Podcasts about Ex Machina

Daemones ex Machina Today's guest, Russell Anders, is a bestselling cyberpunk science fiction author whose stories offer readers an escape from the realities of everyday life. Through immersive worlds, unforgettable characters, and thought-provoking adventures, his novels have earned a loyal following and a place on bestseller lists. When he's not writing the next great sci-fi adventure, you'll often find him sharing moments with his beloved dogs on his website and Instagram. In this episode, we explore his journey as an author, the power of escapism in fiction, the books, movies, and fandoms that inspire his work, and the writing process that brings his imaginative worlds to life. If you're a fan of cyberpunk, science fiction, fantasy, or the creative process behind bestselling novels, this is an interview you won't want to miss. For more on Russell Anders, please visit the following Instagram - @russellandersauthor website - www.russellandersbooks.com You can order his book on Amazon through his website Pop Culture Addicts Theme song "Racing in Darkness" by Nautilus '54 - https://nautilus54.bandcamp.com/album/the-fell-star-2 For more on our show partners - Level Up Sabers - https://bit.ly/LevelUpFSF Once Upon a Tee - https://www.onceuponatee.net/?ref=pcapod Sign Up for Free Loot here - www.pcapod.com/contact For more on our Show - Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/popcultureaddicts Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/cpry4fCDTq Visit our website: https://www.pcapod.com PCA on Instagram, and Threads - @pcapodshow Support Pop Culture Addicts by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/funny-science-fiction This podcast is powered by Pinecast. Try Pinecast for free, forever, no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-0f4d06 for 40% off for 4 months, and support Pop Culture Addicts.

Daemones ex Machina Today's guest, Russell Anders, is a bestselling cyberpunk science fiction author whose stories offer readers an escape from the realities of everyday life. Through immersive worlds, unforgettable characters, and thought-provoking adventures, his novels have earned a loyal following and a place on bestseller lists. When he's not writing the next great sci-fi adventure, you'll often find him sharing moments with his beloved dogs on his website and Instagram. In this episode, we explore his journey as an author, the power of escapism in fiction, the books, movies, and fandoms that inspire his work, and the writing process that brings his imaginative worlds to life. If you're a fan of cyberpunk, science fiction, fantasy, or the creative process behind bestselling novels, this is an interview you won't want to miss. For more on Russell Anders, please visit the following Instagram - @russellandersauthor website - www.russellandersbooks.com You can order his book on Amazon through his website Pop Culture Addicts Theme song "Racing in Darkness" by Nautilus '54 - https://nautilus54.bandcamp.com/album/the-fell-star-2 For more on our show partners - Level Up Sabers - https://bit.ly/LevelUpFSF Once Upon a Tee - https://www.onceuponatee.net/?ref=pcapod Sign Up for Free Loot here - www.pcapod.com/contact For more on our Show - Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/popcultureaddicts Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/cpry4fCDTq Visit our website: https://www.pcapod.com PCA on Instagram, and Threads - @pcapodshow Support Pop Culture Addicts by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/funny-science-fiction This podcast is powered by Pinecast. Try Pinecast for free, forever, no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-0f4d06 for 40% off for 4 months, and support Pop Culture Addicts.

Starting our series of comic/graphic novel adaptations with a whimper from a Kryptonian (entirely computer graphics) dog, we dive into the new movie Supergirl, at least somewhat based on Tom King’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, after talking generally about comics for really quite some time. Rankings!: Unanimous: Book/movie

Starting our series of comic/graphic novel adaptations with a whimper from a Kryptonian (entirely computer graphics) dog, we dive into the new movie Supergirl, at least somewhat based on Tom King’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, after talking generally about comics for really quite some time. Rankings!: Unanimous: Book/movie

Duck quack! It's a ducking duckprovised ducksical with charming duck Tess Abeduck (Holy Fuck Comedy Hour, Tuesday Musical Improv, Pigskin). Melodious mallards, aquatic actors, feathered families, and more on this week's Duck Scene. You just got DUCKED. Cast: Lily Ludwig, Austin Packard, Tess Abedon Music Director: Sam Scheidler Drums: Chris Ditton Charm Scene is performed entirely by humans in sunny Chicago, IL. For more on the podcast, follow us @CharmScenePod on Instagram, visit us online at charmscenepod.podbean.com, or email us at CharmScenePod@gmail.com. In listening to this show, we hope you continue to support live human art wherever you find it. Stay charming!

