How The Superman Movie Gave Me Hope About Our AI Future

0:00 Who controls the machines when AI gets superpowers? we're living through the most significant technological shift in human history. And most people are arguing about all the wrong things. While culture warriors battle over Superman's immigration status, the real story is staring us right in the face. The war for who gets to control artificial intelligence. This isn't some distant sci-fi fantasy anymore. It's happening right now and the stakes couldn't be higher. The new Superman movie is the perfect metaphor for this moment in our history. You've got Lex Luthor commanding an army of machines like he's playing the world's most dangerous video game, while Superman fights back with his own AI companions. The question isn't whether humans and machines will merge, It's whether the good guys or the Lex Luthor's of the world get to decide how it happens.

1:02 movie reveals three critical choices we're making about AI right now that will determine whether technology saves humanity or enslaves it. This is the Fit Mess for now. It's a podcast for men who want to use AI to safely manage their mental health. All right, Jason, I finally saw the Superman movie that everybody is fighting about the wrong things about. I can't wait to talk about that. We're going to get into that today. But I also we have a big announcement. We are making some big changes here at the show that we want to make sure you are aware of you long time listeners and anybody who's come along recently and notice some things have changed a bit. And so I'll just put it out there. We've been doing the fit mess. Zach and I and Jason, you and I for the last few months and our friend Joe has been participating as well. And we've been doing the fit mess for seven or eight years. It's been a very long time and it's time for the fit mess to end.

1:45 It doesn't mean that this show is going away. We're just going to be taking a different approach calling it something else and rebranding. So rather than just say out loud what we're going to do I thought what I would do is I've been doing a lot of research on this asking a lot of people getting some different different advice. And one of the pieces of advice I got is from a Hall of Fame podcaster. And so I wanted to share the clip with you of me going to him to find out what he thought of our crazy new idea. So let me just bring that up here and play this.

3:15 And we're kind of sarcastic and fun. At least that's the goal. We don't always land there, it's certainly the goal every time we It's true. is the real fungible amount. mean, fun, you can't spell fungible without fun. right. We put the fun in fungible. That of course was Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting during a uh webinar he hosted for Podpage, which is an amazing podcast hosting website, by the way, if you're looking for one, we'll make sure we have a link in the show notes for that as well, in case you're looking for a place to host your podcast. ah I mean, listen, this is a decision we make with a heavy heart because the brand is something that's been, you know, part of my life for many years, part of Zach's life for many years.

3:56 And Zach is still involved. He's just kind of on the beach right now. Life has significantly gotten in the way. And as we've talked about on the show many times, when when things are not serving you, put them down and make some space. So when Zach is ready, he'll return. Joe was kind of in a similar place. uh Life has suddenly gotten super busy. And so, Jason, you and I have been sort of steering the ship for the last few months. And this is the direction. direction that the ship has gone. And so just every time I said the fit mess opening the show, it just felt like are we even like we're not even really doing that anymore. This is this is a different thing. And so we just want to make it clear to the audience exactly what they're going to get when they hit play with us. Right. is now augmented by artificial intelligence.

4:43 Yes, exactly. So what you will find going forward is me probably still accidentally saying the fit mess a lot. But the new website will be BroBots.me because we're all becoming robots. So BroBots.me and your feed will change. Suddenly you'll have a new logo for us. So things will seem a little out of sorts but it's still us still talking about the ways that we can help benefit your mental health just primarily around technology and AI because that's where a lot of attention is going right now and people have a lot of questions. We have a lot of questions and in trying to answer them we want to share what we find with you. That's the big announcement. absolutely absolutely. We will definitely employ the robots to do the heavy lifting on the giant donuts for sure.

5:26 Speaking of evolving and becoming something better, You know what's helped me stay sharp during this whole rebrand process? That's right, MagicMind. Look, when you're making big changes like we are, new name, new focus, diving deep into AI and technology, you need your mind firing on all cylinders. MagicMind combines nootropics, adaptogens, and functional mushrooms to help with focus and mental clarity without the jitters. Honestly, it's been a game changer for me when trying to wrap my head around complex AI concepts and well, Superman's robot army tactics. It's made a huge difference in my life and I think it will for you as well. So use that big brain of yours to head over to magicmind.com forward slash fitmes20, Use the promo code fitmes20 to get 20 % off your order.

