Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. This is the story. Each week
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, we bring you an in depth interview with
Speaker 1: someone who has a front row seat to the most
Speaker 1: fascinating things happening in and around tech today. We are
Speaker 1: joined by Jen Statsky, one of the writers and creators
Speaker 1: of the hit MAC series Hacks. Jen got her start
Speaker 1: as a writer on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Then
Speaker 1: she joined the writer's room for some of TV's biggest comedies,
Speaker 1: including Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, and the web
Speaker 1: series turned comedy Central sitcom broad City That's the cult
Speaker 1: favorite from Abby Jacobson an Alama Lazer. Then, back in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, she and her co creators Lucianello and Paul w.
Speaker 1: Downs pitched Max, the show about two comedians of very
Speaker 1: different generations navigating a changing industry. That show is Hacks,
Speaker 1: a runaway success since it premiered in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Season four of Hacks is out now and I had
Speaker 1: the great pleasure of sitting down with Jen to pick
Speaker 1: her brain about the changing entertainment industry and how things
Speaker 1: like smartphones and chat GPT or g as I like
Speaker 1: to call her, are changing the game for writers Hi, Jen,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2: Hi Kara, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to get into what the show
Speaker 1: is about this season and how good it is, but
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you more as like Jen
Speaker 1: and your experience early on as a comedian and how
Speaker 1: technology has played into your career as a comedian.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: Broad City was a show that was started on YouTube, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you were discovered as a comic for late night on Twitter.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: You can't talk that much shit about.
Speaker 2: Technology, no, no, no, I'd be pulling up the ladder
Speaker 2: behind me if I went off on how technology is
Speaker 2: bad and bad for creative yet.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think my rise in television is a
Speaker 2: very interesting like decade because my first writing job at
Speaker 2: Latina and Jimmy Fallon came about because it was twenty
Speaker 2: eleven and it was the time when people were writing
Speaker 2: jokes on Twitter, and that was like a big way
Speaker 2: that people were getting discovered. And that is actually something
Speaker 2: that I loved about it. It was very much so
Speaker 2: like the democratization of joke writing that like anybody could
Speaker 2: write a funny joke and write a bunch of funny
Speaker 2: jokes and then someone who worked in Hollywood and TV
Speaker 2: could see it and be like, oh, this person might
Speaker 2: be really good at this professionally. And yes, Brad City
Speaker 2: was always we still call it a web series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt like web series when it was on
Speaker 1: Comedy Central. Election. Yeah, I mean that in a very possible.
Speaker 2: Way too. Yeah, like it it speaks to how technology
Speaker 2: and the internet can kind of go around institutions in
Speaker 2: a way that is helpful, like abing Alana, we're doing
Speaker 2: upright citizens Trigade Theater in New York at the time,
Speaker 2: which is where I met them and where Paul Lucci
Speaker 2: and we all met. But they weren't having and they've
Speaker 2: spoken in this they weren't having the success in the
Speaker 2: system that they kind of wish they had had. They
Speaker 2: weren't getting on a Harald team, which was like the
Speaker 2: house team that performed every week. They weren't kind of
Speaker 2: one of the prominent people in UCB. But they found
Speaker 2: each other and they had this unique chemistry and they said, like,
Speaker 2: why don't we just make something? And so that's why
Speaker 2: they did it. They started as a web series, and
Speaker 2: what's cool is even though it was a web series,
Speaker 2: they treated it as important as if it was a
Speaker 2: show and they believed it could be great, and that's
Speaker 2: why they said, like, hey, we want to ask Gamy
Speaker 2: Polar to be in this episode. And some people probably
Speaker 2: would have been like, oh, we can't ask Gamy Polar
Speaker 2: to be in our like little web series, you know.
Speaker 2: And she did it, and she loved it, and she said, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to produce this, and that's like what led
Speaker 2: to it getting on television. But it started as a
Speaker 2: web series because the traditional path wasn't necessarily working, so
Speaker 2: they had to do it for themselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, and you make a show that is very
Speaker 1: much institutionally back to now. But I do feel like
Speaker 1: there is a return to independent television making because we're
Speaker 1: in a similar place again where like institutions are failing television.