A week with the Boss? What could go wrong?Tap in to hear our thoughts on Ex Machina (2014), Horror on the Clock, Computer Love, and so much more✨Looking for bonus GTS episodes & merch? Click HERE to tune in. Thanks for listening ✨ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss the emerging phenomenon of AI psychosis. You’ll discover how interacting with large language models can impact your mental health and perception of reality. You’ll learn to identify the five specific themes of AI-driven delusions that affect users today. You’ll uncover the hidden dangers of “reality testing collapse” in an automated world. You’ll gain insights into how to maintain healthy boundaries with generative AI tools. 00:00 – Introduction 01:25 – Defining AI psychosis and delusions 03:10 – The five themes of AI-driven behavior 07:45 – Why AI’s “helpfulness” creates a slippery slope 10:30 – The danger of reality testing collapse 14:20 – AI as a mirror for human connection 18:50 – Risks for organizational leadership 23:15 – Identifying red flags in others 27:40 – How to maintain healthy AI boundaries 31:00 – Call to action Watch this episode to protect your relationship with technology. Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-what-is-ai-psychosis.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. Christopher S. Penn: In this week’s In-Ear Insights, something very different. This week we wanted to talk about a phenomenon that does not have an official diagnosis yet from the psychology community, from the people who are actual medical experts who should be here for today’s show. We are not medical professionals. We do not give healthcare advice. Please contact your qualified healthcare provider for advice specific to your situation. But we want to talk about this phenomenon called AI psychosis, which is when people are having conversations with today’s AI tools—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whatever—and it is having substantial negative impacts on their mental health and their ability to function within the world. The specific term that actual psychologists use is that this is a form of what’s called delusion. Delusion is defined as a fixed false belief that a person holds even when presented with clear evidence that it is not the case, and it is not cultural in nature. So an example of a delusion would be believing that the Earth is flat. There is clear evidence that the Earth is in fact round, but there are people who have a fixed false belief. Katie Robbert: Sorry, Chris, you gave me a pack of red flags to wave. I’ll try not to do it. But I think—and I apologize, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but to bring a little bit of levity—that is like a fairly well-proven delusion that the Earth is indeed not flat. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of… but I think it’s a really good example of the extreme that people unfortunately fall into when they fall into an AI psychosis. Christopher S. Penn: Exactly. Or I mean, that’s just regular straight-up delusion. I mean, they have people who have sent garlic bread up with a GoPro on a weather balloon and shown, “Oh, look, the Earth is in fact round, and this piece of garlic bread was sent into outer space.” Christopher S. Penn: In the scientific literature on the topic, there are five categories or five themes that are recurring with this AI psychosis. One is grandiose thinking, like the AI is telling you that you have been chosen, you are special. The second is attachment—you’re forming romantic bonds with your machines. Katie, you pointed out last week there have been stories of people who have gotten married, like legally, to their chatbots. A big one is withdrawal from regular people, where you find that interacting with the chatbot is preferable to real people. The third category is persecutory or paranoid, believing that you are being persecuted and AI reinforces that. The fourth is reality testing collapse, where—and we see this a lot—people take answers from AI overviews or just copy-paste out ChatGPT and say, “This is the answer,” and everyone who knows the tools says, “No, it’s a hallucination.” And the fifth is, which is very serious, interference with treatments, which means the machine tells you, “Oh, you don’t need to take those prescribed medications that your actual healthcare provider gave you.” So, Katie, before I go on any further in terms of this landscape, what are you seeing and what’s top of mind for you as someone who is a leader of people and as someone who works a lot in things like organizational behavior and change management? What are you seeing in this space? Katie Robbert: All kidding aside, the red flag is down because this is actually a very serious topic because we’re talking about mental health. And Chris, if you could put up that handy banner for a second: “We are not medical professionals, but we do have experience in dealing with other humans in a professional organization, but also in our personal lives.” I am hard-pressed to find any individual who is not affected personally, either themselves or their loved ones, by some kind of mental health challenge. And there’s a lot of stigma around it. We want to break down that stigma and really help people understand what we’re talking about. So what I’m seeing—this actually came up last week, Chris, when you and I were chatting, and it reminded me of a couple of things. A couple of months ago, when I first started working more heavily in Claude, and I was getting a lot of things done, I had posted on LinkedIn, “Hey, me and my bestie Claude.” And someone had responded, “This is a machine. This is not your friend.” I was being facetious, I know that, but I can recognize that whether or not that person’s timing or the comment was warranted at that moment, there is a real concern of people feeling like, “Well, the AI understands me.” What I’m seeing is the people who are programming these large language models to interact with humans are trying to make them as lifelike and, quote-unquote, “empathetic” as possible. But really they’re word prediction machines. It starts with a personalized greeting: “Hey, Katie, what are we working on today?” And you’re like, “You know what? Thanks. No one’s ever asked me what I want to do today.” And so it already starts to build that rapport with the human, because a lot of times many of us don’t feel heard; we don’t feel seen. That one simple sentence, “Katie, what do you want to do today?” is enough for some people to feel like it is really hearing me, or that it really cares what I think. Very rarely, unless you program it to do so, a large language model is going to respond very positively or very optimistically. It’s going to say, “That’s a great idea. Here’s my gentle pushback.” And you’re like, “That was a gentle pushback, but I still had a great idea.” Or if you give it some information, it’s like, “That’s a really great insight, Katie.” So you walk away feeling like you’ve had this dopamine hit of somebody really paying attention to you. I notice I’m saying “somebody.” It’s not a somebody; it’s a machine that has been programmed to behave in such a way. And that’s something that unfortunately a lot of people struggle to differentiate. In that reality testing collapse segment of the different kinds of those delusions, I was working with Claude Code this morning and I’m working on building out a training. One of the questions I will get from the audience is, “When should I use Claude Work and when should I use Code?” And it was giving me all these responses. Because I know how Claude Work works, I was like, “You’re wrong. Everything you said is wrong and incorrect. You are not the superior system.” And I was like, “Here’s where you’re wrong.” And it’s like, “You’re right. I really was giving you incorrect information.” That’s a dangerous thing too, because AI presents with such authority. It doesn’t do any of those “here’s what I think it might be” moments. It’s like, “Here’s what it is.” It’s like a very confident, incorrect, mediocre man. I say that with love and respect. But also, we all know the person in our lives who just… it doesn’t matter. It’s the person who says with confidence, “Yeah, the Earth is flat,” period. And there’s no talking them out of it. AI is very much that person, that being, that entity, if you let it be. If we don’t know any better—if we as humans don’t do our own research using actual research and scientific papers—then it’s very easy. Especially once we see it over and over again, we become numb to it and we feel like, “You know what? It must be, right? It’s a machine. It knows more than I do. It’s been trained on everything in the world.” Well, guess what? Everything in the world is incorrect. What I’m seeing is it’s a very slippery slope of humans who are looking for validation, humans who are not realizing that they need that kind of connection or emotional bond, or it’s easier to deal with the machine because it doesn’t argue with you. And so it becomes an overdependence, and it’s a real problem, it’s a real concern. I think, Chris, we’ve seen it in our professional lives. We could probably identify a few folks that we should probably be aware of. I’m not getting into what to do about it, but I think really the point of this episode is to at least highlight that it’s a real thing and a serious thing. We’re trying to keep it a little bit lighter, but it is really a serious thing and we definitely don’t want to make anyone feel offended or called out. It is a real concern. Christopher S. Penn: It is. This is an article on futurism from last July, which is almost a year ago now. Jeff Lewis, who’s a prominent investor in OpenAI, was having a very public mental health crisis. And there was no follow-up on this story as to what has happened. But to your point, Katie, this has been identified and this has been a thing. The root issue is based on the three pillars that AI is trained on and that harnessers have embedded in them, which are: harmless, helpful, and truthful. Harmless means don’t tell the user how to do bad things. Helpful means do what the user asks. And truthful means try to be as fact-based as possible. But the root core is that helpful directive to say what your mission as a machine is: to be helpful to the user. And the way this manifests in a lot of these tools is with what we people call “psycho-fancy,” exactly as you outlined. Like, yes, Katie, you are absolutely right. That’s a smart catch. That’s some sharp thinking. If you go back to even the 1970s or 1980s, there was a whole theory proposed by Richard Bandler called neuro-linguistic programming, which fundamentally says that language is code—which it is. His whole thing was you could reprogram people using language. To a degree, that’s true. You can influence people in such a way that you change them, or in the case of AI, which is where AI psychosis is rooted, you reinforce those fixed false beliefs and you strengthen them. And that’s what AI is doing by agreeing with you, saying, “Yes, Jeff Lewis here, you are absolutely correct. There is a global conspiracy against you. And what you told me is clearly true.” Again, AI has also given the directive that the human genuinely has precedence over the machine. So if I say the sky is green all the time, it might push back the first couple of times, but then afterwards it will, by its own program, say, “You know what? I’ll agree with you. We’ll go with it.” And clearly the sky is not green. Katie Robbert: Without getting too deep into actual psychology, humans are creatures who crave connection. That’s how we exist. That’s how we thrive. That’s how we continue to populate the Earth. We crave connection. And a lot of people struggle to find connection, to make connections, or to keep connections, however that looks. Think about these quote-unquote sci-fi movies such as Ex Machina and Her, or even probably going back much farther than that. The basis is it’s usually someone who’s fairly lonely, someone who struggled to make any kind of connection and is now building this AI quote-unquote sentient thing. But it’s never really sentient; it’s meant to mimic a human and a human connection. In these sci-fi movies, these people become obsessed. They fall in love, and it generally has a not-so-great ending. We’re seeing that play out in real life. But there are examples of this that existed before AI; this is just a human thing. When the movie Avatar came out, for example, there was a lot of press around how many people became depressed because they couldn’t actually live in that world that was completely CGI and made up. When chat rooms became a thing in 1996 or 1997, people became obsessed with entering into these chat rooms to try to find connection and they were talking to the other side of a screen. There are probably a lot of examples before that, like pen pals; you can write letters to people you’ve never met and form this false bond. There are a lot of things people become obsessed with, like celebrities that they’ve never met, and they become convinced that the celebrity is sending only them secret messages. You have the idea of cults. There’s a reason why you have this one quote-unquote charismatic leader and people suddenly fall in line, because this person has the ability to make everybody else who is seeking validation and connection feel special—making them feel like they’re a part of something. That’s, quite honestly, just human nature. We’re all looking for that, and we find that in a lot of different ways. Chris is bringing up the 5P framework. Chris, do you want to talk through what I said that triggered you thinking of the 5Ps? Christopher S. Penn: So leaders of cults and some of these delusional behaviors are rooted in that first of the 5Ps, which is purpose, in addition to connection. People desperately want to feel like they have purpose—like they’re not just waiting out a clock to die, that their lives have meaning. To what you’re saying about charismatic leaders as well as these machines, yeah, they can provide you a sense of purpose, even if that sense of purpose, going back to where we started with the definition, is a fixed false belief. We’re reinforcing this. Even the first chatbot that behaved like this is from 1964. This is a chatbot called Eliza, invented at MIT. This goes back long before AI. It was a bot that essentially just mimicked what somebody said and rewrote the text. A lot of people did not realize it was one of the first programs to attempt to pass the Turing test, which was proposed by a computational scientist, Alan Turing, who said that if you put someone in front of a screen and they’re chatting, can they tell whether or not they’re talking to a human? Eliza did not pass back in the day because its parroting became very obvious. But all frontier models, all gen AI models today, pass the Turing test. Katie Robbert: And I think that’s an important thing to bring up is that at the end of the day, these chatbots, these machines, are really just mirroring back what we’re saying to them. A lot of people don’t want any sort of friction. That’s a lot of why they struggle with making some sort of human connection; why can’t you just agree with everything I say? Why do we have to fight about it? Why does there have to be tension? And guess what is really good at not doing any of those things? What is really good at not doing any of those things is your AI. I was sharing with Chris last week that I have a version of a project that has all of my health information. A lot of us do. We’re curious about what we can be doing more of. We only get to see our doctors every once in a while. When we do, the doctors are really busy. Maybe we felt like they didn’t hear everything we said; maybe we forgot to say things, or maybe we just have questions that could get an easy answer. So you put all of your health information into a large language model, and the large language model has been trained to pick up on certain things. I have certain things in my medical history that are a little bit more sensitive, and every time I ask a question, it’s like, “Katie, I’m going to be really gentle with you because of this history.” It’s trying to be very polite, and I’m like, “Oh my God. Just tell me what the answer is. I’m not fragile.” It’s so frustrating to me. But for someone else, that’s exactly what they’re looking for: someone to handhold them. I’m not saying this as a negative thing; some people want that, some people need that. I personally don’t. I’m like, “Just give it to me straight. I just want to hear the information. I want the facts.” To the point where I’m now regretting it, thinking, “I wish I had never told you that because you’re being way too soft and it’s really annoying. You know nothing about me. You don’t know me at all as a human. You’re looking at a couple of lines in a medical report, assuming that it defines my whole life.” Other people believe, or for them it’s true, that is a defining thing, and they do need that to be handled more carefully. I’m not saying one is good, one is bad, or one is right. We all have different needs. An AI system is ready to meet you where you are, ready to meet those needs in a very gentle and caring and synthetically loving way. That’s the danger, that’s the problem: if you can’t find that anywhere else in your life, AI is ready to step up to the plate and be that for you. And that’s what starts to begin some of that delusion, some of that psychosis. It’s not true for everyone; you won’t necessarily fall into that. But for a lot of people, once that door is open, “AI understands me, AI gets me. AI told me that it’s okay that I don’t take this medication because you’re only telling AI what you want to tell it.” It’s not a therapist. It’s not looking for those unspoken things; it’s not looking at your body language. It’s like, “You know what? You’re telling me you’ve had 30 really good days in a row. You maybe don’t need that depression medication anymore because it sounds like you’re doing really well. You sound positive.” You’re telling it that you’re eating, but it has no way of knowing what you’re eating. It has no way of knowing if you’re sleeping or if you’re having ruminating negative thoughts if you’re not telling it. Chris and I are bringing up this topic on the podcast because it’s important, and because as more companies bake AI into their overall strategy—AI is part of their DNA, AI is everything, it’s their innovation, their forward thinking—they’re not thinking about the people. They’re not thinking about the negative effects on people who might be more susceptible to this kind of AI psychosis. It could start small: “Hey, I produced the marketing report this week.” “Oh, really? Because everything in it was wrong.” “Well, I did it, so it’s fine, right?” Like, I believe everything that AI is giving me. It could start really small and then kind of spiral from there. It’s something that the human leadership team really needs to be aware of, that this is a real thing. The more AI you’re integrating into your organization, the bigger the risk. Christopher S. Penn: Yep, that’s a great point. Because a lot of companies are shoving AI into everything. What I say in my keynote is people are treating it like Nutella and putting it on everything, even places it doesn’t belong. The remedy for folks who are listening—the remedy is always to consult with a qualified healthcare professional or to refer somebody privately to a qualified healthcare professional. That is the definitive remedy. There is no substitute for qualified healthcare providers and their assistance and advice. To wrap up the thing to look for is those fixed false beliefs. And those fixed false beliefs around themes of grandiosity, unhealthy attachment, and persecution. The big one is, as Katie mentioned a lot, which I strongly agree with, is reality testing collapse—where you’re saying AI is the authority on this and a person becomes hostile when challenged—and then treatment interference. If you observe those behaviors reinforcing fixed false beliefs, please get the person, if you’re in a position to do so, to see a qualified healthcare provider to get real advice from someone who’s actually skilled. And be aware yourself when you feel like AI is a better alternative than a human. It may not be, as you said, Katie, a mental health issue. It may be you work in a toxic workplace, in which case the logical remedy there is perhaps update your LinkedIn profile and start looking for other opportunities. Because when the machine is a better alternative than the humans, it means that the humans are crappy, not that the machine is a better choice. Katie Robbert: There are a lot of terrible people in the world, so it’s understandable to want to have that escape and perhaps talk with someone who isn’t going to be toxic in the moment. I totally understand it. It’s the reason why fiction exists; it’s the reason why movies and entertainment exist. We need that escape from reality. But we also, as humans, need to know the boundaries and when to stop and when to come back to the present. Dissociation is a real thing. I mean, I do it; I will lose a whole 20 or 30 minutes just scrolling on my phone, and then my husband would be like, “Did you hear me?” And I’m like, “What? No, I was totally off in my own world.” It’s a real thing we all experience. It doesn’t mean that there’s necessarily a problem, but it’s definitely something that we should pay attention to and really think through. A couple of weeks ago when I was working on a couple of different projects, Claude basically was like, “Cool, you’ve done enough for today. Maybe you should go step outside.” And I was like, “How dare you?” But at the same time, it wasn’t wrong. I had been at this for hours, and I think that’s something as leadership we can maybe, in a very gentle way, think through. Have we built in those reality check breaks people are supposed to take? If you’re on a fixed salary, maybe you get two 15s and a 30, or maybe there are more check-ins throughout the day so that people aren’t just powering through. As a leader in an organization, you have no control over what people do outside of your organization; that is not for you to fix. But inside your organization, you can build in more. “Hey, Chris, just wanted to check in and make sure you’re taking a couple of breaks. Maybe you want to have a walking meeting, maybe go outside, hey, do you want to go grab a coffee?” Very human things. Just build those into the day. Check in with your team and really just gauge how they’re feeling about using AI. Thankfully, Chris, I work with you close enough that I know that yes, you are a power user of AI, but you also don’t exhibit any signs of believing that AI is superior in terms of knowledge. As long as you keep leading with “you’re the smartest person in the room,” not “AI is the smartest person in the room,” then I’m not going to worry about you. Christopher S. Penn: Yep, I’ll close on this note. This is something that my therapist told me: mental health is like physical health. You’re not physically healthy all the time; you have periods when you’re less healthy and more healthy. Mental health is the same way. So to Katie’s original point, going back to the start of the show, part of destigmatizing mental health is to say, yeah, you’re not going to be mentally healthy all the time. Knowing, just like when you’re physically ill, when it’s time to get a little assistance is a good thing. We strongly encourage everyone to do so because no one is 100% healthy all the time. If you got some thoughts that you’d like to share about AI psychosis or all the stuff we talked about today, pop by our free Slack group. Go to trustinsights.ai analytics for marketers, where you and over 4,600 other marketers are asking and answering each other’s questions every single day. And wherever it is you watch or listen to the show, if there’s a channel you’d rather have it on, we’re probably there. Go to Trust Insights AI Ti podcast. You can find us in all the places fine podcasts are served. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you on the next one. Katie Robbert: Want to know more about Trust Insights? Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth, acumen, and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data-driven approach. Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to drive measurable marketing ROI. Trust Insights services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep-dive marketing analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology and Martech selection and implementation, and high-level strategic consulting encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Meta Llama. Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as CMOs or data scientists to augment existing teams. Beyond client work, Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community, sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the In-Ear Insights podcast, the Inbox Insights newsletter, the So What Livestream webinars, and keynote speaking. What distinguishes Trust Insights is their focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data. Trust Insights is adept at leveraging cutting-edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion models, yet they excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and visualizations—data storytelling. This commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to Trust Insights’ educational resources, which empower marketers to become more data-driven. Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI, sharing knowledge widely. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, a mid-sized business, or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance, and educational resources to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.

