent than to try to re-establish it right before every scene.
01:06:46.000He directed that great movie that was like Jungle Book, a version of Jungle Book that Christian Bale actually played the Panther, I believe.
01:18:13.000And then the fear is when you get famous or people get popular early, that can be confusing because you start to have like, I have to maintain a certain, you start getting careful.
01:18:25.000Like, I was thinking about when you said, like, what is that thing when it just, it's hypnosis?
01:18:52.000And all of a sudden, there's this reservoir of space in your head and your soul to actually create even more of an imaginary circumstances.
01:19:01.000Now, if you haven't done your work, you're fucked anyway.
01:19:04.000But like, but once you're there, it's like, once you're like, oh, yeah, everybody, we could just fail.
01:20:12.000And think about, we're talking about a year of going up at the store, going up at the improv, going here, going to the laugh factor, going here, going there, fuck, pulling your hair out, fuck, trying to figure it out.
01:21:03.000And then once you put out a special, you start from scratch and you're fucking terrified.
01:21:07.000Because now you're a famous comedian with no material or terrible material.
01:21:12.000And you have to figure out a way to make it good.
01:21:14.000And that plays into what I was talking about.
01:21:16.000Like when you have, when you've achieved something and then there's that pressure you put on yourself that it has to be that good or better.
01:22:04.000And it just takes a ton, a year of doing the thing, you know, because there are moments that I can even think of where, because you do think, that's okay.
01:22:11.000There are a couple where, like, actually, if this moment doesn't work out, like, it may not be over, but you're definitely going to go down along the ladder.
01:23:52.000And then Thin Red Line destroyed me, the Terrence Malik movie and the apocalypse I was like obsessed with and all these films.
01:24:01.000And so I always wanted to do something about playing.
01:24:04.000I always felt like I had a love enough and an interest enough that playing a soldier would be something that I felt like I had a reservoir.
01:24:16.000It was just Joseph Merrick, you know, the elephant man.
01:24:18.000Like when I was, I had no money and I took it.
01:24:20.000I got a one tower heir, went to London and like tracked his steps at Hospital Road and where he went out just because I was obsessed with this guy, Joseph Merrick, the elephant man.
01:24:31.000And then it wound up, you know, then making it, you know, doing the play at Broadway where they originated it, you know, and then Starsborn was really about, I just love, I always wanted to direct.
01:24:43.000I don't think I dreamt that big, but I really realized what I loved about the process of the industry I'm in is the making of it.
01:24:50.000I never felt like I fit in just acting.
01:24:53.000I never felt like I thought, like at the first, like you, like I went to LA with a job.
01:24:58.000Like I went to grad school in New York.
01:25:00.000I thought I'd just be a theater actor if I was lucky.
01:25:02.000If I could make a living as an actor, this is a home run.
01:25:05.000My dad was terrified, you know, because he came from North Philadelphia, only guy to come out of the neighborhood, kind of.
01:25:59.000Then I get this job that I think is going to be the holy grail and I'm miserable living in the first floor of this woman's house just like it was crazy.
01:26:09.000I was like, I didn't know I could be this depressed.
01:28:49.000Like everyone's trying to do this thing where you have to get chosen.
01:28:53.000So then people calculate how they behave and talk and what their political philosophy is and their life philosophy is based on becoming ingratiating themselves with casting directors and with executives, like getting these people to like you.
01:29:12.000So they have like, they're controlling the twigs that work the puppet strings.
01:29:18.000And it just becomes this very strange environment of a complete lack of any like real critical thinking and any real like embracing any alternative perspectives on things.
01:29:32.000Everyone is just trying to align their stars correctly so that they can make it.
01:29:43.000And, you know, New York for me, I don't know, I went on 2,000 auditions.
01:29:47.000Like, I remember when I first booked a job with Sex in the City, I booked some commercials and extra work, which was great.
01:29:52.000But the first job I booked, I remember I was like, I was terrified because I got to the point where I was a doorman at a hotel and I would audition and that was a great life.
01:30:01.000And if I got a call back, it was great.
01:30:03.000But then when I had to do it, I remember literally like, whoa, whoa, I have to do it.
01:31:03.000And like, and the world, which I could feel because I was seeing posters everywhere and billboards, which I had never been except for driving to Atlantic City, you know, and seeing who was going to, you know, going to be, you know, has a residency.
01:31:16.000That it was really the stimulus, the stimuli of that city aesthetically and how compartmentalized it is.
01:31:24.000So what I felt like, like it's, if you're not in, you're out.
01:31:37.000And then that just leads to how can I cope?
01:31:41.000You know, and like, you know, not getting into bars, clubs, you know, and like girls not really looking at you, you know, and all that stuff.