Speaker 1: They're not failing all television, but institutions are failing a
Speaker 1: lot of people who want to be creators, who I
Speaker 1: think deserve to be creators. And there seems to be
Speaker 1: this return to this idea that like there shouldn't really
Speaker 1: be such a barrier to entry for getting people to
Speaker 1: watch things. And so now that this fifteen year span
Speaker 1: has gone by where places like Twitter and YouTube really
Speaker 1: were like foundational for indie comedy. Do you feel as though,
Speaker 1: as someone who is still very much like involved in
Speaker 1: indie comedy, that this might be a place again where
Speaker 1: people can thrive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I hope. So. I think the thing
Speaker 2: that's scary is there's a little bit of the pipeline
Speaker 2: that has been disrupted. Like when I came up, the
Speaker 2: existence of a network like Comedy Central was so important
Speaker 2: and wonderful that they were doing original shows because it
Speaker 2: allowed something like brad City, which started as a web series,
Speaker 2: to be greenlit at a very low cost and a
Speaker 2: very hey we're going to give these two women who
Speaker 2: are so funny and talented but have never done anything,
Speaker 2: We're going to give them a shot. And it was
Speaker 2: relatively low stakes, I think, you know. And now, one
Speaker 2: thing that I find to be scary is that for
Speaker 2: the barrier to entry, like you're saying for television, it's
Speaker 2: really high to go to one of these streamers, to
Speaker 2: go to one of these networks and say, hey, here's
Speaker 2: this idea, please give us the money to make it.
Speaker 2: It feels like there is an incredible amount of pressure
Speaker 2: on it to be successful. Like that's really hard, especially
Speaker 2: in comedy drama is hard to it's hard to get
Speaker 2: any show picked up, but like comedy that exists in
Speaker 2: that kind of Comedy Central version of a Workaholics Abroad CEAO,
Speaker 2: kind of like down and dirty new voices that you've
Speaker 2: never heard before that are getting their chance at a platform.
Speaker 2: It's now really hard I think for people on the
Speaker 2: business side to take a risk on those people, or
Speaker 2: at least it's harder because there's so much pressure on
Speaker 2: shows to be successful right out the gate because of
Speaker 2: this streaming model. There was a guy, an executive at
Speaker 2: a streamer. He's no longer there. We had a lunch
Speaker 2: and I was like, what are you guys like looking
Speaker 2: for in comedy and he was like, honestly, hits And
Speaker 2: I was like, sure, yeah, great, But I think he
Speaker 2: was being truthful in that, like he's like, it's really hard,
Speaker 2: I think to get places to invest into a show
Speaker 2: if it isn't immediately drawing eyeballs because there's such pressure
Speaker 2: to keep subscribers, and it's like, okay, get rid of it.
Speaker 2: Do another one, you know, which is to.
Speaker 1: Say, how the hell do you know what's going to
Speaker 1: be a hit? I mean, I just that as a
Speaker 1: model for how to pick up TV when you think
Speaker 1: about Hacks, which maybe on its face a show that
Speaker 1: is sort of invested in telling the stories of Joan
Speaker 1: Rivers and Philis Diller and Elaine mend Yeah.
Speaker 2: But it was like when we pitched, it was like
Speaker 2: two women talking. I don't know, I'm not so sure
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 1: And yet you know it's really worked. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think it's to me, it's riskier to make
Speaker 1: your bets on just like the fact that something's gonna
Speaker 1: be a hit, than to make your bets on something
Speaker 1: that you like, right.
Speaker 2: But I think it's relevant to what you guys talk
Speaker 2: about in the sense that I do think the influence
Speaker 2: of tech and streaming becoming the dominant way people consume
Speaker 2: television kind of has led us to that place, even
Speaker 2: more so than the old model of broadcast TV or
Speaker 2: or it's like show but people buy a cable. But
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. I think that it's relevant
Speaker 2: because it's a result of technology coming in and disrupting
Speaker 2: things well.
Speaker 1: And also, nobody who worked in television on the creator
Speaker 1: side asked for the business to become a technology business,
Speaker 1: which it now is. I mean, I always say that,
Speaker 1: like Netflix is Regina George and all of the other
Speaker 1: streamers are like Caddy Herron and Amanda Sayfreed, like in
Speaker 1: the sense of there is one streamer and then there's
Speaker 1: YouTube and there's TikTok, and in that way, it's not
Speaker 1: the TV business anymore. It's not the movie business anymore.
Speaker 1: It's the Netflix business. And then you have a video
Speaker 1: platform and a social media platform that like dictate the
Speaker 1: whole business.
Speaker 2: Like they all, whether they needed to or not, chase
Speaker 2: Netflix off this cliff. Netflix is the king of the castle,
Speaker 2: and everybody else's is like trying to keep up. And
Speaker 2: it is really interesting to be on the creative side
Speaker 2: of it. Like running a show, you're on both the
Speaker 2: creative and business side of it, obviously more so the creative.