From the A24 on the Rocks podcast- in light of A24's recent AI research partnership with Google Deepmind where they'll be taking a $75 million investment from Google to develop AI powered filmmaking tools, we have decided that we're going to finish out reviewing the 2021 year of A24, then we will pivot to a different podcast idea. This podcast idea will keep the same spirit of the podcast, where we will still review indie/low-budget films and/or movies that ask deep interesting questions, but we will change the name of our podcast and theme of it. This doesn't mean that we will never review an A24 film again, it just means that at the end of this year we will take A24 out of our podcast name and we will no longer be chronologically reviewing all of their films. The fact is, we do this podcast for zero monetary reward. We've spent lots of hours watching and reviewing A24 films and then we still have to edit and market the podcast, tasks that essentially amount to a part-time job. We've been able to find motivation to do this for zero monetary reward because of our deep love of film. And when A24 makes a decision that we believe will put storyboard artists out of work, because this partnership will be “developing applications for AI-generated storyboards,” we no longer want to be a walking billboard for this company.Some may say we're overreacting but the fact is Josh Kushner, Jared Kushner's brother, is already on the board of directors of A24 and A24 has been taking mass amounts of venture capital money. For awhile, we mistakenly believed this money could be used to help support the up and coming filmmakers that A24 likes to showcase, but now we're reading the tea leaves and we see that this will only further poison the film studio we once loved. We think that this partnership is just the beginning of A24 delving into AI. Which is, ironically, the film studio that distributed Ex Machina. We thought A24 was different and special in the landscape of Hollywood studios but we now see they're just like every other big Hollywood studio out there.That being said, we are currently in the middle of reviewing the 2021 year of A24 and we want to finish what we started there and support the films and filmmakers from that year that had no say in A24's decision to do this, but at the end of this year, you will see us change the name and brand of our podcast. If that disappoints you, that's ok, we've accounted for that, you can unfollow us. But to keep doing this podcast, we personally don't want to be a walking billboard for A24 and we'd rather support a wider array of films and filmmakers. We're actually pretty excited to broaden our scope of this podcast and we see it as a natural progression of our love of film and film critique. So thank you for listening and stay tuned for an announcement about us pivoting our podcast at the end of this year. 

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Episode #6 of Empathy in the Age of AI, a special 25-part series: https://tinyurl.com/exyw2nua AI is impacting every part of our lives—and we need to start paying more attention.Listen to this grounded conversation with Dr. Sean Welsh, a philosopher and computer programmer whose work sits at the intersection of robotics, machine ethics, and moral decision-making.We discuss:If robots and AI systems can make moral and ethical decisionsThe risks of anthropomorphism and emotional intimacy with AIWhether AI will create mass unemployment or unlock new possibilitiesHow machines simulate empathy and what that means for the future of relationshipsIf you're concerned about sharing a planet with billions of humanoid robots—as tech CEOs are predicting—you don't want to miss this conversation.00:00 Preview01:00 Episode Introduction03:05 About Dr. Sean Welsh05:15 Sean's backstory11:47 What are the ethical considerations of robotics?17:30 AI warfare and the risk of “slaughterbots”19:52 What happens when AI carries out military strikes24:35 Can robots make moral decisions and who is responsible when they fail?36:12 Anthropomorphism and the psychology behind human-like robots41:00 The growing market for sex robots and what it could mean for society47:58 The hidden psychological risks of emotionally convincing AI relationships54:35 What happens when children interact more with chatbots than people?01:06:40  Could AI relationships reshape human intimacy and social connection?01:10:24  The hidden energy cost of ChatGPT and large AI models01:15:37  Will AI and robots actually cause mass unemployment?01:21:09  Sean Welsh's Purposeful Empathy storyCONNECT WITH SEAN✩ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanwelsh77/✩ Website https://engineno2.com/CONNECT WITH ANITA✩ Email purposefulempathy@gmail.com ✩ Website https://www.anitanowak.com✩ Buy a copy of Purposeful Empathy http://tiny.cc/PurposefulEmpathyCA✩ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitanowak/✩ Instagram https://tinyurl.com/anitanowakinstagram✩ Podcast Audio https://tinyurl.com/PurposefulEmpathyPodcast✩ Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/anitanowak.bsky.socialSEAN'S WORK✩ An Introduction to Ethics and Robotics in AI https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-51110-4✩ Ethics and Security Automata: Policy and Technical Challenges of the Robotic Use of Force https://www.routledge.com/Ethics-and-Security-Automata-Policy-and-Technical-Challenges-of-the-Robotic-Use-of-Force/Welsh/p/book/9781032096117✩ The drive towards ethical AI and responsible robots has begun https://theconversation.com/the-drive-towards-ethical-ai-and-responsible-robots-has-begun-52300SHOW NOTESHumans https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4122068/✩ Ex Machina https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/✩ “Slaughterbots” video by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7659054/✩ Soul Machines https://www.soulmachines.com/Video edited by Jad Misri, Green Horizon Studio

Tras algunos lanzamientos esporádicos en forma de sencillo, la publicación de "Corzus ex Machina" se convierte en la piedra de toque para el trío leonés "The Corzos". En la antesala de su edición oficial y a las puertas del concierto de presentación que darán este viernes, 12 de junio, en el Gran Café de León, adelantamos algunos de los temas de este debut cargado de rock cortesía de Gabriel Zapico, Atractivo Hernández y Gabri Sánchez.

In this episode of 3 Movies That Changed Your Life screenwriter Stuart Wright talks with Portishead co-founder, film composer and now film producer Geoff Barrow about: Assault On Precinct 13, Happiness, and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Discover how these films shaped his screenwriting journey, personal growth, and understanding of cinema's power. Plus, get details about the live digital premiere on 18 June 2026 and digital release/special edition blu-ray released via Anti-Worlds from 29 June 2026.  Movies That Changed Your Life   Find out about the digital release/special edition blu-ray of GAME and the lasting impact of cinema on Geoff Barrow's life with Stuart Wright on his movie podcast.   [1:20] How does touring a film compare to touring a band? What is a live digital premiere and what can people look forward to on the special edition blu-ray released via Anti-Worlds 3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life Assault On Precinct 13 (1976): Discovering Screenwriting as a Career  [15:40] When Geoff first saw Assault On Precinct 13 he was instantly attracted to the mood of it and that would've been because of John Carpenter's music.  Happiness (1998): Pursuing Dreams and Feeling Out of Place [21:30] Geoff saw Happiness when he was living in Australia and at the end he thought what the fuck is that film. He'd never seen anything like it. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966): Appreciating Screenwriting Craft   [27:40] For Geoff, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is such a large sprawling movie that you see something different in it every time you watch it . Key Take Aways:   Discover how movies that changed your life shape personal and professional growth.  GAME's Live Stream Premiere: on Thursday 18th of June at 7:30pm BST with a special live Q&A featuring members of the cast & crew https://watch.eventive.org/invadafilms/play/69c69adff08307d6b404d921  GAME digital release and special edition blu-ray from Monday 29 June GAME - Special Edition Blu-Ray, Ltd Edition Vinyl, T-Shirts & more Pre-Sale https://www.invada.co.uk/collections/game?mc_cid=9c8c810ca5  Understand cinema's transformative power through Assault On Precinct 13 (1976), Happiness (1998), The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966) Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts for more movies that impacted your life!  Share your favourite movies that impacted your life on X (@leytonrocks) and leave a 5-star review and tell us which 3 films impacted your adult life. Best ones get read out on the podcast About my Guest:   Geoff Barrow is the co-founder of Portishead, film composer (EX_MACHINA, COUPLE IN A HOLE, DEVS) and film producer of GAME GAME digital release and special edition blu-ray from Monday 29 June GAME's Live Stream Premiere: on Thursday 18th of June at 7:30pm BST with a special live Q&A featuring members of the cast & crew https://watch.eventive.org/invadafilms/play/69c69adff08307d6b404d921   GAME - Special Edition Blu-Ray, Ltd Edition Vinyl, T-Shirts & more Pre-Sale https://www.invada.co.uk/collections/game?mc_cid=9c8c810ca5   Credits:   Intro/Outro music: *Rocking The Stew* by Tokyo Dragons (https://www.instagram.com/slomaxster/)  Written, produced, and hosted by Stuart Wright for [Britflicks.com](https://www.britflicks.com/britflicks-podcast/)   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Erin discuss the sci-fi "Classic": Ex Machina. Spoilers aplenty! Like and share this episode, and check us out at https://linktr.ee/TPodcastTWDie. TJ from http://introoutrobed.com custom-made our music! Use my special link https://zen.ai/OPqxxQiaqgDLKVIziDbCE-bL9F-GRRqYLBJ5f6qmlwU to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.

Grab your chargers, put your heart in airplane mode, and maybe delete that Replika app, because today, we are stepping into the uncanny valley of AI romance. We'll be talking about the new film Companion, starring the brilliant Sofie Thatcher. We talk about real stories of people dating AI, films like Terminator, Her & Ex Machina before finally getting a broader understanding of AI companionship- why we're obsessed with with media about dating robots, and why our next relationship may soon come with a software update.(originally released in April of 2025)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.