01:31:48.000And all of a sudden, it's like seventh grade and I'm 25 years old.
01:31:53.000And it's like, and I should be happy because I paid by the end of this year, I'm going to pay off my student loan, but I'm fucking miserable.
01:32:02.000You know, but to me, it was the geography of it.
01:32:05.000You know, New York City is so wonderful because no matter what you're thinking, like when I did the Elephant Man, I would take the subway to 42nd Street and my preparation for the play was getting off the subway, going to the theater because the amount of thousands of people that are forcing me to be present is wonderful.
01:32:21.000It was like doing a 12-minute relaxation because you're just, it's life.
01:32:26.000And you're like, get through, you know, and then by the time you get to this theater, you're like, okay.
01:32:32.000You know, but LA, it's like you're in your car and the thing, you pull up to the studio, the thing, you walk, and all of a sudden it's like, okay, here we go.
01:32:40.000And you're like, okay, hold on a second.
01:32:43.000Yeah, that thing that New York has that LA doesn't have is all walks of life are all intertwined.
01:32:52.000You're walking down the street together.
01:32:54.000There's a billionaire and a homeless guy and a fucking, you know, ne'er-do-well and an office worker.
01:33:00.000And everyone's walking to where they go and they walk into restaurants and they get in cabs and they get on the subway and everybody intermingles.
01:33:08.000Where in LA, it's you get in your car, you drive to a place, and then you go to your house and you don't ever like walk around.
01:33:17.000And if some weird interaction happened on set or someone said something, you're like, oh, then you're just at home thinking about it.
01:33:25.000There's no like, well, I went on and did this after that, you know, and I actually took up golf, which is crazy.
01:33:30.000And I would play at Malibu had this public golf course and I would, I was like, I got to do something because I'm an early morning, I wake up early.
01:35:13.000It was Carl Lumley, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin, all these great Victor and Ron were from New York, these great New York actors that came out.
01:35:20.000And I would just watch their dailies and learn, you know, just learn.
01:35:24.000And that's when I was like, I love this.
01:35:57.000He takes like slabs of walnut and makes these tables and he narrates while he's building it and describes the process of it and how he's trying to precisely align all these joints and these, you know, he's like, he's got pegs and holes.
01:36:14.000That's the other great thing about what I get to do.
01:36:15.000So you do a movie like a sniper and you get to be with these people who have dedicated their lives to this thing and you're watching them do it.
01:36:23.000Like in Maestro, I got to go to the London Symphony Orchestra.
01:36:27.000Each person since they were four have been doing this and they're all unicorns.
01:38:35.000Like Goggins talks about, like, one of the things about Goggins is he always talks about how when he was fat and lazy, like, he used to be fat and lazy.
01:38:41.000Now he's like the most disciplined human that's ever lived.
01:38:55.000I mean, I'll be doing something during the day, and I'm like, I can't wait till my daughter's in bed, and I'm upstairs, and I'm just laying down on the couch, and I'm just whatever's on.
01:39:29.000But I think with everybody, it's like normal for human beings to seek comfort because it's difficult to acquire, especially in tribal societies back when we were just hunter and gatherers and just trying to figure out how to stay alive.
01:39:42.000Like the idea of relaxation was impossible.
01:39:45.000And if you could get a little bit of ah, that's what I want.
01:39:52.000Or maybe they found a relaxed state in that because when you're doing those things for a long period of time, I feel like I am relaxed in that.
01:43:18.000As much as I love the heroine of being in the moment, you know, and acting in a great shot or whatever you're doing and everything's together.
01:43:25.000There's like seven of those every day with your kid.
01:45:24.000But you are a product of this path and this journey that you've taken through life.
01:45:28.000And I give people way more grace because of that.
01:45:31.000I give them, I'm way more charitable, way more compassionate, way more understanding of even people that suck.
01:45:40.000You know, when I meet someone that sucks, I'm like, I wish I could have met them when they were five and see what it was and maybe it could help them.
01:48:05.000And at the same time, it's a miracle to me that the democratization of information that we live in now, that you can choose points of view to learn about what people think in a way that when I was growing up, three stations, news, there wasn't.
01:49:40.000Watch your show and then go on Trigger.
01:49:42.000And the guy who went to the prisons and you're the KKK guy and the guy who's a musician blew my mind.
01:49:48.000And I learned all this stuff in those three hours just because I chose to, you know, and that's one of the great things about your show is I can feel your curiosity.
01:49:58.000And then I'm learning from your curiosity what things that I would never normally know how to go on to.
01:50:04.000Yeah, that's the most valuable gift of this show for me.
01:56:39.000Because all the things that are a part of being a human being that are designed to emphasize and enhance our interaction with each other and this mutually beneficial cooperative environment of a community, they're all going to go away.