Speaker 2: But I see a lot of pain within the creative
Speaker 2: community because no one asked for it to become a
Speaker 2: tech business. It's fundamentally changed everything, and yet people still
Speaker 2: came out and have this dream of working in a
Speaker 2: Hollywood that doesn't really exist anymore.
Speaker 1: After the break. More from Jenstatski, co creator and writer
Speaker 1: of the hit show Hacks, stay with us. I want
Speaker 1: to go into Hacks a little bit because Hacks on
Speaker 1: HBO Max, which isn't Netflix.
Speaker 2: Which which isn't even HBO Max. I believe it's just MAXX.
Speaker 1: Sorry, it's Max. It's Max with the black background. At
Speaker 1: least it's Matt Black. I don't know, it's not.
Speaker 2: It's it's kind of like silver machine to it, Like
Speaker 2: it does have its a Sheene, not to be confused
Speaker 2: with Sheen, where I buy a lot of my clothes.
Speaker 1: So with Netflix, there seems to be no problem from
Speaker 1: the top to the bottom to say, look, guys, people
Speaker 1: are watching other stuff while they're watching your shows, Like,
Speaker 1: you better start getting your act together, because people are
Speaker 1: watching YouTube and tiktoks about your shows while they're watching
Speaker 1: your shows, Like there better be an explosion in the
Speaker 1: first minute. Somebody better be moving to Paris in the
Speaker 1: first ten seconds of your show in order for people
Speaker 1: to keep watching. Like, as a creator, how much are
Speaker 1: you considering the various forms of technology that are happening
Speaker 1: simultaneously while anybody is watching hacks?
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, the
Speaker 2: truth is is that you're both very aware of it
Speaker 2: and worried about it, but also trying to at least
Speaker 2: in our experience, quiet that noise and not let it
Speaker 2: interfere with the creative process. No one asked for Hollywood
Speaker 2: to be changed into tech business. We are still trying
Speaker 2: to create shows in the same way that we used to,
Speaker 2: and it's a very interesting conversation. There's you know, some
Speaker 2: reports that Netflix has asked people to write dialogue in
Speaker 2: a way where the characters are out loud speaking I'm
Speaker 2: going to go to the store, and you know, saying
Speaker 2: what they're doing, so that a viewer, if they're on
Speaker 2: their phone, can also just be hearing that and absorbing
Speaker 2: it as a second screen experience. Now, I find this
Speaker 2: topic fascinating because never in a million years has anyone
Speaker 2: come to us spoken of that. Like the reason I
Speaker 2: love of being at HBO, Slash Max is Casey Boys
Speaker 2: and Sarahbbry and everybody. It still very much embodies what
Speaker 2: I think people think about HBO and the heyday of
Speaker 2: like Sopranos, where it's like very creator first. Like the
Speaker 2: idea that they would come to us and talk to
Speaker 2: us about a second screen experience just I can't imagine it.
Speaker 2: And as far as other streamers, I have read the
Speaker 2: articles and I have heard anecdotal stories about it, but
Speaker 2: I've yet to hear any like direct like, yes, this
Speaker 2: happened to me. They said, please write dialogue in this way.
Speaker 2: So I'm very curious if it's truly like a directive
Speaker 2: or is it merely bad dialogue that slips through the
Speaker 2: cracks and then people are retrofitting like, oh, this must
Speaker 2: be what's happening because sometimes that, you know. So I
Speaker 2: write by a dialogue all the time, and then as
Speaker 2: I rewrite, I'm like, oh, no, how about do it
Speaker 2: how a human speaks? St like, So it's possible because
Speaker 2: I and they would never, of course cop to it
Speaker 2: if a streamer was telling people to do that. I
Speaker 2: did anecdotally hear this, and this is true because it
Speaker 2: came from someone who said it happened to them. That
Speaker 2: there was a process of they were making a show
Speaker 2: and they were reviewing the pilot. They were doing notes
Speaker 2: for the pilot, and the streamer said, Hey, in this
Speaker 2: dinner scene, could someone order ice cream? And like they
Speaker 2: were like, you're they're already a dinner, Like, they're at
Speaker 2: the table, there's food. Could just they could there be
Speaker 2: ice cream or someone order ice cream or there be
Speaker 2: I screaming, screaming The person was like why, and they
Speaker 2: were like, from our research, if there's a dessert in
Speaker 2: the first ten minutes, people tend to keep watching. And
Speaker 2: so for me, yeah, I love dessert.