6:07 Again, that's magicmind.com forward slash fit mass 20 to get 20 % off. OK so that's the big announcement. The other big thing we have to talk about is Superman because I finally saw it and this is not going to be movie review time. But when I saw this thing. First of all, was like, everyone's arguing about the wrong stuff. Like, the immigrant and the nice guy and the woke bullshit, blah, blah, blah. Like, what a stupid fucking culture war to wage over a fantastic movie that I loved for a million reasons. It's, it's... It's ridiculous in all the right ways and super cool in all the right ways. But when I saw what we've been talking about here for months, the blending of human biology with machine, the use of AI, the use of technology for good and evil on display in such a just hit you over the head manner.

6:57 I was like, we got to talk about this. I'm so I'm so glad you've already seen it, too. What was your reaction when you saw the way that they've sort of approached this part of the story? So. um One, as far as like a record of uh sci fi that's been used for years as tropes and everything else, it is like old sci fi concepts. A lot of it that are pulled way, back in the day from old literature like Isaac Asimov level. Like we're talking like stuff from like the 60s and 70s. And it's put in a way that makes it easy to understand, like the parlance of it, like this idea of having a bunch of people sitting around computer screens and each of them running different commands.

7:37 and putting them in play and like running these playbooks all the way down. The implication is that Lex Luthor is so smart that he doesn't need the power of the artificial intelligence because his naturally derived intelligence is so good. But there's AIs and automation and computer functions sitting everywhere, and he has to have minions around him where he to say, run, play, E9 to like make these things happen, which is incredibly dramatic. The way the artificial intelligence would do it is it would not say run, play, E9. it would use its intelligence to go beep and then Superman would be toast. And it was crazy because he was I mean, you find out in the story the origin of the people that he's fighting and the way that he's put these pieces together.

8:21 And I don't want to give spoilers away, but the interactions and the way that they run kind of the script and the playbook on it is interesting because. It's a holistic approach to try to tackle a problem using. really augmented intelligence functions and group think, which if you look at it, I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of, you know, people in SOCOM, the Special Forces region. We look at that and laugh and go, ha, ha. We did that stuff like 35 years ago with like imaging satellites. But it but it's neat because it kind of brings you into this fold. And it none of it felt like. Like implausible, even though it was an entirely implausible cart, like real life cartoon broad.

9:05 Right. And I think that's that's kind of what I thought about that. Like I was just willing to go. Yep. I accept that this is the trope that you're using and it's fun. It's enjoyable and I can get behind it because it's like a bunch of adults playing a video game. That was the thing like when he was shouting out those commands. I literally was envisioning holding like an Xbox controller and playing it. He's he's verbally playing a video game and and people are responding to his commands the way the controller would respond to make the bad guy punch the good guy in the face. And it was it was wild to see that. But then also in contrast Superman has his own robots and his friends have their own nanotech technology and like and it was such an amazing blending of humanity and machine.

9:47 And it also like just It's so clearly uh displayed. What I think I have been saying on the show is this conflict that I a lot of us feel about AI is like we're excited about the potential of it, but we're scared of what it could become. uh I've seen experts in this field talking more and more about this. It's not the tool, it's the people using it. It literally is a tool and however the people decide to use the thing is what it's going to become. So if we let the Lex Luthors, who you know a lot of people are comparing to your Elon Musk's and your know Bezos and super powerful tech lords, if we let them be the ones that decide what the thing is going to become, feels a little scary if I'm being honest.

10:29 But if. be realistic, they're also the ones kind of building it. But and they are right. mean and that's I think that's kind of I'm not here to speak for James Gunn but I think that's kind of the point that he's getting at with some of that. And then when the good guys use it it's you know it's medical droids and housekeepers and companions like all the things that I think a lot of us are excited about it being as an assistant in our life that can improve it. And it was just so crazy to to see it and be in and it felt good. Of course spoiler if you haven't seen it by now too fucking late. When the good guys win you're like okay there's there's still hope the good guys can still run the machines and win and help humanity save the day my god just to geek out for a minute whatever they do with mr.

11:18 terrific shut up and take my money he is the best character I've seen on a screen in years my god Eddie get that key I think yeah He's great. Like he's, he's been in other Marvel properties and every time I see him is fantastic. There was another show that he had, I can't remember the name of it where they were wandering money. Um, but it's that, it's that same kind of empathetic, smart character that kind of, you know, is, is dynamic and actually has all these different motions and pieces to him. And he brings that level of, of dynamism, you know, to using robots and getting them to do things. And just way cooler than everybody else in the room. Just way cooler. well, and I mean, in the DC realm, you know, you have Cyborg and Cyborg is an interesting character.

