Rashida Jones & Conan Discuss The Imperfections Of AI | Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend

Intro I want to talk about this project that you're working on because it's a very cool idea and this is something where you're wearing to you're in you're in the show you're also producing the show yeah yeah okay um sunny it's a it's a fascinating idea do you want to lay out the idea cuz you haven't seen it I have I have not I I didn't get I didn't get to see it no no one sent it to me no I'll send it to you no no no one sent me and I watch the whole thing weird did you no you guys no they always if there's a tape that I'm allowed to watch and I say tape to show how old I am I don't think they respect podcasters that's the feeling no I got I got nothing I got nothing but I want to see it because it sounds fantastic yeah it's it's a very Homebot odd very original and um it's a it's kind of a mystery thriller set in the near future in Japan and it's about a woman me who has uh is grieving the the loss or potential loss of her husband and son were on a plane crash and she doesn't know what happen and in the aftermath of the plan crash she sent what is considered a homebot which is a little robot cute little robot um that she finds out was designed by her husband I think I can say that yeah yeah it's in the trailer his electronics robotic company yes produced this little thing for me to kind of to uh keep me company and help me grieve and the loss of my husband and here's what's interesting to me about it because your character lives in Kyoto and what fascinated me about it is that I actually did a piece on this when I was in Japan you can rent a family because there's a an issue in Japanese culture with people being lonely yeah and what they decided to do is say you can rent a family so I did a travel segment where I went to Japan and went to the agency and I rented I said I'm in Japan for literally like seven days six days but I want a wife I want a teenage daughter and I want a father and the I want a teenage daughter person this was they were all like yes and so they got me these people who did not really speak English oh my God and so I started confronting my quote father about issues that I have with my real father and guess what it helped I had all this closure cuz he couldn't talk back that's why exactly but he was he was white-haired and really handsome and my the woman who signed on to be my wife she she and it's not her real daughter it's also an actress or someone who's been trained to be the teenage daughter the teenage daughter I'm doing my stick and my joke FKS and at one point I say something to um the daughter and the daughter turns to the mother and in Japanese says I don't understand what he's saying and the mother says in Japanese not understanding that we can translate all this and put it under the screen he's making jokes just laugh and she says she says but I don't get them and the and the wife says it doesn't matter and um but anyway it's that that feels like Just laugh somewhat emblematic of that's like a moment in your career right is that happened any other time a moment in my family life doesn't matter just laugh they're not even funny just laugh my wife is just like look he's a good earner just good earner a good earner but there is I always think a good idea has an element of Truth in it and when I heard about this idea and I guess it's based on a an Irish writer wrote this it's Colin O Sullivan it's such a great it's a dark idea but it's also a funny idea that you would have a constellation robot yeah you would have someone who's and I'm I'm I'm thinking of if you've experienced a loss that's one thing but I'm thinking it would have all these applications and it will exist yeah Im a robot would have all these implications for People Like Us in Show Business to just be like good one Conan totally you're so funny no and the robot does think I'm hilarious you're a beloved and I and I and my character hates it you know which is kind of funny too cuz I bet you would you would hate it if you actually no I'd be like this robot gets it finally finally I'm a robot I was hired just to do this for him real you don't learn quickly all these two do is on me yeah and uh you robots that were I don't know the programming got backwards something you broke our programming we can't even do what we're supposed to do yeah well I screwed up somewhere I I actually think perversely Human nature I like the other I like that's what I'm saying right you want to be ragged on yeah yeah I know I think that's like human nature but yeah this I mean this is expressly weird because once the robot shows up my life gets really dangerous and like people people want things for me and I don't know what and I'm not even sure I can trust her so like that's the other thing is like you know we're talking about Ai and the imperfections of AI like you can train something to be become sentient to grow and learn really fast but then what like what does she does she have her own thing that she wants to do that I don't know might put me in danger when it comes to something like AI uh I'm curious to get your take are you optimistic or very pessimistic I'm a little bit like I guess I would say agnostic about this because it is what it is like it's here it's an inevitability we're here it's not like it's coming it's already here right um and I like to me it's it's hilarious ironic that I think AI was created at at the pace and the the sort of compulsion that it was because the people who make it are so obsessed with what it means to be human that they're trying to replicate it somewhere else um so that to me is like oh oh like we're it's like we're kind of missing the point which is like instead of like really drilling down on that with each other we're just like you know you know training and creating you know data sets and stuff somewhere else yes so that we can I don't know like know more about ourselves it doesn't really make that much sense to me but it's here I think there's obviously going to be tons of applications that are positive and tons that are tons that are negative I mean look at the internet I'm I'm I'm sort of like a a LTE in that way like I think there's so much destruction that's come from social media yes mainly the monetization of behavior and like the the meddling with the way people interact with each other I think is so dangerous because we're so susceptible like we're built to be susceptible you know we want to connect with each other so badly that we'll kind of believe anything to do it so I think AI could potentially do that to us too but I will say like working with this little robot or like even when I did the Muppet movie like it was so quickly that I was like having full conversations with fzy and not the not the puppet performer like it's very very quickly you start to believe these things have a soul yeah you know like a voice and an expression and a couple little like you know head tilts and like a touch of your wrist and all of a sudden you're like oh you're so sweet and I care for you but that's an artist making that happen totally see and that's what I think I think totally there's still a person making that we'll see though yeah we're going to find out what I keep going back to is that it's the job of humanity artistic people to whatever comes along what I completely agree with is it's here there's no putting it back into a you know Pandora's Box and shutting it nailing it shut that's not going to happen it's here so then it's a challenge to artists everywhere to push beyond that might sound like naive but I always think when you know this analogy I think has been