Speaker 1: I wish there was a cake in the beginning of
Speaker 1: The Sopranos. I would have actually the wire, maybe I
Speaker 1: would have finished.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, in adolescence, he should be in the holding
Speaker 2: room eating a sheet cake. But that is a story
Speaker 2: that I did hear that I know to be which
Speaker 2: is crazy and hacks very much. So we have an
Speaker 2: episode this season that delves into this very problem. Is
Speaker 2: that as Hollywood becomes more of a technology based industry,
Speaker 2: we will get this tremendous amount of data about how
Speaker 2: people consume TV and what they respond to. And it's
Speaker 2: really tricky because if you're running Netflix, if you're running Amazon,
Speaker 2: if you're running one of these streamers, it is your
Speaker 2: job to just keep people on your platform and people
Speaker 2: watching and people subscribing. So, from the purely business side
Speaker 2: of it, if you know that ice cream keeps people watching,
Speaker 2: don't you have some responsibility to your shareholders to be like,
Speaker 2: let's get some more ice cream in there.
Speaker 1: Well, and that looking at the not even the viewer,
Speaker 1: but looking at the product as data as like a
Speaker 1: data set I think is really interesting, and that is
Speaker 1: something when Broad City was on YouTube, viewers mattered. I
Speaker 1: think viewership always mattered on YouTube of like how many
Speaker 1: views does this have? But this idea that like each
Speaker 1: little point of connection that a viewer has to a
Speaker 1: product that is coming out of this technology company is
Speaker 1: now of such importance, where like I just don't think
Speaker 1: there was like this sense of datatization of both content
Speaker 1: and viewership up until I don't know, ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And that's I don't know. I'm not saying anything new
Speaker 1: in that regard, but I do think I have some
Speaker 1: empathy for people who work for a technology company versus
Speaker 1: people who work for a studio. You know, You're right,
Speaker 1: It's like there was always and I used to think
Speaker 1: about this all the time, Like I did punch Up
Speaker 1: on a friend's studio movie, and so I was like
Speaker 1: working on this like kind of big budget comedy, and
Speaker 1: I remember being at some of the test screenings, like
Speaker 1: studios have always done test screenings and had responses, and
Speaker 1: even that I remember being like.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like how much of this is good
Speaker 2: or not? To go in and find a bunch of
Speaker 2: people in a mall in Las Vegas, ask them to
Speaker 2: come see this movie and really change the movie based
Speaker 2: on their responses. So there's always been a level of
Speaker 2: gathering data and retrofitting the product to it, which is
Speaker 2: the very difficulty of making movies and TV being both
Speaker 2: art and commerce. But it's like it's gone so much
Speaker 2: further with technology, Like you're saying, like it's like on
Speaker 2: steroids now, because it's every single inflection point, it's, oh,
Speaker 2: this is when they turn it off, this is when
Speaker 2: they stop watching, this is what they rewatch over and over,
Speaker 2: and so there's just all this data that is useful
Speaker 2: to these companies, of course, and it's not so insiduous
Speaker 2: that they're coming to us and saying like, hey, this
Speaker 2: is how we want you to make this show. But
Speaker 2: it's not hard to imagine a world.
Speaker 1: Where it is I watch this season of Hacks, which
Speaker 1: I think is really great. I'm not going to endorse it.
Speaker 1: I was not paid to endorse it. I just want
Speaker 1: to say that I.
Speaker 2: Know, well, will you if I pay you, will you
Speaker 2: endorse it?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll endorse it right here. And there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: bitcoin exchange. There's a terriff on the endorsement. Actually, but
Speaker 1: the season does deal with this idea of art and commerce.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a line I think that is said
Speaker 1: by Helen Hunt that's like, what is your carpool karaoke?
Speaker 1: So from your point of view as a show, and
Speaker 1: her like, what is this season about? And how does
Speaker 1: a question like that fit into what the season is about?
Speaker 2: The best way I can describe it is season three,
Speaker 2: we were focusing on Deborah going after her dream job
Speaker 2: with underline under dream, and this season you get your
Speaker 2: dream job and the word underlined his job. And that's like,
Speaker 2: how it feels to me is that now it is
Speaker 2: the rubber meets the road of what does it mean
Speaker 2: to get your dream? And what does it mean when
Speaker 2: your dream is a dream of an industry of the
Speaker 2: past and now it is your dream in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five when as everything we're saying, technology and the way
Speaker 2: the world has gone and capitalism has fundamentally altered that industry.