12:03 But Mr. Terrific is also a very, very interesting character that to be explored more depth. But the big thing that you brought up there was the intent of the people actually using the technology and when the technology itself is hardwired into the things that you do and if they're they're meant to carry out your actions and your orders. I mean, if. If you're a terrible piece of shit, it's going to make you more of a terrible piece of shit. Like that's not going to change. And the same is going to be true for how we all interact with AI. Like I can use these things to make myself bigger, faster and stronger. It's both a weapon and a tool. I mean, it's a knife, right? It can cut multiple different ways and you can use it for lots of different things.

12:44 It can be used for defense. It can be used for offense. It can be used to cut steak and vegetables. And, you know, if I'm really intoxicated after I've cut a lime to mix my drink, You to make sure everything gets rolled around the right way. But that's the thing. The way they brought it forward in the movie was not at all. um Then it felt like unrealistic or outside the grasp of what the technology itself could do, because. it robots, we've been seeing them for years. And, you know, this goes back to the idea of the thing we're talking about before, like Mattel having these really smart toys. Superman's robotic companions, you know, played by the amazing Alan Tudyk.

13:29 They were just toys like. Yeah. because like the other meta humans went in there and just ripped them to pieces. But also they served a really, really good function. So how many of our toys that are like this, you know, when the bad guys come in, they're just going to get ripped to pieces. And I think that's a legitimate thing that you need to look at. And it's this exploitation of intent. That's really. Yeah, I just was blown away because I. You know, I've been a Superman nerd for I mean, when I was a kid, that's one of the first movies I remember going to with Superman and to see it this way and and to just have read so many things before going in. And it's all about, you know, immigration and woke ism and all this.

14:11 was just like, why like in the age we live in now with the way the headlines are right now, like how this is being ignored, how this part of this story is being ignored for all this other culture war bullshit was just because the story really was who's going to control the machines like who's going to be in charge of these things and what is the impact going to be on humanity going forward. And it might be a lot of robots that are written in the collateral material and the false outrage to distract you from actually being worried about the robots by giving you a human thing to focus on. That, that is my favorite part.

14:51 That is my favorite part. Yes. It's totally the Simpsons. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I love the the engineer because you've you've specifically talked about like blend literally literally blending our biology with machines and that character so explicitly is like literally says I gave up my humanity for this to to blend with technology to become this crazy supervillain. ah Again just to so. dumb it down to simplify these ideas of what we're talking about here of blending humanity and technology to become something else for good or evil. That character really articulated that position brilliantly.

15:34 Well, I mean, and she was chock full of nanotech. Like, if you're going to make everything go away and you can manipulate things at a molecular structure level, which is what that nanotech is doing, why did they need the chemical guy to go in and actually create Krypton on his face? Why couldn't she just do this? Like, there's all kinds of like science nerdy things in my head that's like, this math is all wrong. And I get the dramatic effect of it. Yes, like she had to give up a huge chunk. of herself or person to make these pieces happen. I watched Robocop 2014 again. was in I was in the year. It's amazing.

16:14 Yeah, yeah, it's actually really, really good. The guy that plays Robocop is the same guy that played to get no, no, to the Keshi Kovacs from the Altered Carbon stories. Oh, I can't even his name. Anyways. It's also one of those things where it's amazing because he's got control of himself and the doctors go in and go, OK, we're going to convince him he has control of himself, but we're really going to take control. We're going to make all of our thoughts and patterns when it comes to fighting, feel like his thoughts and ideas and patterns. And it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, that's where things are going to evolve. And that's what the engineer was doing. Like the engineer was doing things as code, but she thought she had independence.

16:57 That's what somebody like a Lex Luthor is going to do to you. There's no doubt. There's a lot more Lex Luthor's than you think. We all have a little Lex Luthor inside of us. there was a great headline I saw the other day that was something like uh Superman displays that we actually have real life supervillains in our lives now. It's true. And I hate to paint them with that broad of a brush, but the actions seem to speak pretty loudly. So it's hard to ignore them when you see the kinds of things that are being done. Well, and they don't think that they're supervillains. Like this all comes down to how they think about themselves. they're like, I, they feel like they're on a mission to save something and they're willing to do whatever it takes to make sure those things happen.

17:38 And, you know, right. But morality is all in the eye of the beholder. And I mean, morality is a manmade human concept that we came up with and we've just had to ascribe value to things. Um, we can talk about religion and all those pieces, but those things in context, but ultimately speaking, you know, people ascribe value to a thing that is very much so uh personal to their own perspective. Lex Luthor did not feel like he was doing anything wrong. does not feel like he's doing anything. That it was saving humanity. Yes, he thought he was saving humanity from from the evil aliens that are trying to come in.