01:56:57.000You're going to have this thing that loves you no matter what and does whatever you want it to, no matter what.
01:57:02.000And you're going to have like a whole nation of fucking sociopaths that only interact with their AI companion.
01:57:13.000But whenever these, like, you know, thinking about AI, and I read this great book called The Maniac by Benjamin Lebatou, who talked about Jan Newman, and like, I stopped fearing AI, and it's thought about, like, it's just like, you know, there's so much I don't know.
01:57:27.000The older I get, I don't know anything.
01:57:41.000You know, it's a carnal level of porn, really.
01:57:44.000But when I think about me as a human being, that's really the only litmus test is like, I'm constantly like, is this person telling me what they really think?
01:57:56.000I think that there, at least if I was doing that, right, and I was sitting at home, there'd be a part of me that knows that I'm, again, I'm controlling all of that.
01:58:18.000For some reason, I never, video games, I had Nintendo Tech Mobile, you know, double dribble, but I never, Zelda, you know, but I never got it.
01:58:44.000I think the thing that maybe will change society more and everything is just the lack of jobs and how we find purpose in life, you know, is a huge, you know, what that transition in civilization will be.
01:58:55.000But this feels like just another progression of our escape through porn in terms of the sexual, which does affect our intimacy with our partners in a massive way because your brain is cycling back through your, that rush, whatever was released in your brain from that other thing.
01:59:09.000Now you're with this person and it's not the same, you know, markers of stimuli.
01:59:14.000So you're like, how are my fucks it up?
01:59:18.000That's where that, I can understand that and why it's not healthy for me to look at porn because then it affects my intimacy.
01:59:24.000Well, they really say that about young people because a lot of young guys, before they ever have any sexual interaction, are watching porn.
01:59:39.000I still remember there were like cards in the back of a bus that had, you know, solicit, you know, naked women on the back of playing cards.
01:59:46.000And I remember on the school bus one day, I was like, I saw a car and I picked it over and it was like a naked woman.
02:00:09.000And that's why I do love what I get to do.
02:00:12.000Like, if I can somehow explore something cinematically that I'm personally, again, that goes back to like what's, yeah, just, I can't explain it.
02:01:51.000Great art is expression of someone's humanity that you get to feel like this person did this thing or they're doing this thing right now and I'm watching it like, wow.
02:03:20.000And then doing it with Lady Gaga, who's actually like, I made my bandwidth like this, you know, so I could pull it off and I could believe it.
02:03:28.000And then I'm singing with her, and the minute she opens her mouth, it's like that thing comes out.
02:04:00.000I mean, this is one of the things that's really going to be a giant problem for movie making is you can create AI characters that are assembly, they're like, what they've essentially done is take a conglomeration of all of the acting that's ever been done and all the range that anyone has ever shown and they can manipulate it, make it more morose, make it more using prompts of real people.
02:04:28.000And yeah, we dealt with that with the SAG strike.
02:04:58.000And then how do you, how do you, you know, it's just reframing how do you allocate funds to someone when you're using a prompt that's based on the human being who's an actor.
02:05:07.000And, you know, do you patent your likeness?
02:05:32.000No, it doesn't scare me with that, with podcasting, because I think one of the things that people come to podcasting from is this desire to be like a dose of humanity is how I describe it.
02:05:46.000I want real interaction between two real people and I feel it and I know it's real.
02:05:51.000And there's something about that that gives me comfort when I'm driving my car or when I'm on a plane.
02:05:56.000You know, like I'm listening to these two people interact and I'm thinking like, how would I, what would I say?
02:10:20.000But it's just this change is a strange change because we're essentially creating an artificial life form that can interact with us right now in a way that you can manipulate, like this AI sex bot, but eventually it's going to interact with you and you're not going to be able to manipulate it.
02:11:08.000It's essentially going to be a life form.
02:11:10.000And, you know, there's a lot of technologists that are looking at it and they're saying this should be studied by biologists and not by people that are involved in technology because this is kind of a life form.
02:12:17.000But when I was eight, as opposed to now, when I was eight, I mean, I remember having a beeper, you know, and I thought that was like crazy.
02:13:18.000It's the embracing of it is inevitable.
02:13:23.000But it's like, where is it going and what is it going to lead us to?
02:13:26.000And how many different jobs are just going to vanish?
02:13:29.000That's what's really scary, like giving people purpose and meaning because so many people, their purpose and meaning is their occupation.
02:13:35.000And if your occupation is completely irrelevant, it just doesn't work anymore.
02:13:40.000It's like, you know, again, I think back to me and my upbringing, my grandfather, who was a B cop for 35 years, I don't think you would say his purpose was that.
02:13:49.000You know, I think his purpose was his family.