Speaker 2: And to your question before yes and the second episode
Speaker 2: Helen Hunt says to them, what's your carpool karaoke? You
Speaker 2: need to expand the brand equity of Late Night, And
Speaker 2: for us that was really speaking to this tremendous pressure
Speaker 2: put on TV and movies and late night included now
Speaker 2: to exist beyond just the product itself. Like there, it
Speaker 2: feels like there is such pressure on these companies to
Speaker 2: be valued as a tech company and maximize growth for
Speaker 2: in profit for their shareholders that you can feel that
Speaker 2: downlad pressure that again, it's not just enough to be
Speaker 2: a good TV show. You do need to be a hit,
Speaker 2: Like what are you what value are you bringing to
Speaker 2: this technology platform?
Speaker 1: You guys cast people who've I've found on TikTok, Right, So,
Speaker 1: like I know about Robbie because I know so Robbie
Speaker 1: Hoffman has a I'm not gonna give it away, but
Speaker 1: like has a great role on this season. Jake Shane
Speaker 1: great role on this season. These are two people who
Speaker 1: I know from the Internet, which I think is really
Speaker 1: interesting when we talk about like the positive effects of
Speaker 1: the Internet on comedy. Yes, you also have this amazing
Speaker 1: storyline where TikTok plays in in a very pivotal way
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering, like, is being online a big part
Speaker 1: of being in the writer's room. And then secondly, if
Speaker 1: you can talk a little bit about the way in
Speaker 1: which technology plays into Late Night and that storyline, it
Speaker 1: is something that inevitably has to be considered as an
Speaker 1: online medium, even though it exists on terrestrial television.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I mean, I think what you're hitting on
Speaker 2: is exactly right, which is that we also want to
Speaker 2: be conscious of the fact that we do consume the Internet,
Speaker 2: and we do love the Internet, and there are good
Speaker 2: things about it. And like you know, Meg Stalter who
Speaker 2: plays Killa, we found her on Instagram, and like you said,
Speaker 2: Jake Shane, Robbie Hoffman, all these people came to us
Speaker 2: through that. And so again in my experience in comedy,
Speaker 2: I have discovered some people that make me how laughing
Speaker 2: more than anyone. You know. Chris Fleming is a comedian
Speaker 2: who's special I produced a couple of years ago and
Speaker 2: who I still work with, and I know of him
Speaker 2: because I saw his stand up on the Internet and
Speaker 2: I was like, this person is unbelievably funny to me.
Speaker 2: And so it wouldn't be fair of us to just
Speaker 2: make a season that's going like did the Internet ruin everything?
Speaker 2: You know? Like that's that would be a very Pollyanna
Speaker 2: take that isn't true. And so I think we also
Speaker 2: this season are exploring, like are very at least for myself,
Speaker 2: like my own conflicted feelings about it, because I get
Speaker 2: a lot from the Internet. I discover new talent and voices,
Speaker 2: and that's incredibly helpful, and yet the economy of attention
Speaker 2: like it it pulls my attention in such a fierce,
Speaker 2: troublesome way that is like scary to me.
Speaker 1: Well, and it also feels like television isn't the gold
Speaker 1: standard anymore, Like the gold standard is virality, which you know,
Speaker 1: which is part of my next question. You know, you
Speaker 1: have people like Evan ross Katz who the minute of
Speaker 1: show airs, there's like the memification of whatever the best
Speaker 1: lines on those shows were. And I wonder, because I
Speaker 1: have you here, like, honestly, to what extent.
Speaker 2: Do you write to the.
Speaker 1: Clickability?
Speaker 2: It's not possible. It must write what you mean, right
Speaker 2: what Evan memes. It's really like it's crazy making you
Speaker 2: think about it too much. You like really have to
Speaker 2: try to tune it out and not think that way.
Speaker 2: I also feel like one thing that the Internet is
Speaker 2: really good about is authenticity and sniffing out things that
Speaker 2: are inauthentic. And so I think if you right to
Speaker 2: the meme, so to speak, or we were trying to
Speaker 2: make something go viral. I think that you would smell
Speaker 2: that and people would feel that, and then it doesn't
Speaker 2: take off like That's that's one thing about the Internet
Speaker 2: that I do really appreciate and love, Like there's an
Speaker 2: unpredictability to it. Things take off and catch fire and
Speaker 2: like hit some kind of like center of someone's brain
Speaker 2: and you just don't know why, and you can't really
Speaker 2: reverse engineer it.
Speaker 1: It does kind of make you still believe that people
Speaker 1: don't know what they want. And those are people who
Speaker 1: are on the internet.
Speaker 2: You could look at so many quote unquote hits of
Speaker 2: the last few years, even like the Bear, And I
Speaker 2: think that's the danger in having all this data and technology,
Speaker 2: because the tech industry can be so specific and data
Speaker 2: driven and go like, well, this is the exact point
Speaker 2: at which someone turns this off, So that must mean
Speaker 2: it's not good if this person you know, you don't know.