18:18 And there's definitely something an argument that, you know, needs to be made that the movie itself had had a message. Mm-hmm. said that um aliens, whatever you want to call them from extraterrestrial origins or from across their borders, which is a somehow coming in to invade and take things over and do terrible things. And Superman was was very, very anti Nazi. Like you want to talk about people that were much very much so about isolationism and nationalism and taking over things. Nazis are a pretty good example of that. And Superman fought the Nazis. Well, the new Nazis in this scenario were Lex Luthor, like trying to wipe these things out, trying to control these pieces, trying to create a master race by creating the engineer and the uh the other character, which was well, yeah, like he was trying to manufacture and run eugenics to create the best and the brightest of a thing.

19:18 And he did. And it's it's this extrapolation of the idea that, you know, These concepts are ah are different or new. mean, they're not. But we're just plunging things together in such a way that we can put them together to tell interesting stories and arcs that actually make sense and are relatable. And I think it would have been hard for them to make this movie and have it as relatable as it is 10 years ago, because people would have been like, what is this nerd bullshit? A.I. moving stuff around like this. This is too far fetched. And there's plenty of movies that tried this. Right. And they did OK. But this one, like it was the central theme of What and like you said a lot of this is. old sci-fi being brought back to life. A ton. mean, this is, this is like deep comic book stuff from what I've read.

20:01 I've certainly never read the comic books that, that James Gunn is pulling from, but, but it is a lot of like even the Superman's robots. I never knew Superman had robots, but apparently in comic books a million years ago he did. So I was watching it with fresh eyes going like, wow, that's such a cool idea to bring these robots in and the way things are now. But it is, it's just adapting these old ideas to, to current times and making it very relatable. And I mean, just so brilliant. displaying the war for the idea and who gets to control these things and how they impact our lives. Well, that's the big thing is that like they were making moral and philosophical arguments like the whole way through and they were executing things with unrealistic unfettered power.

20:45 most of us don't have access to that. Like you have there's a certain economic threshold that you have to hit before you can, you know, make a tack dress, right? And that economic threshold is coming down. Like we can look at the broader aspect of things like happening in Ukraine, where they took drones and they pushed them in and they blew up a bunch of uh planes inside of Russia. this technology is becoming more and more accessible. m But it's becoming more and more accessible because it's making things smaller, easier to understand, and you have an infrastructure that's pushing those pieces out. the far edges of technology, like if we have these drones that you can send in to do things to bomb payloads on them, it's pretty for guerrilla warfare strategy.

21:32 We don't have the ability for you to make a Superman or or an engineer, and when somebody gets that technology, they're probably not going to share it. So, yeah, like I actually I think something more like like the universal soldier concept where they're, you know, blanking human brains and, you know, using them for. terrible things and augmenting them with different cyber tech. I mean that's probably realistic but I think we'll probably bypass that all together and just go to really really powerful not two-legged humanoid robots to Yeah, and I mean, there's so many analogies it brings up with like the Clone Wars and Star Wars and humans versus robots.

22:15 I these are concepts that have been explored over and over again. usually the good guys win. And I know it's usually fiction, but I'm putting a lot of stock in the good guys overcoming. Maybe it's just the fact that whoever wins writes the history books and they end up being the good guys. But uh I'd really like to believe that that we are going to end up in a better place uh because of all this. And in the case of Superman, we do. Yeah. And, and bet again, that goes back to the narrative, right? Like, I mean, you're right. The Victor gets to write the history books, but even more importantly, as we're going through and we're having conversations about these things, the way that you prevent those types of big conflicts from happening is actually having conversations, actually talking to other people with other ideas and trying to find common ground and looking for ways to make these things better and realizing that you don't need to be xenophobic and afraid of people just because they're from different countries or, you know, Maybe they're not straight.

23:15 These are these are things that should not be an issue anymore, but they are because they create web wedges between us and create these different social camps and this notion of tribes. And we can't let a I turn tribes into these like ultra powerful ideologies that are going to fight each other. And some of that's happening today. Right. Like you're not going to get around that. certain state actors. But as people living in North America, like, you should be able to agree on things like certain things are okay, and certain things are not. And we should try to be nice to each other and you know, live and let live that whole kind of thing.

