Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy are digital minimalists
Read to learn about their thoughts on technology (i.e. AI, phones, social media)
Digitally Exhausted came to be because I wanted a place to share my thoughts on tech’s societal impact. My writing covers social media’s spaghetti-like complexities, Big Tech, and action steps to balance digital life.
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Have you seen Oppenheimer? If not, it is quite the watch—l left the theatre an emotional wreck and with the heebee-geebes, questioning the advances we are making and the minds behind the world’s fast-paced rhythm.
I intended this post to only focus on Cillian Murphy’s digital minimalism, but in my research, I discovered Christopher Nolan is similar, yet very different when it comes to his relationship with technology. Oppenheimer producer Emma Thomas, and Nolan’s wife, describe him as “the most analogue individual you could possibly encounter.”
I find it both comforting and worrying such talented individuals have little to no tech use in their lives. To be more specific, social tech use.
This goes back to my argument: technology makes us too reachable. Do we really need to be accessible “right away?” In my opinion, no. Not to mention, this makes us easily distracted.
So let’s dive into these two brilliant minds’ relationship with technology.
Christopher Nolan is practically unreachable
Apparently, Nolan does not have a phone or an email. He is unreachable. Well, he is somehow because how does this man make any sort of plan, not to mention coordinate a meeting, which makes me wonder how he lives his day-to-day life without a device glued to his hand.
Clearly, he makes it work.
What is important to keep in mind is what Nolan does for work. He has the ability to be mostly unreachable.
(Imagine… what would a day of your life look like without a smartphone?)
Reading press articles about Oppenheimer, I stumbled across a fantastic piece published on Wired by Maria Streshinksy, How Christopher Nolan Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI.
It is a fantastic interview, more so a conversation diving straight into Oppenheimer, discussing the brain behind the work to create something so powerful that there was a possibility of destroying humanity. Nolan describes it as a wild ride of a story, really shocking those who know little to nothing about the history behind this monumental, yet tragic event. This is true because my friend and I were catching up the other day, finally chatting about Oppenheimer and Barbie, and we were bonding over the fact neither of us knew Albert Einstein was involved in this part of history, let alone live (let me know, was this just us?).
The conversation eventually takes a tailspin to Nolan’s thoughts on AI. Here is a snippet:
Speaking of building something of magnitude, I was at the TED conference in Vancouver recently, and one of the most interesting sessions was a series of talks about generative AI. So many of the speakers mentioned the atomic bomb, nuclear weapons. The last speaker was a technologist—who happened to grow up in Los Alamos, by the way—who talked about the inevitable growth of the use of AI in weaponry. He ended his talk by saying that the only way to keep world order was to have better AI weapons. That it was a deterrent. Which sounded a lot like how people thought of the atomic bomb. Feels like you couldn't have planned your film release for a better time.
I think the relationship is an interesting one. It's not the same. But it's the best analogy—which is why I used it in Tenet—for the dangers of unthinkingly unleashing a new technology on the world. It's a cautionary tale. There are lessons to be learned from it. Having said that, I do believe the atomic bomb is in a class of its own as far as technologies that have changed and endangered the world.
And the origins of these technologies weren't the same.
There is a fundamental difference. The scientists dealing with the splitting of the atom kept trying to explain to the government, This is a fact of nature. God has done this. Or the creator or whoever you want it to be. This is Mother Nature. And so, inevitably, it's just knowledge about nature. It's going to happen. There's no hiding it. We don't own it. We didn't create it. They viewed it as that.
In other words, they felt they were just revealing something that was already there.
And I think you'd be very hard-pressed to make that argument about AI. I mean, I'm sure some will.
Did anyone get goosebumps? Nolan makes a good point. The atomic bomb is physics. It is something that was inevitable. There is no comparison in this aspect. Humans created it.
The conversation goes on—I highly recommend reading it—and I found comfort in a response Nolan gave about the future of AI. It was something along the lines of AI should be used as a tool. And, it is. But people use tools for bad things all of the time. You know… guns.
The interview has me hearing the mantra: Can we do it? But should we do it?
Oppenheimer was a fascinating person. Intelligent, charismatic, and passionate about his curiosity for physics. He was so passionate though there was almost a sense of naivety or self-awareness to what he was doing.
In terms of AI, we are still in the figuring-it-out stage—really, with the internet too—but I’m optimistic we will get to a place where designers and corporations will work together to create a sustainable online ecosystem designed for humans, not just for profiting off of us.
Hopefully, they too won’t throw dice on humanity.
Cillian Murphey’s black blob
A digital nihilist? I recently stumbled across a YouTube short of Cillian Murphey doing an interview on “Happy Sad Confused” with Joshua Horowitz.
Murphey is asked what his phone wallpaper is—what a question—and shares that his phone is just a black blob, recently changing his background and all of the covers to his apps black.
I might make time to do the same, but green because apparently, it gets the creative juices flowing.
Murphey also turns off a lot of notifications, which I am assuming are nonsense notifications because there are just too many—I swear 70% of the notifications we get are useless. Apparently, he also has no wifi in his family home which I find heroic as a dad of two teenagers—not that I can comment on this because I have never been a parent of teenagers, but I can only imagine… It makes me wonder how it affects school work or if this causes any other problems, but it’s not our business. Also, Murphy is not on social media, which makes sense.
This man just loves what he does and that’s all he wants to do, or that’s how it seems. Murphy is losing millions not being on social media. But he’s a humble Irishman so it just makes sense. He’s class.
The relationship he has with his devices is comforting and I hope it inspires people to reflect on their own digital habits, designing a digital life for them, not defaulting into one.
If Murphey inspires anyone, I hope it’s the Irish. The country is already paving the way to try to create a better tech future, especially for children when it comes to social media.
In an Irish Times article, I learned the Minister of Education Norma Foley and Online Safety Commissioner Niamh Hodett are making plans to hold social networking companies accountable. Hodett is “drawing up a new binding online safety code aimed at reducing harmful content online and will require social media platforms to take measures to do so. A failure to comply may lead to criminal or civil sanctions”.
I do find this ironic as Dublin is a major European tech hub but I am hopeful because at least action is being taken.
Wherever you are, be there ✨
Slurping up my clam chowder. Another sunny day (thank you Irish sunshine for coming to bless us again with your presence) meant it was an excuse to splurge. Chowing on my chowder, I saw a lovely moment where a gentleman went up to a busker, chatting away and I’m sure complementing the vocals the entire street was hearing—I didn’t record a video but I was too busy living in the moment.
Until next time,
Wherever you are, be there 😊