Speaker 2: That's the thing that's really lovely about creating things is
Speaker 2: you have to just trust the person creating it in
Speaker 2: their brain and their heart. And and I think that
Speaker 2: as we delve more into this tech world, it becomes
Speaker 2: in danger of people thinking they can know better that
Speaker 2: we can, like because tech does know better in a way.
Speaker 2: We're all like, you know, little like lab rats, and
Speaker 2: they know that when I see the like red dot
Speaker 2: on my screen, I'm gonna click it because like it
Speaker 2: activates my dopamine or whatever, and so that's really scary.
Speaker 2: But like there's a creative aspect of an unknowability that
Speaker 2: is really important.
Speaker 1: This might be a huge leap, but like, in a way,
Speaker 1: technology is a bit like humor to say, like the
Speaker 1: very humorous person says I know better, right, Like Freud
Speaker 1: says that, like humor is the triumph of the ego, right,
Speaker 1: like it will protect me from the pain of my life,
Speaker 1: right right, And then and then love says, no, you
Speaker 1: can't use humor for everything, Like the triumph of your
Speaker 1: life is actually like your humanity. And like I do
Speaker 1: think that HACKS really is about the way in which
Speaker 1: humor is a triumph, but it's also about how humor
Speaker 1: can't do everything.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, totally well. And I think what you're pointing
Speaker 2: out is exactly right, that there's something in humor and
Speaker 2: I've certainly used it in my life to protect myself
Speaker 2: from feeling things at times like humor puts you sometimes
Speaker 2: at a distance because you're observing, you're not experiencing the thing.
Speaker 2: And I think what you're pointing out is that it
Speaker 2: is this, it's this desire for control and hacks. You're
Speaker 2: exactly right. It is both about how comedy is so
Speaker 2: important and can save us, and yet you also need
Speaker 2: to feel the feelings and give into the unpredictability of
Speaker 2: life because otherwise you're just trying to protect yourself. You're
Speaker 2: ultimately trying to protect yourself from dying, which you can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just I think that there's like there's hubris
Speaker 1: on both sides. There's hubris on the sides of technology
Speaker 1: companies who believe that they can outsmart and predict what
Speaker 1: people want. And there's also hubris on the side of
Speaker 1: the creative who like believes that their own creativity can
Speaker 1: kind of trump all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we really tried to express through the Hell
Speaker 2: and Hunk character this season, like we felt it would
Speaker 2: be pat and not truthful if it was just like
Speaker 2: the brave creatives against the capitalist monster executives. It's like
Speaker 2: that's not interesting because that's not truthful either. Like, there
Speaker 2: are great people on both sides of this trying to
Speaker 2: navigate this intersection, and you're exactly right. It's like the
Speaker 2: fact of the matter is, I can't tell you that
Speaker 2: I don't like going on TikTok and watching people dance.
Speaker 2: I do like there's something just visceral and human. I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is, but like there's a reason
Speaker 2: people love it. It taps into something.
Speaker 1: After the break. Why Hacks writer and co creator Jen
Speaker 1: Statsky is concerned about the effects of AGI on her
Speaker 1: industry Stay with us. Paul Schrader is a guy who
Speaker 1: said that chat GPT is something that could help ID eight.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you were sort of following the ways in
Speaker 1: which the strike addressed, you know, algorithmically driven creativity or
Speaker 1: as we say, generative AI would affect the creativity of
Speaker 1: the business. So my question is twofold, which is one like,
Speaker 1: how did the WGA address this during and after the strikes?
Speaker 1: And two can AI be funny?
Speaker 2: My take on AI is really that quote that's like
Speaker 2: I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so
Speaker 2: that I can do art and writing, not for AI
Speaker 2: to do my art and writing so that I can
Speaker 2: do my laundry and dishes. I don't want AI to
Speaker 2: come into the realm of creation, and it will inevitably
Speaker 2: and it already has, so it doesn't matter what I want,
Speaker 2: it's going to happen. But just speaking as a creative
Speaker 2: person who has done this for I guess like fifteen
Speaker 2: years now, I never loan for a machine to give
Speaker 2: me any I do laan for a machine to give
Speaker 2: an answer. In the worst parts of writing, you're like, God,
Speaker 2: someone just tell me the answer. But it would to
Speaker 2: me really make the process feel hollow. And the show
Speaker 2: Hacks is very much so about the joy of creating
Speaker 2: with someone else, and that process in many ways is
Speaker 2: the reward, not the end result or the acclaim or
Speaker 2: the rewards. And so if you take the joy out
Speaker 2: of that process and the humanity out of the very
Speaker 2: process of creating the thing, I just worry that it
Speaker 2: feels very hollow.