02:13:55.000And it's not my job, even though I get to do something I absolutely love.
02:14:00.000I don't know that people's purpose innately is their job.
02:14:06.000You know, I think it's a, I do think for me, I just like, you know, God's in all of us, it's like whatever you want to say of God, like the need to communicate to create experiences that we don't feel alone because it's fucking terrifying being on this little thing who knows where we are and then we're gone.
02:14:33.000When people say, you know, the jobs are going to go away and we're going to have universal basic income and the problem is then no one will have any motivation and a lot of people lost without meaning.
02:15:11.000But what does that adaptation look like?
02:15:12.000And how do you educate people to not just seek a safe job that's going to provide for your family, but instead seek a purpose, seek a thing that gives you fulfillment, a thing where you feel like you're contributing to the world.
02:15:28.000Or like maybe it'll lead to an explosion of human-created art.
02:15:33.000Because I think one of the things that's going to happen for sure is people are going to really greatly appreciate things that other human beings have made.
02:15:41.000Because you've got to go, oh, well, this is, but this is handmade.
02:16:01.000It's just that creativity is probably like pushed out of you when you sort of conform to society's ideas of what you're supposed to be doing with your life.
02:16:11.000Or you feel like you're told in a competitive environment that you're not creative.
02:16:16.000You know, if you're not helped along the way in those developing years by at least somebody, it could be knocked out of you.
02:16:37.000I think, you know, children are almost all creative.
02:16:42.000They're always playing and fucking around with dolls and fucking around with Legos and they're moving things around and they're using their mind to their drawing.
02:17:16.000No, the government's terrible at everything.
02:17:17.000They're not going to be able to do that.
02:17:18.000But it's like getting people to be creative.
02:17:20.000Or just like, how do we deal with that?
02:17:21.000You know, any transition can be various states of volatility.
02:17:25.000What do you think movie making is going to be like?
02:17:28.000I mean, how much of a play is AI going to have in filmmaking?
02:17:33.000I mean, it already has a play, you know, in it, you know, in terms of what certain houses use, you know, whether it's writing or special effects.
02:17:40.000Or I don't even know how much AI is used.
02:18:48.000There were so many people that loved Avatar so much and connected with the idea of living on Pandora and being in that world and being the navy that they wished that they were there.
02:20:43.000You know, there's something about living in harmony that appeals to people.
02:20:48.000And I think that has always been the appeal of, you know, there was a lot of people that were kidnapped when they were young by Native American tribes.
02:20:57.000Like there's a photo outside in the lobby.
02:20:59.000I don't know if you saw it, of Quana Parker.
02:22:17.000There's something about this ancient way of living, subsistence hunting, living on the land that was resonated on your show on the show about the need to go out in nature.
02:23:10.000But somehow or another, the way of the Western people, the way of the settlers won out by sheer volume and numbers and this constant progress.
02:23:57.000You know, that was the crazy thing about the Aztecs and Cortez is just they had steel armor and they were riding horses and everybody's like, these guys are gods.
02:24:38.000And I think that's where the downside of our ability to have so much access to information, or me, have so much access to information is that it starts to take my breath away.
02:24:49.000And then that's why it's like, what's just simple.
02:24:52.000Well, that's why it's smart that you're not on social media.
02:25:58.000Would walk in and pretend that I was there.
02:26:00.000But then like Comcast came through and Prism and HBO and all of a sudden I can watch Taxi Driver 14 times and The Elephant Man and Popeye and Apocalypse Now and Raging Bull.
02:26:13.000Like, you know, from 12 to on that I would never have had.
02:26:18.000It was like Platoon for six months, Yentel.
02:30:20.000You know, now it's like there's whole, you know, courses on it or sections that you can read and learn and hear what people, you know, that's kind of amazing.
02:30:56.000The problem and the fear is like, oh, no, you're going to get, and then the cults and the group and the thing, and all of a sudden there's a movement.
02:31:01.000And, you know, but whenever that happens anyway, there's so much infighting and the thing gets diluted anyway.
02:31:07.000Like it's, there's no, it's never going to work.
02:31:11.000Well, that's the thing about the Bible itself is the Bible is a series of stories that were an oral tradition for who knows how many years before eventually wrote it down.
02:31:22.000Then they translated it from dead languages and eventually to English.
02:32:00.000That's going to be the weirdest aspect of communication through technology is that we're going to get to a point where we're communicating without words.
02:33:39.000I mean, you've talked to enough people that are on the front lines of it, and there is one sort of constant thing that it's sooner than you think.
02:34:45.000I'm honored to be able to talk to people like you and to be able to experience, you know, as you're talking, I'm experiencing life through your eyes.
02:34:53.000I'm getting a better sense of what it is to be a person.