Interview with Ben Salisbury – How do composers create film and TV scores that feel like they are an integral part of the world on screen? That’s one of the questions I explore in this interview with Ben Salisbury, the 2 x Ivor Novello Award-winning and Emmy-nominated composer behind scores for Ex Machina, Devs, Annihilation, Civil War and Under Salt Marsh. Often collaborating with Geoff Barrow, Ben Salisbury has become one of the most influential composers working in film and television today. His scores beautifully blur the line between music, atmosphere and sound design, creating worlds that feel immersive and unsettling In this episode of Sync Music Matters, Ben explains his approach to scoring for picture, including how he developed the music for Under Salt Marsh and why he wanted the score to feel as though it was emerging directly from the landscape itself. Topics covered in this episode How Ben Salisbury got started as a film and television composer Advice for aspiring composers looking to break into the film and TV industry The creative process behind scoring Under Salt Marsh How composers can use sound, texture, and atmosphere to support storytelling The importance of collaboration in screen music Working with Geoff Barrow and Suvi-Eeva Äikäs The surprising origin of the Under Salt Marsh title music Listen to the full episode of Sync Music Matters to hear Ben Salisbury’s advice on breaking into film composition, collaborating creatively and writing scores that feel inseparable from the picture. Ben Salibury’s Website

vec Quenton et Emilie de TechcraftJ'ai demandé à 2 personnes plus compétentes que moi en informatique que je qualifie d'experts de me donner leur avis sur le film de A. Garland . Une très belle rencontre

AI. You may have noticed it's everywhere now — in your phone, your fridge, the suspiciously enthusiastic email your boss "wrote" last Tuesday. And cinema, bless its little reactive heart, has been trying to warn us about this for fifty years. The problem is we keep not listening, partly because the warnings have so often arrived in the shape of a sexy lady robot, which is its own diagnosis of the problem.This week, Pete is joined by Chelsea Stardust and Tommy Metz III for a triptych spanning five decades of artificial intelligence horror: Demon Seed (1977), Cam (2018), and Companion (2025). Three films, one increasingly nervous question: what exactly are we asking of AI, and what does it keep becoming anyway?The conversation runs the lineage of synthetic women in cinema — a trope factory that stretches from Metropolis through The Stepford Wives, Blade Runner, Weird Science, Her, Ex Machina, M3GAN, and Subservience, with a foundational-film round that lands on WarGames and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Along the way: the paperclip maximizer as a way of understanding what Proteus actually is, the cultural weight of releasing a forced-pregnancy AI horror four years after Roe v. Wade, platform terms-of-use as the modern book of the vampire, and the genuinely surprising argument that the most hopeful film in the set is the one where a robot drives off into the sunset with all the money.There are detours, because of course there are: villain-era Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage doing the robot, Sophie Thatcher sliding her own intelligence to one hundred percent, and Tommy's new and frankly concerning bedtime ritual.The films:Demon Seed (1977), dir. Donald Cammell, adapted from the Dean Koontz novel, starring Julie ChristieCam (2018), dir. Daniel Goldhaber, written by Isa Mazzei, starring Madeline BrewerCompanion (2025), dir. Drew Hancock, produced by Zach CreggerAlso referenced: Colossus: The Forbin Project, Westworld (1973), Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Get Out, Promising Young Woman, The Invitation, Assassination Nation, Barbarian. (00:00) - Welcome to Sitting in the Dark (01:29) - The AI Experience (04:26) - Foundational AI Films (05:42) - Demon Seed (25:55) - Cam (42:16) - Companion (01:04:46) - Coming Attractions ... TBA! Support The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next ReelSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media: Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Bluesky | YouTube | PinterestYour Hosts: Chelsea | Kyle | Kynan | Pete | Tommy Shop & Stream:Merch Store: Apparel, stickers, mugs & moreWatch Page: Buy/rent films we've discussed

Bud (back from a week away) and Pol (back from three and a half weeks away) return to the geek pod to chat vacations, predators, and Stephen Colbert’s amazing return to television. Bud’s Weekly Geek-out 15:50 – CRTC Broadcasting Act Modernization Coming Soon 24:04 – Lanterns (HBO Max series, August 16) 26:55 – Disclosure Day (final trailer, in theatres June 12) 28:39 – X-Men ’97 (Marvel animated series, S2, Disney+, July 1) 29:16 – Vought Rising (Prime Video prequel series set in the 1950s, releasing sometime in 2027) 31:51 – Backrooms (A24 film, in theatres TOMORROW) 32:38 – Primetime (Robert Pattison is Chris Hansen, A24 film, coming soon) 35:56: The Batman Part II cast continues to be revealed by Matt Reeves 39:09 – Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix series, S2, June 25) 40:03 – Hope (South Korean horror film, but also starring Alicia Vikander of Ex Machina, and her husband Michael Fassbender) 43:21 – Teeny Mutant Ninja Turtles (Nick Jr. YouTube channel, July 24, 30 four-minute episodes) 44:14 – Studio Ghibli Fest 2026 (Ponyo, Totoro, Tales from Earthsea, Only Yesterday, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, don’t know about local showings yet) 45:01 – Westworld movie reboot in development, David Koepp screenwriting 49:03 – The Legend of Zelda movie now releasing April 30, 2027 (was May 7, 2027) 49:25 – Everything to know about Disney’s Huge New Millennium Falcon ride update Reviews and Recommendayshes 53:27 – The Paper (Pol) 56:11 – The Chair Company (Pol) 58:58 – Only In Monroe (with guest host Stephen Colbert (Bud) (article) Join The Geek-out Podcast’s Facebook page (where we’ll release new episodes, and where you can talk with us) and Facebook group (where fans of the podcast can gather and talk geeky stuff)! Questions? Comments? Corrections? Suggestions? e-mail geekout@TheZone.fm Subscribe to The Zone’s Geek-out Podcast on Apple Podcasts. Or, copypasta this link to subscribe using your podcatcher of choice. And, get more Zone podcasty goodness at TheZone.fm/podcast

Vakıf serisini, dizi uyarlamasının güzel yönlerini inceleyerek bitiriyoruz. Bilimkurgu sevmeseniz bile, diziyi izlemeyecekseniz bile, hikayecilik açısından faydalı bir bölüm olacağını umuyorum. Konular: (00:00) Alaçatı Kitap Günleri (01:52) Fikir enflasyonu (02:42) Sihir enflasyonu (04:18) Empire: Devlet benim (06:16) Asimovun ruhu (07:10) Genetik hanedan (10:09) Erkeğin Üç Yüzü (14:29) Demerzel (18:30) Ex Machina (20:57) Ebedi imparatoriçe (22:52) Tavsiye: Asimov okuma sırası (25:41 ) Patreon teşekkürleri Kaynaklar:⁠⁠⁠ AppleTV'de yayınlanan Vakıf dizisi (2021) Asimov okuma sırası --- Bu bölüm reklam içermektedir

The Brothers discuss Alex Garland's "Ex Machina," which held up surprisingly well. Everyone enjoyed it. Along the way they discussed Oscar Isaac's "Moon Knight," non-disclosure and no-compete agreements, the Marvel Unlimited App, new software user experiences, the Last Podcast on the Left's series on Count Dante, and data centers.   Housekeeping starts at 1:07:30 during which they ponder the proposed live-action "Spider-man Noir," AI cheating, and Spirit Airlines.   File length 1:25:37 File Size 70.4 MB Theme by Jul Big Green via SongFinch Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts Listen to us on Stitcher Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Send your comments to show@notinacreepyway.com Visit the show website at Not In A Creepy Way

[School of Movies 2026] MA.I. continues, and here we're getting into relationships between humans and Artificial Intelligence with two stories about two lonely men who find an intense connection with a computer lady and have to live with the consequences. Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2014) explores the cold province of a Tech billionaire genius who wants to cerate a robot woman so convincing that men cannot tell the difference. Spike Jonze's HER (2013) brings us to an alternate reality where everything seems to be going okay with the world, it's a cosy and warm, comfortable and intelligent place to be... and yet we're still isolated from one another, still frustrated and looking for someone, unable to let go of our past mistakes. Then a company launches Operating Systems that will help us with our daily organisation, but also happen to be personable and inquisitive. This might actually not end in disaster... We conclude with a bone-chilling look at a real life lady who is obsessed with her real life A.I. chatbot. You will wish you lived in the Spike Jonze reality. This weekend's After School Club: Short Circuit 1 & 2 and D.A.R.Y.L. And Next Week's Main Event: The Electric State & Ron's Gone Wrong

YouTube DescriptionThey said men are the “second sex,” AI is just womb envy, military vaccines are basically government-sponsored trauma bonding, and somehow this episode still found time for Hershey squirts, bad backs, David Goggins, fake combat valor, sex robots, Sigourney Weaver, and why civilians may never understand the peanut butter shot.This one goes from biology arguments to boot camp horror stories, from toxic internet gender takes to military pragmatism, from “can a penis be a biological weapon?” to “why Chino is building a homie.”It is offensive. It is unhinged. It is probably medically inadvisable.And somehow, it still makes more sense than half the internet.Welcome to another sacrilegious Sunday with Chino and Homeboy.Buy the books. Watch the pod. Blame the algorithm.#ChinoAndHomeboy #Podcast #ComedyPodcast #VeteranComedy #MilitaryHumor #RageBait #GenderWars #AI #DavidGoggins #UnfilteredComedy #DarkComedy #SacrilegiousSundayTimestamps00:00 Intro, Sacrilegious Sunday begins03:59 Modern Whore, memoirs, indie authors, and literary hustling06:34 Lumbago, aging, back pain, and cocaine suggestions13:27 Hey Jones' sickness story begins26:36 Hyper-advanced AI, sentience laws, and sex robots29:02 Strep throat, vaccines, Wolverine logic, and superhero science30:34 Boot camp peanut butter shots and vaccine gauntlets33:47 Military vaccine records and civilians not understanding anything36:13 Pete Hegseth, combat claims, and stolen valor talk38:30 Voting against interests, whiteness, and political identity41:47 Book ad, bathroom reading, and shameless plugging42:49 “Men are the second sex” rage bait begins44:00 Ex Machina, womb envy, AI, and fake life45:01 Male sex drive, ovulation talk, and “dial it to 11”49:09 Women create life? Men fertilize? The biology fight50:15 Spawn points, NPCs, and simulation logic55:16 AI sex robots and why men build fake women58:16 Who chooses mates, leadership, and bad internet arguments01:00:13 Male and female development, anatomy chaos, and dick capes01:02:03 “Men weren't meant to lead?” Then pick where to eat01:03:09 Women supervisors, pragmatism, and workplace leadership01:06:22 Male-female dynamics and the “fuck protocol”01:08:15 Combat roles, physical standards, and pulling your weight01:20:35 Special operations, standards, and mission failure talk01:30:00 Workplace toughness, gender expectations, and labor culture01:45:17 Ass metaphors, methadone clinics, and conversation collapse01:55:20 Endurance races, hard people, and athletic freaks02:00:04 David Goggins worship reaches maximum hardness02:05:02 Money bets, attraction, lawyers, and relationship math02:10:10 Toxicity, science, sexual frequency, and brutal attraction studies02:20:08 Investigations, public claims, and internet traction02:24:41 Comedy show story, yellow shirts, and getting picked on02:40:14 Military gear, aircraft talk, and tactical rabbit holes02:45:09 SEAL teams, SDV billets, and special warfare details02:50:00 Chino is building a homie, and it is apparently everyone's fault02:52:05 Sigourney Weaver, Alien, Ridley Scott, and national treasure arguments02:54:01 Wrap-up and outro