24:01 And it doesn't take everyone in the tribe anymore to go through and make the argument that things need to change ad nauseum and start creating collateral material that inundates people with different ideas anymore. Because AI enables that. Like, you can create bots that can go through and can artificially look like these are people coming from this tribe saying these things, and this must be how everyone thinks in that space. And as a viewer or a listener, a target, um and a producer, You need to be aware of both sides of that. And as someone who actually takes this type of data and information coming in bound towards them, you have to be very careful of your confirmation bias. And you got to check it all the time because these models will play.

24:45 And where you started there, think is probably the most critical thing is you don't have to use these to interact with other human beings. I think you will find the more that you put that down and walk away from this thing you're looking at right now. If you're watching this on YouTube and go like, you know, talk to people, hang out with your neighbors like hear what real people are saying and engage with them. We don't do that anymore. these screens, these barriers between us, what help us all feel like warriors and sit here and sling arrows at each other because we don't have to actually see the look on the other person's face when we say the horrible things we say to each other. just re-engage, like unplug, re-engage with humanity and you'll start to find that like a lot of the things that you're angry about or the things you hate about other people are ideas that you're being fed by someone else and when you actually meet those people and they become your friends and your neighbors, you start to wonder like, what the hell was I so mad about?

25:43 Like they want the same things I do. Hopefully it gets you to brush your teeth and put deodorant on which you probably don't do often enough because you're behind the screen all the time thinking nobody can smell you. When the smell of vision happens on the podcast. Does it smell like coffee and whiskey? Because if not, it's probably not me. Smell like New York sewage, which I had to trench through like half of this and time it was flooding there this week. No. Yeah, I mean, that. It's such a good point. if you want to engage in your humanity, you're not going to do that over the screen. Like, you'll get some of it, you'll some interaction.

26:24 There's a great way to exchange ideas. But there's nothing like, you know, being across from somebody and shaking their hand or giving them a hug or seeing their physical body language look like they're going to rip your head off because you said something the wrong way. Like, these are all cues that you actually have to understand and evolve as a creature. And there's a whole generation of kids that aren't doing that. And there's a whole generation of adults that don't practice it often enough and forget and really do feel like they can hide behind their keyboard and say something because they're not afraid to get punched in the mouth. Well, maybe we need to start making people afraid of that again. Like, and actually try to be nice to. I mean that was... uh When I was a kid, I think when you were a kid, I think our generation was the last one that you didn't really hear your parents talking about politics at a party.

27:11 You didn't hear them talking about religion, because there are some things you just don't fucking talk about, because they're too confrontational. And you're not going to change someone's mind. That person is going to come to that point on their own. They're going to find that their religion isn't what they thought it was, or their political belief isn't what they thought it was. think in the feeds I'm seeing, again, confirmation bias, but there's a lot of mega right going like wait what the fuck this isn't what I thought like John Stewart the other day on the Daily Show was talking about there's a lot of mega out there that's that's going like wait this guy's lying and he this isn't what he said he was gonna do and he's like yeah this is the guy we've all been dealing with for the last 10 years welcome right like yeah yes it is like that that is the thing like yeah we could I don't I don't want to get into politics because why talk about politics I'm not gonna change my mind but The point is there are some things that it's like, why?

28:06 Like you're not going to make friends by continuing to blast your political opinion every day on social media. Put the thing down. there's always a third rail of politics, conversations, whatever it is, like the hot wire thing that you can tread your way into this. But don't touch that thing. In. Outrage algorithms tied to bots like live on the third rail, like they're like, wow, to everybody all of the time on purpose because they know what's going to elicit a response. So. If you know that you're being fed this and you know that you're being sent supercharged information, insulate yourself a little bit.

28:50 Put some rubber boots on. Yeah. exactly. All right. Well, that's all I have to say about that for now. But if you have not seen the Superman movie, hopefully we haven't spoiled it too much. But absolutely go see it, because it is such a fun ride. Real quickly before we get out of here, I want to remind you that you can get 20 % off of your order of magicmind, which is my favorite mental performance shot. I literally take it at least once a day. It has literally changed my life and I think it could do the same thing for you. Head over to magicmind.com forward slash fit mass 20, use that promo code fit mass 20 to get that 20 % off of your order. For now, that's going to do it. This is our final sign off as the Fit Mess. For now, until the next episode publishes, you can still find us at thefitmess.com.

29:40 So yeah, so we will be back as BroBots next week at brobots.me. But for now, you can find us at thefitmess.com Whichever one should work to get you to us next week. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much for supporting us all these years uh as what we have been. We look forward to trying to entertain and inform you for a long time to come as brobots at brobots.me. We'll see you there. Thanks. See you everyone, bye bye.