Speaker 1: So you are not tempted by G, as I like
Speaker 1: to call her.
Speaker 2: I am really not tempted by G in a way
Speaker 2: that I will be the old man like screaming, get
Speaker 2: off my lawn, like you know, the industry will pass
Speaker 2: me by, and I'll be like Jen, you gotta use G,
Speaker 2: you gotta gen you got Jen, you haven't worked in
Speaker 2: fifteen years. You gotta use G. I just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, what is Paul Shrew What is his
Speaker 2: example of how it could be useful? How can an idea?
Speaker 1: I think it's idea generation, Like, oh, you know Hannah
Speaker 1: and deb are in Vegas. What is something that they
Speaker 1: would do in Vegas that could be really fun? So
Speaker 1: in this way, I don't want to be again like
Speaker 1: Pollyanna a butt and be like no, I would never
Speaker 1: be cause like in some ways it's like, okay.
Speaker 2: When we write that. There's an episode this season where
Speaker 2: Deborneva go back to my face.
Speaker 1: I call her hand. I'm sorry, Deborneva, Hannah's Hannah and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: You know who does that all the time? Is Gene Smart?
Speaker 2: In scene she'll be like Hannah, and I'm like, there
Speaker 2: is an argument to be made, you know. When we
Speaker 2: wrote that episode, of course we're googling, like Las Vegas
Speaker 2: things to do. It's not like I don't use the
Speaker 2: Internet in my writing. So I guess one might say,
Speaker 2: how different is it? Then it's just.
Speaker 1: Google lowercase G.
Speaker 2: I use lower CASEG, not the big G. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: one could argue like, well, what's the difference about using
Speaker 2: the big G. You're already like using the internet to
Speaker 2: provide you with answers about that. What is the difference?
Speaker 2: I just it's to me, it's such a slippery slope,
Speaker 2: and I think I get really scared because I don't
Speaker 2: think humans will put on the guardrails to not let
Speaker 2: it get out of control.
Speaker 1: So conversely, there's the issue of training algorithms on pre
Speaker 1: existing scripts. Yeah, and training algorithms on now subtitles, right,
Speaker 1: so they can actually collect subtitles from shows and movies
Speaker 1: and use those subtitles to train algorithms that then will
Speaker 1: do what I guess, build better models. I would imagine
Speaker 1: it's sort of boring for me to even ask your
Speaker 1: opinion on that. I just wonder as a member of
Speaker 1: the WGA, as far as moving forward post strike is concerned, like,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about what's been going
Speaker 1: on and the conversations that have been had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the language that we were
Speaker 2: advocating for was that like a script. This is funny,
Speaker 2: It's like a basically like a script needed to be
Speaker 2: written by a human being. That was like the language
Speaker 2: being put in the contract.
Speaker 1: Those are your guardrails.
Speaker 2: Those are the guardrails. Yeah, and I actually am a
Speaker 2: Writer's Guild caption and well there and here's here's the
Speaker 2: problem here. I missed the meeting last night, so can
Speaker 2: you imagine how much delicious hot off the press information
Speaker 2: for you? But I'm a delinquent union rep. But it's
Speaker 2: it seems crazy to me that companies would be able
Speaker 2: to take this tremendous amount of material owned by the studios,
Speaker 2: owned by the networks and just use it for their
Speaker 2: own profit. And there has to be some I don't
Speaker 2: know why. I have no idea. I think what's really
Speaker 2: scary is I have no idea where the studios and
Speaker 2: the networks and companies are at with it in terms
Speaker 2: of it seems like the type of thing that they
Speaker 2: would so viciously go after of like you're using our
Speaker 2: copywritten material. But I also think they probably see the
Speaker 2: writing on the wall that they're all going to have
Speaker 2: to get into the AI space themselves. So I have
Speaker 2: no idea, to be honest, like what the higher level
Speaker 2: conversations are. But as a creative, it seems insane to
Speaker 2: me that you can't just take a show and throw
Speaker 2: it up on your YouTube channel, like they go after
Speaker 2: that so viciously to take down copyright materials. So to me,
Speaker 2: this feeling is very similar, and I think there is
Speaker 2: like you know, I believe Shonda Rhimes and some other
Speaker 2: people there's like correct me on that if I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: But I believe some artists are coming together to like
Speaker 2: pursue legal action about it.