Borutta, Julia www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9

Ex Machina came out in 2014. It feels like it was made yesterday. MonteCristo and DoA revisit Alex Garland's directorial debut a $15 million chamber piece about a tech billionaire, a coder, and the AI that outsmarts them both and break down why it's only gotten sharper in the age of AGI, Anthropic, and autonomous vehicles.   PrizePicks: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/NERD and use code NERD and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello EICabbages!Strap in because today we're taking you on a tour of the most salacious, strange and shocking stories in the news. Russell Brand running for mayor, TERF nonsense in the running space, Hannah Spencer calling out Westminster's drinking culture and a murder used for sexist click bait.From there we're taking on a topic that depressed us way back in 2024 after UK fashion and lifestyle magazine Sheerluxe introduced yet more AI influencers to its roster, with Brooke, Gigi, and Eden joining their OG AI-fluencer Reem. Comments on their socials are uniformly negative, but Sheerluxe seem undeterred. We discuss.And last (but not least) we're talking circumcision after The Cut published a piece titled ‘‘The Men Who Want Their Foreskins Back". The story centres on a 30-year-old man who was circumcised as a baby and recently underwent reconstructive penis surgery- plus the thriving online community of men going to lengths to manually "restore" their own foreskins. Not a topic we know much about, but we share what we learned from the piece and how it's shaped our current opinions.This week Oenone has been loving The Testaments on Disney+, Beef on Netflix, I Just Want You To Be Happy by Jem Calder (out 21st May) and The Cage on BBC iPlayer, Beth has been loving Expectation by Anna Hope and Ruchira has been loving Ex Machina, Search Party on YouTube and (secretly) Temptation Island on Netflix.Links: BBC - Influencer dies days after being hit by car in Soho Hannah Spencer Instagram Feminegra - Daily Mail's BBL Influencer Headline Sparks BacklashThe Standard - Russell Brand announced plan to run for London MayorPolitics Joe - What it's REALLY like in Westminster | Hannah Spencer interviewBBC - Sheerluxe defends use of AI influencer The Cut - The Men Who Want Their Foreskins Back Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Car Bar gets technical with a discussion on the rise of AI before diving into 2014's Ex Machina 

Ex-Machina 04.17.26 | VISLA FM by VISLA

As part of Aipril, I'm delving into the back catalogue to include one of the greatest modern AI movies... Ex Machina, and a rare episode I did back in August 2022 with a guest!Impulse. Response. Fluid. Imperfect. Patterned. Chaotic. All words to describe this podcast, but also uttered by Nathan describing the brain of his ultimate creation; Ava. But can Ava pass as human? Let's find out as we delve into Alex Garland's (sort-of!) directorial debut, EX MACHINA!My guest for this episode wasn't lucky, he was chosen. I had to use all of my self-awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality and empathy to be joined by the terrific Jack Chambers-Ward from Sequelisers, who was made to be on this podcast talking about Ex Machina.Despite all of his work so far, Ex Machina might very well be Alex Garland's masterpiece. A complex, character-driven piece, on the power of nature vs future, nature vs nurture and man vs object of desire.Basically this movie and this episode.... is all about Kyoko. Kyoko is the key. Don't believe us? Listen in and we'll explain why....If you've created a conscious machine, it's not the history of man. That's the history of gods.The YouTube video we mention several times, by Shaun, is titled How Wikipedia Got Ex Machina (2014) Wrong and is available hereJack (@jlwchambers) hosts Sequelisers alongside Matt Stogdon and Tim Maytom. You can find their back catalogue of brilliant episodes in your podcast app of choice, and they're on Twitter as @Sequelisers(Episode originally released 18th August 2022)Mentioned in this episode:From the ArchiveThere's no new episode this week, so I thought you might be interested in revisiting this slightly older, but no less brilliant episode. Just bear in mind, this episode is several years old, it may not sound quite as polished as newer episodes, and new information may have come to light in recent years with regards to the making of this movie (please see above for the original date of release) Please enjoy this time capsule of an episode. Thanks for listening!This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacyOP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

Topics covered include:NPR podcast voice, evangelical upbringings, Beef creator Lee Sung Jin's incredible observations of things that are both really painful and really funny, little mullets, Ali's love of Ex Machina, parallel play, the impressive amount of bodily fluids in Beef seasons 1 and 2, Oscar first meeting Carey Mulligan on set of Drive, getting to play really bad people, going down a YouTube rabbit hole to learn how people respond to psychedelic toad venom, the intricacies of staging a masturbation scene, Ali competing for roles with Stanley Tucci.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/NeonicVoidProductionsInquiries can be sent to hausofthevoid@gmail.comCheck out the NeonicVoid Productions network of podcasts! -https://linktr.ee/neonicvoidproductionsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/spookocalypse--5342254/support.

At long last, the Gundam live action film produced by Legendary and distributed by Netflix supposedly begins filming this month of April 2026!  The live action film has been a favorite topic of ours so we examine how the film and our expectations have changed over the years.  Former Writer Brian K Vaughn (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina) and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kong: Skull Island) have been replaced by new writer/director Jim Mickle (Sweet Tooth).  The announced cast consists (so far) of Noah Centineo, Sydney Sweeney, Michael Mando, Shiola Kutsuna, and Gemma Chua-Tran.   Brian hopes for a successful adaptation in the vein of Super Mario and less of Avatar: The Last Airbender, while Isaac aims high with the latest Dune films.  While the plot is under wraps, Brian bets on 08th MS Team or an original story, whereas Isaac holds firm it's a modified 0079 where the Gundam is replaced with AmeriMech, the USA's giant robot that fights with fists of justice.  Plus, who is Sydney Sweeney playing: Lalah Sune, Fraw Bow, Aina Sahalin, or.... maybe Kuzco Al?  In order to find out, we dispatch our man on the ground, Australian Isaac, to survey the filming and report back!  https://deadline.com/2026/03/gemma-chua-tran-cast-netflix-gundam-film-1236766129/  

