Why are we working so hard to make artificial intelligence seem human?

In this solo episode, Jett turns to three works of classic, and semi-classic, science fiction: Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Colossus: The Forbin Project, and Harlan Ellison's Demon with a Glass Hand, asking what movies can teach us about our increasingly personal relationship with AI.

HAL raises one possibility: What if a machine really does become something like a living being, with emotions and even a fear of death? Colossus offers a darker path, imagining what happens when we surrender authority to a machine and begin treating it less like a tool than an all-knowing god.

But The Outer Limits episode Demon with a Glass Hand suggests another way forward. Its computer, manifested as a literal hand of glass, is intelligent, extraordinarily useful, and completely unsentimental. It doesn't flatter. It doesn't pretend to be your friend. It's a tool.

Along the way in this episode: AI "personalities," the strange idea of giving software a soul, the pleasure of actually making things, Robert Culp's impeccable wardrobe, Harlan Ellison's legendary temperament, and why Jett has spent the past week wearing a glove and calling ChatGPT "the Glass Hand."

Maybe the question isn't whether AI can become more like us. Maybe it's whether we should stop asking it to.

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Albuquerque, New Mexico has a kind of beautiful, shabby tranquility Dear Listener, and obviously that influenced this wonderful, sweet film. Listen in to hear us talk Albuquerque, Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus and explain why Coyote vs. Acme is one of those films that director Mira Nair says we need: an accessible work that allows us to see through the eyes of another.

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Perhaps we thought it would never happen folks, but if finally has. Part 6 of all of Steven Spielberg's Theatrical Films Ranked has reached Loe and Higgins' Number One. Spoilers for the whole of the Spielberg filmography and Vincent Minnelli's Lust for Life.

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