Speaker 1: They are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And so to your point about like creativity and the
Speaker 1: purpose of creating art, especially TV being the collaboration not
Speaker 1: actually the product, I think that's where something like chat
Speaker 1: GPT gets you in a little bit of trouble, even
Speaker 1: if you're someone who's like a solo screenwriter, that there
Speaker 1: has to be at a certain point a level of
Speaker 1: you know, sort of interaction and toiling. What I think
Speaker 1: is problematic about the intersection between artificial intelligence and creativity
Speaker 1: is that it becomes a little frictionless, and that is
Speaker 1: where things start getting boring.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a good it's a very good point. And
Speaker 2: if someone was asking this, they were talking to me
Speaker 2: about like season four of US show, it's really easy
Speaker 2: for a show to get like complacent and not grow
Speaker 2: or not or just feel stagnant. And one thing I
Speaker 2: said was that I think that it's something we really
Speaker 2: have to our advantages, that there are three creators and
Speaker 2: we are constantly checking each other and being like have
Speaker 2: we done that before? Is that? Could that be better?
Speaker 2: Like there is we are in a constant dialogue about it,
Speaker 2: and there is toiling there, and there is friction there,
Speaker 2: and it makes it better. And exactly to your point,
Speaker 2: it will be frictionless if you just go to the
Speaker 2: TG and say what should Deborahn have a fight about
Speaker 2: this episode and it gives you the answer and you
Speaker 2: go okay.
Speaker 1: Like that.
Speaker 2: That's that is exactly. It's like sad because so much
Speaker 2: of this is like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Speaker 2: Like there is an element of that to storytelling and
Speaker 2: Hollywood that I feel we're in an era of like
Speaker 2: we fix something that wasn't really broken.
Speaker 1: You know what it is? It's that in a technological age,
Speaker 1: optimization is the point, yes, And if optimization is the point,
Speaker 1: then everything is pushed into the tent of optimization.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. Technology tells us we must optimize our
Speaker 2: life in every single way, and you just can't optimize creativity.
Speaker 2: You can't go what is the most efficient, easiest, best
Speaker 2: way to make art. You just can't like that. It's
Speaker 2: it's contrary to the point of it. And so I
Speaker 2: think that's exactly the thing that worries me is that
Speaker 2: if we go, if we follow this to the logical extension,
Speaker 2: does everything go to the point of optimization? Does every
Speaker 2: show get put through this filter of but what will
Speaker 2: get the most eyeballs on? What will get the most subscribers?
Speaker 2: Because we are trying to optimize profit for the company,
Speaker 2: you know, like who is stopping that?
Speaker 1: I think we all are stopping it. I think humor
Speaker 1: sort of acts as this way to say, look, this
Speaker 1: can't affect me that much. And I think why humor
Speaker 1: has such a lasting influence on society and culture is that,
Speaker 1: like we get to make jokes about optimization. That is
Speaker 1: where humor plays in, and that's where you get to
Speaker 1: tell people, guys, this is weird. Like I don't need
Speaker 1: to optimize my steps. I don't need to optimize my sleep.
Speaker 1: People have been been done sleeping, you know, like we figured.
Speaker 2: Out sleeping for the most We're like we're good on
Speaker 2: sleeping totally. Yes, Yeah, that's it. That is a that
Speaker 2: is a optimistic way to look at it that humor. Yes,
Speaker 2: it detaches you a bit, but in the detachment you
Speaker 2: can point out the absurdity of it in a way
Speaker 2: that perhaps makes people think differently about it and maybe
Speaker 2: behave differently.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where Ava ultimately gets to play
Speaker 1: as a character on Hacks, where it's like, this is
Speaker 1: someone who is deeply feeling but also is like deeply
Speaker 1: disturbed by the way things are, where Deborah is more like,
Speaker 1: this is reality and I still love being funny, you know. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: And that's where I think they really but reads.
Speaker 2: That's where they but but that's where they also make
Speaker 2: each other better, because it's a Ava sees things in
Speaker 2: this way and is disturbed by it and says like, well,
Speaker 2: what if it could be better? And Deborah says, but yes,
Speaker 2: but we still have to do the work. So let's
Speaker 2: figure out a way to do the work.
Speaker 1: Jen, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you. It's such so lovely to
Speaker 2: talk to you.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week for tech stuff. I'm caar Price.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Adriana Tapia.
Speaker 1: It was executive produced by me Oswa Washian and Kate
Speaker 1: Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvell for iHeart Podcast. Biheed
Speaker 1: Fraser is our engineer and Jack Insley mixed this episode,
Speaker 1: and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. Join us on
Speaker 1: Friday for the Week in tech Oz and I will
Speaker 1: run through all those tech headlines you may have missed.
Speaker 1: Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: We want to hear from you.