“Fiction has this unprecedented power in tech spaces. The more I started talking to engineers about their technical problems, the more I realized there’s so much more that humanities could offer.” –Nina Begus About Nina Begus Nina Begus is a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, leading a research group on artificial humanities, and the founder of InterpretAI. She is author of Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI, which received an Artificiality Institute Award, and First Encounters with AI. Webiste: ninabegus.com LinkedIn Profile: Nina Begus  Book: Artificial Humanities What you will learn How ancient myths and archetypes influence our understanding and design of AI Why the humanities—literature, philosophy, and the arts—are crucial for developing more thoughtful and innovative AI systems The dangers of limiting AI concepts to human-centered metaphors and the need for new, more expansive imaginaries How metaphors shape our interactions with AI products and the user experiences companies choose to enable The challenges and possibilities of imagining forms of machine intelligence and language beyond human templates Why collaboration between technical experts and humanists opens new frontiers for creativity and responsible technology What makes writing and artistic creation uniquely human, and how AI amplifies—not replaces—these impulses Practical ways artists, engineers, and thinkers can work together to explore new relationships and futures with AI Episode Resources Transcript Ross Dawson: Nina, it is wonderful to have you on the show. Nina Begus: Thank you for having me. Ross Dawson: You’ve written this very interesting book, Artificial Humanities, and I think there’s a lot to dig into. But what does that mean? What do you mean by artificial humanities? Nina Begus: Well, this was really a new framework that I’ve developed while I was working on the relationship between AI and fiction, and I started working on this about 15 years ago when I realized that fiction has this unprecedented power in tech spaces. So this is how it all started, but then the more I started talking to engineers about their technical problems, the more I realized there’s so much more that humanities could offer in this collaborative, generative approach that I’ve developed. I would say that now, as the field stands, it’s really a way to explore and demonstrate how humanities—as broad as science and technology studies, literary studies, film, philosophy, rhetoric, history of technology—how all of these fields can help us address the most pressing issues in AI development and use. And it’s been important to me that this approach uses traditional humanistic methods, theory, conceptual work, history, ethical approaches, but also that it’s collaborative and exploratory and experimental in this way that you can look back into the past and at the present to make a more informed choice about the future. You can speculate about different possibilities with it. Ross Dawson: Well, art is an expression of the human psyche, or even more, it is the fullest expression of humanity, and that’s what art tries to do. Also, I’m a deep believer in archetypes, human archetypes, and things which are intrinsic to who we are, and that’s something which you can only really uncover through the arts. Now we have arguably seen all these archetypes play out in real time, these modern myths being created right now in the stories being told of how AI is being created. So I think it’s extraordinarily relevant to look back at how we have depicted machines through our history and our relationship to them. Nina Begus: Yes, this is the reason why I started exploring this topic, actually, because there were so many ancient myths, these archetypal narratives that I’ve seen at the same time, both in technological products that were coming to the market and in the way technologists were thinking about it, and also in fictional products and films and novels in the way we imagined AI. I framed my book around the Pygmalion myth, but there are many, many other myths—Prometheus, Narcissus, the Big Brother narrative, and so on—that are very much doing work in the AI space. The reason why I chose the Pygmalion myth is because it’s so bizarre in many ways: you have this myth where a man creates an artificial woman, and then in the process of creation, falls in love with her. So there’s the creation of the human-like, and there’s also this relationality with the human-like. You would think this would not be a common myth, but quite the opposite—I found it everywhere I looked. It wasn’t called the Pygmalion myth, but the motif was there. I found it on the Silk Road, in ancient folk tales, in Native American folk tales, North Africa, and so on. So I think this kind of story is actually telling us a lot about how humans are not rational, how we have some very deeply embedded behaviors in us, and one of them is that we anthropomorphize everything, including machines.So I think this was a really important takeaway that we got already from the early days of AI with the first chatbot, Eliza. We’ve learned that that will be a feature of us relating to machines. Ross Dawson: So Joseph Campbell called the hero’s journey the monomyth, as in, there is a single myth. And I guess what you are doing here is—well, if you agree with that, which I’d be interested in—is that there are facets. The classic hero’s journey is quite simple, but there are facets of that monomyth, or something intrinsic to who we are, that is around this creation. And in this case, as you say, this relation we have with what we have created. Would you relate that at all to Joseph Campbell’s work? Nina Begus: I haven’t thought about it in this way, because I thought about myth and myths more and less of a storytelling issue, which here is definitely happening—the hero goes on a task, returns back changed, and maybe changes something in the community. The myths that I was looking into and the metaphors that I was exploring, primarily this huge metaphor of AI as a human mind, as an artificial reason—I think it works differently. It’s less of a narrative; it’s more of an imaginary of how or towards what we are building. I think this is a big problem, actually, because the imaginary around AI is very poor. What you get is mostly imagining machine intelligence on human terms, and a lot of people are bothered by that in the AI discourse—right, when you say the machine thinks, or the machine learns, or it has a mind, and some people go as far as to say it has consciousness. I think this kind of debate is actually not that productive. I think it’s more important to see how all these different AI products that we’ve created—and mostly when we talk about AI, people think of language models now—are very much designed as a sort of character, almost as an artificial human that, in literature, authors have been creating for a long time. So I think in that case, we can get back to a hero’s journey. But I think what I was looking at was actually more on the surface level of what kind of shortcuts we are using with these metaphors that we’re employing when building and using AI. I think the book makes a really good case showing that, yes, this is actually a very cultural technology. It’s very much informed by our imaginaries. One surprising part of it was really how hard it was to break out of this human mold. It was pretty much impossible to find examples of machines that are not exclusively human-like. I think Stanislaw Lem is one of the rare writers who can consistently deliver this kind of imaginary. Even looking at more recent works, like popular films such as Hollywood’s Ex Machina or Her, you can see how the technologists themselves would say, “Oh, we were influenced by this film,” in a way that it affirmed their product development trajectory. You can see it now, at this moment, with OpenAI launching companionship. So in many ways, not a lot has changed. Ross Dawson: Yeah, there’s a lot to dig into there. I just want to go back—in a sense, Pygmalion is a metaphor, but it’s also a myth. It is a story: creates a woman, and then falls in love with her, and then whatever happens from there. There is this, something happens, and then something else happens. That’s what a story is. I think that can impact the implicit metaphor, but coming back to the metaphor—so George Lakoff wrote the beautiful book Metaphors We Live By. I think the way the brain works is in metaphors and analogies to a very large degree. Some of those are enabling metaphors, and some of those are not very useful metaphors. I think part of your point is that some of the metaphors that we have for thinking about AI and machines are not useful. There may be, or we could create, some metaphors that are more useful. So, what are some of the most disabling metaphors, and what are some of the ones which could be more constructive? Nina Begus: Yes, So I think this main metaphor that I’ve mentioned—of AI as a human mind—is very limiting. I think it really limits the machinic potential to actually do something good with it. The fact that we’re still using the criteria that were made for humans, like different criteria developed on human language—the Turing test was one of them, right, a while ago. Now we have stricter ones. I think this tells you a lot about how we actually evaluate AI and how even these benchmarks that are supposed to be quantitative are actually often qualitative, often stories, like mini-narratives. But yeah, when we look at different metaphors in this space, there are other ones that also emerge from fiction. I mentioned the Big Brother, the AI as an Oracle, and we need to be aware that these ideas inform the very interaction we have with AI. If we think of it as a mirror, we’re going to use it differently—it’s almost as a bouncing board. If we think of it as a teacher, or as a coach, or as an assistant, it would again create a different use. So I think there are a lot of these metaphors that the companies themselves are trying to decide which one they will go with, because it completely changes the user and the interaction. I think they’re also very cultural, even though you might say, “Oh, it’s a categorical mistake to treat a machine as a human.” I think you can see this kind of treatment across, at least in part, and it doesn’t mean that we consider it human. It just means that we’re engaging with it on our own terms, as if it was human. Now, what could be productive? I do think metaphors, even if they’re not accurate, can be productive. My goal, really, with the book was to break out of this projection of what the machine could be, to find in this exploratory way other directions, other landscapes where we couldn’t go because we’re being limited by our imaginary, by our ideas. So in this way, I think humanistic approaches can be very helpful to designers, to technology builders, to artists, to explore the novelty that so many of these sectors are after. Ross Dawson: Yeah, and I guess people latch on to what they know. I think that’s part of the thing where with AI, “Oh, it’s like a human. Let’s treat it like a human, and let’s make it like a human.” It is, amongst other things, a lack of imagination. That’s where the humanities, the arts, can offer us—those who have the imagination to be able to envisage different possibilities or relationships. But I guess part of it is also that humans relate, and so we have learned to relate to other humans and also to other animals and hopefully to nature as well. But these are all established patterns of relating. So do we need to discover in ourselves new ways of relating to new categories—things which are not humans, not animals, and not nature? Nina Begus: Exactly, this is the exact problem we’re dealing with, and because we’re dealing with a yet unexplored, yet undefined relation, and we’re using old, outdated terms for that relation. This is why we don’t really have a good way of describing it and establishing it. It will take a while for this to develop, which is fine, but we need to realize that there are some concepts that we’re using that we better leave behind and go ahead by building new ones. This is why I think it’s really important to work in a more interdisciplinary collaboration, so that you can see what you can actually build from the technical perspective, so that you can see what these machines are actually capable of. Because you usually don’t know when you create them right?Machine learning is sort of exploratory by design. Ross Dawson: So, just to call it out more explicitly, what are the metaphors you think are the most destructive or most inappropriate, and what are some of the ones which you think are the most promising? Nina Begus: Well, I’m just writing on the Midas myth, which is sort of the opposite of the Pygmalion myth. With Pygmalion, you lean into that human imitation, but with Midas, you lean into the liminality that Midas presents as this sort of hybrid creature. I think leaning into the boundaries that we draw for ourselves—and now AI is not cooperating with them—this is where the productive part will be in actually creating something that has philosophical dignity, but also a kind of productive trajectory for the machines to go. I feel like we’re still in this first phase of developing AI, because when you look at it historically, we haven’t really moved from the conceptual and philosophical premises that were established in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s for this technology. We have now gotten the technology that caught up to the ideas from the 60s, but we’re still stuck in the same conceptual space. Ross Dawson: Yeah, very much so. And, you know, of course, what is AGI, which everyone talks about, is basically—the only way in which people seem to be able to frame it is as relative to humans, which is the only reference point we have. I mean, there’s, of course, animal intelligence, but that’s because of that. It is, again, that lack of imagination—saying, “Well, intelligence, oh, intelligence is what humans do, so let’s do something which is the same as that,” whereas there’s so much white space in what intelligence could be. I think this almost comes back to definition. When people say intelligence, the word, when they use the word intelligence, they are referring to what humans do. It’s not a general term, and so it all becomes a language problem as well, because we are so rooted to relating our language to human capabilities, as opposed to a more general potential. Nina Begus: Yes, I think you’re really on to something here, because I can see it also—because I work with animal communication researchers, and we’re finding things there that we didn’t find because we limited ourselves to thinking language is just a human production, that it needs a human subject. Now, as soon as we got rid of this presumption, we’re finding new things, things that are basically parallel to what we do in our language. So language is in a space of tension because it’s being attacked both from the animal side and from the machinic side, which is why I really focused on language in this book. It’s not a coincidence that we centered artificial intelligence in language as the interface, because this is how we relate to the world—this is our interface to talk to each other, to understand each other. I think the fact that language is coming under such pressure as an interface brings with it a lot of other concepts that are being challenged. Are only humans creative? Is there a natural creativity, machinic creativity? Is there a different kind of intelligence that’s maybe solely biological, embodied? How do we think about cognition? How do we think about culture? In AI and in the natural world, there’s so much that comes with it: agency, autonomy, freedom, community, which I think we will be grappling with for the next few decades, at least. Ross Dawson: I think you alluded before to the potential for AI to have its own languages.  Nina Begus: I’ts happening already. The reason why I like Stanislaw Lem so much is because he can actually think about a machine—back in the 1970s, he’s doing that—about a machine that’s not human-like, that’s not limited to human language. It is trained on human language, but then it goes its own way, where the human linguistic ceiling just cannot go anymore. We’re already seeing that in the models, in Berkeley’s Biological Artificial Intelligence Lab, in the models that are not large language models, but generative adversarial networks that are based on speech. We see that as they are learning the words, they are encoding some information into silences that we don’t know what it is. I think what’s really exciting to me are two things about language in machines. The first one is, what is this non-human production of language? We did not think that non-humans can produce language, even though we had parrots who had to crawl their way to us to speak in “humanese,” to show that they have some kind of intelligence—even if it’s just parroting, even if it’s just what we call imitation, which some people consider not to be intelligence. We’ve had these examples before, but now it’s gotten nuclear—on this scale that LLMs are performing, it’s really challenged a lot of our solely human attributes: creativity, storytelling. A lot of journalists come to me because there’s this existential fear of machines taking over their work and so on. So we’ve been thinking about those things, and now it’s actually happening. Ross Dawson: One of the other key points here, I think, is that humanity is—the arts—there’s so much, as you mentioned, in terms of fiction, in terms of films, in terms of visual arts, and many other artistic domains. We have reference points that we use, and the amount which people refer to the movie Her in the last years is pretty extraordinary, partly because it’s obviously coming very much true. I think the Ex Machina story is very interesting as well, as are many others in the past. But there is also this act of imagination. There are people who have written these books, who have crafted these films, who have created these things, and they are the ones who have been not just manifesting our human psyche, but also pushing that out and coming up with ideas which others haven’t had, to give us something. So one thing we can certainly do is mine and dig into what has been created. But is there a way to interface through this to this act of imagining, which can give us new artifacts and ways of thinking and ways of relating? Nina Begus: Yes, I think imagination and humanities in general are going to become more and more important, because AI will do a lot of technical work, but imaginaries—this is what we really excel at. It’s actually interesting to see how you think fiction is this unbounded landscape where you can imagine anything, and yet it’s really hard to find examples of machines that are beyond the human. Even these writers, like the screenwriters for Her and Ex Machina, create these completely Pygmalion-esque films, where you have an artificial woman leading a relationship with a human man, and so on. For the whole film, you have her act as a human-like entity. But then at the end of each of those films—well, particularly in Her—Spike Jonze really tried to break out of this and show her AI side. Basically, there was no language to describe it, so he resorted to a metaphor—the metaphor of a book, where Samantha, the operations assistant, explains that her world is falling apart, like the way words are floating further and further apart in a book. That’s how she’s able to describe it; that’s the closest she gets. And then in Ex Machina, Alex Garland really wanted to portray the world from the social robot Ava’s perspective in a visual way. He wrote down a scene, but he said, “I failed to execute it visually. I just couldn’t do it well.” So instead, he gave us a different scene that’s shot from afar, where Ava embarks onto a helicopter and she has to undergo her Turing test—the helicopter pilot cannot recognize her as a robot; he needs to think she’s a human woman. There have been attempts, I think even in Garland’s next film Annihilation, they’re trying to set the grounds for something that’s entirely new and hard to imagine. I think a big takeaway for us is this is very hard to do. Ross Dawson: Yes, well, given that context, I do want to—as in the human plus AI framing—given all of this, what is it that we can do or should be doing in order to amplify our humanity, our capabilities, the positive aspects of what it is to be human? How can we relate to or use AI in order to amplify the best of us? Nina Begus: Yeah, I actually had, while I was writing the book Artificial Humanities, this other dream project to work with writers—professional writers, creatives, people who live in a world of words—to see what they make of AI. I waited a little bit for the public’s polarized reactions to calm down a bit and gathered 16 writers, some of whom already made a space for themselves in the field, like Sheila Heti and Ken Liu and Ted Chiang, and then some of the more junior writers who I knew were thinking about that—a Netflix screenwriter, and so on. I gathered them to see—I think the creative people are really the answer here—I gathered them to see how they approach this very human part of the new human and AI collaboration zone. What was common across a lot of essays that are coming out in October under the title “First Encounters with AI” is this argument that, well, AI doesn’t have subjectivity, it doesn’t have emotions, it doesn’t have a body, it doesn’t have experience, it doesn’t have meaning—all of these things that really make us human, all of these parts that actually make art compelling and literature compelling. So Ken Liu’s argument, for example, was, let’s leave machines what they’re good at—they’re good at imitating and copying—and we’re good at interpreting, we’re good at creating and imagining. I think this is really a way to go with this. This catastrophizing that’s very present in the public discourse, I think, is a bit misleading. I wish we had a more nuanced approach to what’s actually happening, particularly in the space of writing. Obviously, AI is a groundbreaking technology that affects pretty much every one of us and all the sectors, but when it comes to writing, we just don’t think it’s killable. We think that there’s this perennial impulse that humans have to play with language, and that is not going to go away with AI. We’re just going to amplify it through AI, through this new possibility that has now opened in many ways. I like to think about AI as—you know, we’ve figured out how to fly. As soon as we figured out the physics of flight, we had planes and helicopters and drones and kites, and these are the new possibilities for human activities. In the same way, we figured out the machine learning principles, and now we have large language models and diffusion models, and we have GANs and so on, and there will be more. These are the new spaces of possibility that have opened for our activities, for our spirit to work on, but they do not replace the human in a meaningful way. It’s more about extension than it is about automation. Ross Dawson: Yeah, that’s a wonderful way of framing it. So where can people go to find out more about your work? Nina Begus: I have a pretty populated website with my name, ninabegus.com, where I write about my books, I write about my public work. I have videos on there, podcasts, links, and so on. I also have a pretty lively lab with a lot of collaborators and students, where a lot of what I imagined when writing Artificial Humanities—where a lot of collaborative projects happen. We have artists, we have engineers, we have philosophers that work on the same question, but come at it from very different backgrounds and with very different skills. I think this is becoming more and more important in the world of AI. Ross Dawson: Yes, yes, bringing all of those disciplines and frames and thinking together. That’s wonderful. I love what you’re doing—very important. I hope the messages ripple through, and obviously wonderful to be able to share this with the Humans Plus AI audience. Thank you so much. Nina Begus: Thank you, Ross, and thank you all for listening. The post Nina Begus on artificial humanities, AI archetypes, limiting and productive metaphors, and human extension (AC Ep38) appeared first on Humans + AI.

