The End of the World with Michael and Stu
The Apocalypse is Everywhere. The End of the World with Michael and Stu is a (hopefully) insightful and (hopefully) humorous exploration of the rise of apocalyptic news, apocalyptic thinking and apocalyptic culture. Each week, we’ll be looking at a work of art, a piece of media, or an historical event related to the (hopefully not) impending End of the World.
The End of the World with Michael and Stu
69: In This Everlasting Twilight
This week we are talking about the growth of emotional dependency on AI as programs like ChatGPT become more ubiquitous and more sophisticated. We recognize that this has the potential to be, in a sense, a double apocalypse, as the rise of AI threatens to make human beings completely redundant while at the same time the resources used to power AI make the planet increasingly uninhabitable as climate change accelerates. We segue directly into a consideration of a film that deals with these ideas, albeit not in the most serious way, 2025's Companion, directed by Drew Hancock. This film offers a vision of the way an AI powered robotic paramour might be used and abused.
This episode contains spoilers for Companion.
TechPolicy.press on AI Emotional Dependency
Novara Media on Mark Zuckerberg's recent comments on AI replacing real friends
PS: I (Stu) realize now that Stalin's birthday is December 18 and NOT December 8. We apologize for any confusion this error caused.
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