made by other people but when photography came along right and I mean it was a big thing for anyone who painted to make portraits that was like that was a huge piece of the revenue and suddenly they're like we're good and so then we get all this impressionism expressionism Rise above cubism it's just always the job of humans if the technology challenges us for us to rise above that's where I am with rise above and to integrate I mean sound in movies changed everything like every single time we have some advancement in technology we do have to change as artists and like I think young people younger than us don't understand the tension where we feel like our Pure thing that we do is somehow at odds with the technology that's available they're just like awesome let me take that and extrapolate and interpolate and like you know do bunch of stuff with it so it is going to be one of those things like we're going to have to become friends with it because it's going to be how we have to make what we make and hopefully better I don't know when you talk about being a lite being someone who's not that comfortable with technology um I'm definitely that way I've I'm a pen and paper guy um when I go on the computer it's either uh Sona Dougs standing behind me and uh or Grandpa hit the return button I don't understand power on power on so I have like an uneasy relationship with it but I but I think the thing that I dislike the most about the last 25 years is that um a I've aged terribly and B no no no no TR me no you're cute you're for you're forever Crush are please no you'll see um no you'll see when I'll see you'll see I know what does that mean what does that mean it means that when I take my headset off this is going to fall apart you're just going to Dorian Gray in 20 seconds yeah yeah I'm like what is it on Game of Thrones oh melisandra melisandra melisandra where once you leave I Retreat to another room and I and suddenly I just and I have loow hanging what we call Dougs that's a low hanging what a low hanging that's what sheap Melisandre on Game of Thrones when she she's beautiful and shees we and who's calling them Doug uh don't look at me don't look at me I'm not in this with you the poets back the classic poets they called them Dougs Dougs DS just talk about people Tri Dougs is like uh I'm GNA say either TS Elliot or um it's one of the great poets yes it's a term for uh an old woman's uh DS yeah old man with wrinkled dugs Yes means like a man or a woman with with breast and saging only calling them Dougs from now on it's not it's going to I know but I'm going to be like but I'm going to turn it into a compliment okay well I just want all of our listeners to know that's the word of the day Dougs Doug Doug if someone's breasts are really hanging down man or woman go like you got some shriveled Dougs there hey nice Dougs that's what I'm doing no that's what I'm doing I'm changing it and if someone says where' that come from go hey man Ezra pound TS Elliott get with it yeah and then you're cool and then you're cool then you're cool anyway here's the part that I was trying saying that I don't like about the last 20 years before we got off into shrivel Dougs is that stop stop saying shrivel Dougs shrivel Dougs anyway what I'm gonna say is that I think we have found they found a way to game humans and they realize that humans naturally are attracted to and compelled by conflict I think we kind of always knew that which is why we like movies where things blow up and there's a bad guy and a good guy but they've gone hyper with it so that everything including the news has to be people shouting at each other all reality shows have to be people shouting at each other um there has to be you know if we were doing this right I'd constantly be angry at Matt Matt would constantly be angry at me so well I know Conflict but you are but you have to you know you know Tamp it down right but I guess my point is that's the part where I think I've seen it in fact comedy where a lot of iians they they just want to say things that piss people off or they want to rail against this or rail against that and I think that can be fine until we're losing our sense of like is this funny is this something that makes me laugh does this come from a we we're losing sight of what real conflict is yeah because everything is conflicted now right and like our fight fight or flight is like it's so often being incited that it's like you know you're whatever cortisol you're like dumping that you're supposed to use to like run away from a lion or a tiger and go hide in a cave for 2 months like all day long every day people are like corol corol I'm I'm going to die I'm going to die somebody I'm in trouble like like things are the world's going to end all day long every day so you're so you become so desensitized when like you're actually supposed to care about something and something's a real conflict you know it's it's very strange and also that it's all intentional that the people who are building these platforms know that and they're buying into it and they want to modify our Behavior they want us to keep coming back and engaging the way to do that is to keep us in conflict and like we're I mean everybody's mad at each other right now they should be mad at the people who built these platforms yeah this is not this is not to me this is not what like free speech and Technology can do at its best like I know everybody's like but we're connected like are we no like we're not connected well I was at some Silicon Valley event I want to say maybe eight years ago and afterwards I'm talking to a lot of these um Silicon Valley bigwigs you know billionaires who were in their 20s and early 30s and they were one of them said to me like well you know we're doing we're just making the world a better place and I said no you're making the world a different place exactly but I don't know and then we got into it because they didn't like that good you did but then they gave me a billion dollars and you shut up and you just shut up on the making the world a better place can we have some no no I I bought land with it oh man the land I have all of Connecticut really and then underwater I own everything underwater off you know you don't pay us for this right what's that you we don't get paid for this I know volunteer that's a bad deal for you man you got to look out for yourself where they going where are they going to go um true I got nothing else going on um it's an Apple TV plus series called Sunny and I have not seen it yet but I can't wait to see it I can't wait to see it because it's a very cool idea uh but also um I'm just uh I said it before I'll say it again I adore you you are so funny you're so smart um you're Jesus Christ I'm Jesus Christ conratulations what I'm accepting that title no you didn't let me finish Jesus Christ comma you're rashita Jones and that's a pretty cool thing to be okay I think I'm more of the Jesus figure here oh man ruining thing kind of rose from the dead when you think about it well I had a bad cold last week now I'm fine um anyway please I I've loved having you here and please come back anytime I would love to and you're also in the neighborhood so come by sometime and have lunch with us and you'll pay I guess is this is this a real offer yeah we I we will take you out to lunch to a really yeah we'll go to Great White right down the streets I love great white yeah awesome and I'm all hooked up there meaning if I go there and I wait long enough they let me in I know they don't throw you out that's my definition of hooked up if I get there early put my name down and wait for a really long time half the time I get in I'm hooked up