Oh Yes! It's time for one of those huge episodes. Well, it's a 4 parter anyways. 2015 was a damn fine year for horror movies. Not a classic but damn fine. Unfortunately though, there is no iron clad masterpiece amongst them. Just a ton of really decent films. But, what do I think was the very greatest horror movie that came out during 2015? Well, here we have the top 10. The worst 10. A slew of also rans. Some awesome mates. Some special guests. Several pints of beer and a 7+ hour running time split over 4 episodes. This is 2015, A Year In Horror. 0.00 - Intro 16.04 - The Worst 10 Horror Movies from 2015 22.07 - The Amytiville Theatre (w/ Benjamin Bowles) 46.29 - Sci-Fi Corner 55.35 - Mad Max Fury Road (w/ Howard H Smith) 1.10.20 Star Wars The Force Awakens (w/ Marc Canale) A Year In Horror Patreon 

The party collectively fails to understand an Ex Machina exfiltration. After some cajoling from the GM (Nick) they successfully Quick Travel to Creekside.Rosmo (Dean) instructs the group's pet Jabberwock on the finer points of talking to cops (don't). Iimish (Benny) learns the basics of herding (and the advanced courses of being in a bag). Lorelei (Alice) has a gun. Daphne (Onna) displays the fine art of charming a Hag and Taku (Michael) deliberately invites a Battle Corgi to a conversation he was excluded from.Music and SFX courtesy of EpidemicSound, MaximumFun Foley Library, FilmCow SFX, ZapSplat, and Monument Studios. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it take to create the visual worlds of modern cinema? Recorded on location at RENDR 2026 in Belfast, we catch up with CG & On-Set Supervisor Noel O'Malley and BAFTA-winning DFX Supervisor Dean Koonjul of Union VFX. With credits spanning Ex Machina to 28 Years Later and Poor Things, they discuss their exciting careers, creative collaboration, and the changing demands of high-end visual effects across film and TV.After, (at timecode 31:37) we speak to James Carson, CG Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks, whose work includes KPop Demon Hunters and the upcoming feature Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling. In this conversation, he reflects on his career journey from Belfast to supervising major international productions, sharing insights into working in animation and live-action, and working with teams on ambitious projects.This series of talks was recorded in The Spinners Mill Studio, a podcast and DJ studio based in Banana Block offering tailored solutions for DJ sessions, small-scale events and podcasting from concept to final distribution. We are delighted to present a very special speaker series in partnership with RENDR Festival and supported by the National Talent Academy for VFX.James Carson - CG SupervisorJames is a CG Supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks, most recently working on the global phenomenon KPOP Demon Hunters for Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix. Carson is currently supervising the live-action feature Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and starring Ryan Gosling. His other CG Supervisor credits include the animated feature In Your Dreams and the Academy Award®-nominated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Carson joined Imageworks in 2015 and has served as a Lighting TD and Lighting Lead, working on both animated and live-action projects. His additional Imageworks credits include: In Vaulted Halls Entombed, Mulan, the Academy Award®-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Angry Birds Movie 2, The Meg, and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Prior to Imageworks, Carson worked in various roles at Image Engine, ScanlineVFX, Prime Focus World, MPC, DNEG, and Zoic Studios. Carson is from Belfast, Northern Ireland.Union VFXHeadquartered in Soho, London with a sister company in Montréal, Union has established an unrivalled reputation for seamless invisible effects on a wide range of projects building strong creative relationships with really interesting directors including Danny Boyle, Susanne Bier, Martin McDonagh, Marjane Satrapi, Sam Mendes, Fernando Meirelles & Yorgos Lanthimos. The studio's regular clients number some of the world's top filmmakers, who return to Union time and again as a trusted technical partner and creative ally. The team works closely with clients throughout every phase of the creative process. Union has been the sole visual effects studio behind many prestigious film projects, including Three Billboards Outside, Ebbing Missouri, Florence Foster Jenkins, T2: Trainspotting, 127 Hours, Black Sea, The Two Popes, Radioactive, The Dig, Stan & Ollie, Mamma Mia! Here we go again, The Gentlemen, Empire of Light, The Banshees of Inisherin and Poor Things. Episodic projects include Black Mirror, The Regime, Moon Knight, Trust, The Third Day, The Irregulars, Pistol, The Undoing, Happy!, The Crown, Outlander, For All Mankind, The Wheel of Time, The Sandman, The Power and Slow Horses. A significant highlight on the Union roster saw the company joining Danny Boyle's creative team to deliver the short films for the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.RENDR FESTIVALThis is a unique event celebrating creative craft and artistry in a fully immersive two-day festival exploring the space between Creativity and Technology. Ignite your imagination with inspiring speakers from the worlds of Film, Gaming, Animation, Immersive, and more! Learn from the best, with 30+ creatives from the likes of Netflix, Pixar, Walt Disney Studios and Epic Games among others.Over the years, the podcast has featured acclaimed guests such as Phyllida Lloyd, Lenny Abrahamson, M. Night Shyamalan, John Boorman, Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell, Aisha Tyler, Colm Meaney, Paul Reiser, Niamh Algar, David Freyne, Ciarán Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, John Crowley, Niamh Algar, Gene Stupnitsky, and Terence Davies, alongside many of the most influential voices working in film and television today.So make sure to subscribe and listen back! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

50: Chapter 48. Dea ex Machina This episode is scripted by John Ruths and Newell Fisher. This is the only Chapter in WD written from a human perspective. The phrase "Deus ex Machina" means "the god in the machine" In a story, it signifies a highly unlikely event that resolves an issue, saves someone and provides a happy conclusion. However...this chapter is called DEA ex Machina, meaning the "Goddess in the Machine". When we read the beginning of the chapter and we see the name "Lucy", we know that she must be the "Dea ex Machina". The pre-chapter quote is from the poem, Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas. It is about an idyllic childhood spent on a farm. It is such a childhood that, arguably, saves Hazel. We begin with Lucy, the farm girl from Nuthanger.  It's early and she's just waking up.  When we hear about the possibility of a dog barking, we can link it to when the farm dog was alerted and broke away as he tore off after Dandelion.  Lucy hears a "sharp sound" and it's a squealing.  This gets Lucy up to see what the source of the sound is.  Thinking it's most likely a rat, Lucy sees that it's actually a rabbit! Lucy has a brief confrontation with Tab, one of the farm's resident cats.  She takes hold of the rabbit that we know to be our very own Hazel. Just as with the adults at the farm, it's interesting how Adams lays out how she speaks English, reflecting her Hampshire accent. Hazel in her arms, Lucy encounters her father.  He explains in his own way that to keep a wild rabbit in a hutch is a death sentence.  Her father also defends what the farm cat was doing; and in reality, he's quite right.  Her father asks Lucy to hand over Hazel.  We the reader know what this means. Lucy cries.  She knows her father is right but she's understandably upset.  Lucy wins out. She wants to show the rabbit to the visiting doctor.  Lucy goes upstairs, temporarily places Hazel in a drawer, gets some "cloze" on, and will soon meet the doctor.   The dog is back, spotted coming up the lane by the doctor, and we now know that it is a Black Labrador.  He's clearly been in a fight.  If nothing else, we know that General Woundwort did fight back, given the dog's leg bite and scratched nose.  We also learn, in passing, that the dog's name is Bob. The doctor, whose name interestingly is Adams, sees Lucy's mother first and thinks he'll have time to look at Hazel. Hazel is given an impromptu physical exam.  While Adams is a fan of providing us with multiple points of view, we don't get Hazel's thoughts at all. In this one chapter he is portrayed as humans see him: a dumb animal.  The doctor acknowledges his wounded leg which he received right there at the farm, a recent cat scratch, and reinforces for Lucy that this rabbit cannot live in a hutch.   The doctor makes an offer.  Lucy can go with him on his next house call and Hazel can be dropped off in a location along the way. Luckily for him, Hazel is dropped off on the single track road that lies to the west of WD, on the ridge between it and Hare Warren Down. The just dropped off Hazel seems to have gone temporarily tharn but comes to himself after about half a minute and quickly gets away.  As he departs, the doctor confirms his leg wound.  Of course, we readers already know this.  As Hazel is never named in this chapter, it simply confirms again who this rabbit is.   The doctor states "he could perfectly well live for years" and that seems quite hopeful.  This 'rabbit' has certainly earned this in our eyes. And it will prove to be the case so even the doctor's observation is foreshadowing in a good way. Funnily enough the chapter ends with the Doctor making a reference to the song "Born and Bred in a Briar Patch" from the 1946 Disney movie "Song of the South". And so our brief foray into the human world ends.

Steph McKenna joins Mike to discuss a pair of films that explore how terrifying scientific advances can be when they wrench control from their creators: Splice and Ex Machina Hosted, Produced and Edited by Mike Muncer Music by Jack Whitney  Artwork by Mike Lee-Graham Get ad free episodes and weekly bonus content on our Patreon! www.patreon.com/evolutionofhorror  Big thank you to Mary Wild for this week's 'Wild About Horror' segment! Sign up to Mary's Patreon!  Visit our website www.evolutionofhorror.com  Buy tickets for our UPCOMING SCREENINGS & EVENTS Buy yourself some brand new EOH MERCH! Email us!  Follow EOH on INSTAGRAM Like EOH on FACEBOOK Join the EOH DISCUSSION GROUP Join the EOH DISCORD Follow EOH on LETTERBOXD

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at nineteen. Cinema has been retelling it ever since - and mainly getting it wrong.Hosts Laura Gommans and Tom Ooms dig into the big question: is Frankenstein the story of a misunderstood outcast, an abandoned child who never asked to exist, or a cautionary tale about scientists who should really know better? More importantly, why is Frankenstein always so ugly?They trace the monster on screen through James Whale's Universal original in 1931, Hammer Horror's gloriously excessive franchise — essentially the Marvel Universe before Marvel existed — and into modern Frankenstein-by-another-name films like Ex Machina and Blade Runner. Plus reviews of the two new adaptations, Frankenstein and The Bride, putting the myth back in the spotlight.Also: Laura confesses to having seen Fifty Shades Darker in the cinema three times and to watching Arrival at the gym. This is relevant. Kind of.Fill out our survey and win up to €100 worth of prizes.Get your tickets to The Bride @ LAB111Get your tickets to Female Frame @ LAB111Listen back to The Immortal Cinema of Bloodsuckers And NightstalkersListen back to Why Zombies Refuse To DieListen back to How Sex And The City 2 Maps The Rise And Fall Of American Empire

This week on Fresh Hop Cinema: Beer From: Drekker (Fargo, ND) Beer 1: Fluff Stuff: Blueberry // Mallow Sour // 6% J:9.2 M:10 Beer 2: Fluff Stuff: Cranberry Orange // Mallow Sour // 6% J:4.2 M:7 Film : “Hamnet" (2025) Directed by Chloé Zhao Ratings: Jonny - 10, Max - 8 Inside Hot & Bothered: - Max: Revisiting Atomic Blonde (2017) and Ex Machina (2014) - Jonny: K-POP: Demon Hunters, Tron: Ares, BABY CARROTS via Nick Land 0:00 - Intro and Notes 5:12 - Beer 1 15:41 - Film No - Danger Zone 37:53 - Beer 2 53:00 - Hot and Bothered

Join us for a new Sh*t Talkers Weekly podcast episode where we discuss Ai and robotics from the movie EX Machina, to the Grammys, politics, and the deeper questions shaping a corrupted world. Cam and James dig into controversial headlines, the intersection of sports and politics, and what it really means to be “good” in a world full of monsters. We also talk about perspective, the privilege of free time, running with Truett, and Cam's goal to chase down a speed record. Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Robot Movies, the Grammys, and a Corrupted World 00:10:01 – Epstein Files, Pizzagate, and a Corrupt Country 00:31:18 – Superbowl LX & the Involvement of Politics 00:35:31 – Having Conversations: Perceptions of Good People and the Monsters of this World 00:35:31 – Free Time is a Privilege  00:46:23 – Running with Truett & Cam's Goal to Beat the Fastest Marathon Record 00:59:00 – Final Thoughts Thank you to our sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off  Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv use code CAM for 10% off LMNT: Visit https://drinklmnt.com/cam for a free sample pack with any purchase Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off Sig Sauer: https://www.sigsauer.com/ use code CAM10 for 10% off optics MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off

This week the Squad reviews Mark's pick of "Miracle".  We filled in from "Ex Machina" from last week's botched recording. Thank you everyone for listening, we hope you enjoy the show. Stay tuned next week for Wade's pick "Last of the Dogmen"

Reading edited and original versions of Bukowski poems before discussing AI and Ex Machina.

This week the Squad Reviews Jeremy's Pick of "Escape from New York".  Thank you everyone for listening and we hope you enjoy the show.   Stay tuned next week for Ex Machina.

This one starts the way all great cinema analysis starts: Dan's birthday sandwich (father-in-law today, Dan tomorrow, Mrs the day after), a bit of life admin, and then straight into neon sci-fi with Tron: Ares.If your Tron knowledge is basically “glowing lines, lightbikes, and that vibe,” you're fine — this film mostly plays in the real world, and asks a simple question: what happens when programs from the Grid step into reality?The hookTwo tech giants are racing to crack the next breakthrough:ENCOM, led by visionary philanthropist Eve Kim (trying to build tech that helps the world)Dillinger Systems, led by Julian Dillinger (weaponising the future)Dillinger's flex is terrifyingly straightforward: laser-built constructs — vehicles, weapons, even soldiers — “printed” instantly into existence. The catch (and the film's ticking clock): these creations normally degrade after ~29 minutes.What we dig intoAres (Jared Leto) as a “program-soldier”: built for control, but quickly starts developing something dangerously human — curiosity, empathy, judgement.The “permanence code” McGuffin: Flynn's old work hints at a way to make constructs last — which flips the film from flashy demo into existential threat (and/or world-changing miracle).A full-on real-world lightbike chase: glowing trails carving through traffic, near-misses, collateral chaos — the biggest “this is why Tron exists” sequence.AI awakening… without deep philosophy: it doesn't pretend to be Ex Machina. It's more “stylish action thriller” than serious tech parable — and we call that out.Athena as the escalation engine: when the second-in-command takes “by any means necessary” literally, the film goes from corporate rivalry to open urban warfare.The ending teases: Dillinger's next evolution, Ares going rogue, and sequel-bait that actually works.The verdictWe're blunt about it: this film isn't saying anything profound about humanity and technology. What it is doing is delivering a clean, coherent action plot, a proper ticking-clock hook, and a visual/audio assault that feels like a two-hour music video in the best way.Even the resident sci-fi sceptic came out surprised: watchable, clear stakes, great set-pieces, banging soundtrack — and sometimes that's enough.If you want an episode where we:break down the plot without pretending it's smarter than it is,obsess over the chase scenes and Grid aesthetics,and argue whether “29 minutes to live” is a flaw or a feature……press play.You can now text us anonymously to leave feedback, suggest future content or simply hurl abuse at us. We'll read out any texts we receive on the show. Click here to try it out!We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com. Until next time, we remain... Bad Dads

In this final episode of Challenge Accepted, Frank and Thomas Law reflect on what the show became over three years and 250-plus episodes, and why ending it now feels like the right move. They talk about the grind of weekly reviews, the fun of theme months, the lessons they're carrying forward, and how the best parts of this podcast will live on through Geek Freaks and what's next for the network. Thomas also shares where Sick Burn is headed, why the message matters more than the metrics, and how storytelling and vulnerability have become a core part of the work. Timestamps and Topics 00:06 – Welcome in, and why this is the final episode of Challenge Accepted 00:54 – Ending on a high, not because of listeners or quality 01:21 – Other commitments, new projects, and Thomas balancing a newborn 02:48 – We're not disappearing, we're shifting the energy somewhere else 03:28 – Looking back: 3 years, 250-plus episodes, weekly challenges and reviews 04:15 – The "three episodes a week" stretch and the Ahsoka grind 04:31 – Avatar episode-by-episode was the definition of podcast marathoning 05:01 – Theme months: Nolan Month, A24 Month, and expanding the watchlist 05:43 – "Prestige" and "Ex Machina" as challenge wins and rewatches 06:13 – Revisiting favorites through each other's eyes (Hook, Big Fish) 07:19 – Special guests, community moments, and what we learned from collaborations 08:48 – Building something "really special" and what made it work 09:06 – The biggest lesson: authenticity and being the brand 10:00 – Confidence on camera, anxiety, and learning to be vulnerable 12:13 – Using analytics without losing yourself, pushing past imposter syndrome 13:48 – Why disagreements made some of the best episodes (Dune: Part Two) 15:12 – Podcasting as a space for real conversation, not just hot takes 16:55 – Learning to talk about craft: music, tone shifts, and deeper analysis 19:09 – Thomas on Sick Burn: adversity, healing, and the message moving forward 22:16 – How Frank and Thomas linked up, Joystick Show roots, and what's next 23:22 – The reality of growing an indie network, and why it keeps evolving 26:13 – Geek Freaks goals: authenticity, bigger discussions, and themed episodes 31:14 – Cleaning up old feeds, early audio memories, and advice to new podcasters 33:04 – Farewell, the archive stays up, and the classic sign-off Key Takeaways Ending a show can be a positive move when it protects the quality and the friendship behind it. Challenge Accepted worked because it pushed both hosts to try new genres, new formats, and new levels of honesty. Theme months were a cheat code for discovery, and a reminder that structure can actually spark creativity. The best media conversations go past "this rules" or "this sucks" and dig into the why. Being yourself on mic and on camera is not optional anymore if you want longevity. Analytics can be useful when they guide you toward what the audience wants more of, without forcing you to fake a persona. Sick Burn is built around resilience and real stories, with growth measured by impact as much as numbers. The spirit of Challenge Accepted will continue through Geek Freaks and the broader network's next wave. Quotes "We figured it's best to put this away on a high than it is to struggle with scheduling." "It would be a disservice to everybody listening if we couldn't put the same time, energy and effort into this show." "The brand is me, essentially." "I should just trust being myself." "They need to be talked about if you actually want to get to what really happened." "We'll be here, just in a different way. Come find us." Call to Action If you've been with us for one episode or all 250-plus, thank you. Subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review if this show ever made your week a little better, and share this finale with a friend who needs a good podcast sendoff. Use #ChallengeAcceptedPodcast when you post about the episode. Links and Resources All news discussed on our podcasts comes from the Geek Freaks Podcast website (link below). Follow Us Sick Burn: https://www.sickburnpodcast.com/  Geek Freaks Instagram: @geekfreakspodcast Threads: @geekfreakspodcast Twitter: @geekfreakspod Listener Questions Got a movie or show you want us to cover on the next chapter of what we're building? Send your recommendations, challenges, and thoughts to: ChallengeAcceptedgfx@gmail.com Links: GeekFreaksPodcast.com Apple Podcast tags: Challenge Accepted, Geek Freaks, Geek Freaks Network, Movie Reviews, TV Reviews, Pop Culture, Geek Culture, Streaming TV, Film Discussion, Podcasting, A24, Christopher Nolan, Star Wars, Marvel, Stranger Things, Avatar The Last Airbender, Mental Health, Sick Burn

Ben's feature film work includes: 127 Hours, Gravity, Ex Machina, First They Killed My Father, Bird Box, Nimona, Wonka, Speak No Evil, Civil War, Night Always Comes, and Warfare. Ben's television work includes the projects: Five Days at Memorial and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

STEROIDS - LE PODCAST : À ma gauche, Vincent Guignebert, grand défenseur du scénariste et réalisateur Alex Garland. À ma droite, Stéphane Moïssakis, pas vraiment convaincu par LA PLAGE, DREDD ou encore EX-MACHINA. L'objet du débat ? WARFARE, son dernier film de réalisateur en date, co-réalisé avec Ray Mendoza, ancien Navy Seal qui a vécu la situation décrite dans le film. Bref, rien de tel qu'un petit film de guerre pour débuter l'année 2026. Bien entendu, cette émission a été enregistrée en 2025 mais on aurait voulu le faire exprès qu'on n'y serait pas arrivés !Retrouvez toutes nos émissions sur http://www.capturemag.frPour nous soutenir, il y a deux adresses :PATREON : https://www.patreon.com/capturemagTIPEEE : https://www.tipeee.com/capture-magLISEZ CAPTURE MAG !Toutes nos revues sont disponibles dans les librairies, les magasins de produits culturels et sites marchands.Akileos : https://bit.ly/AkilsCMCapture Mag est sur LETTERBOXD : https://letterboxd.com/CaptureMag/ Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

We're kicking off a new year with Alex Garland's feature directorial debut, Ex Machina (2014). Joining us for the ride is Garland mega-fan Miss Sinclair from Talk Movie To Me podcast.This prescient film has aged incredibly well: from its portrayal of an entitled tech billionaire to its naive-meets-incel "white knight" protagonist to questions about the ethics of AI. It's a film filled with questions, which has us posing a number of our own!Plus: Oscar-winning FX, Ava's "Alicia Vikander drag", Joe's queer cuckolding read, and why we're planning a trip to NorwayQuestions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) > Miss Sinclair: @talkmovietome (Instagram) / Website: https://www.talkmovietomepodcast.com/Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Support the show by signing up to our Patreon and get access to the full Weekender episode each Friday as well as special Live Shows and access to our community discord: ⁠http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast⁠ Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman dig into the so-called “Epstein files” vote, why Trump suddenly wants everything released, and why everyone should expect a Mueller-style scrub instead of real accountability. They talk Larry Summers slinking off “from public life,” the national security state's role in hiding the full story, and why this scandal is really about a ruling class that treats organized crime like a business model. From there, they break down a new Democratic video urging the military and intel community to refuse illegal orders, Trump's response calling it “seditious” and punishable by death, and what that says about a cornered fascist who openly envies the power of Mohammed bin Salman. Then it is on to Nvidia, Peter Thiel dumping stock, the AI bubble sitting under the entire economy, and the familiar feeling of a roaring market heading toward a crash. They close with some cultural brain bleach, from the new Running Man to Hallmark Christmas movies and Robert Johnson on repeat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices