Hello CNET superfans.
I'm Jeff Bakalar, and with me on the stage right now is Mr. Robot star Carly Chaikin.
You might have seen her yesterday when she was our guest at CNET's Next Big Thing Panel on the smart home.
And Carly was nice enough to join us today as well.
Hello, Carly.
Hello.
Thank you so much for being here.
Round of applause for Carly Chaikin, ladies and gentlemen.
Yay.
[APPLAUSE]
Yeah.
[APPLAUSE]
That's nice, that feels good.
Yeah.
So, next big thing, the panel you did yesterday that kind of surrounded the whole smart home stuff.
Obviously we talked I'm sure about that opening scene in the second season of your show, Mr Robot.
So where does that come together?
I mean obviously that's The way extreme sort of side of things.
Yeah, they had actually, it said worst case scenario.
Right, this is the apocalyptic sort of smart home situation.
I mean, where does that tie into the real world application of smart home stuff.
I guess from your point of view, having Dealt with that topic a lot in the show.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
I mean I think a lot of our show's kind of worst case scenario of how hacking and technology can kind of affect the world slash destroy it.
For sure.
[LAUGH] And I think
I don't know, I think it just kind of plays into everybody's fear about what could happen and just having your kind of life has been taken over, and your home, and all that stuff.
And I think with everything going on about smart houses, and technology in the world today.
It's kind of like a warning.
Yeah.
It is and I feel like it's never been more you know, relevant in kind of like the world we're living in right now.
I mean before you started on the show, what was maybe from that point to now, the thing you're able to take away the most?
Are you like more paranoid now?
I feel like I might be.
I'm so much more paranoid-
[LAUGH]
And [LAUGH] I also, technology and hacking and even that stuff was never, never even cross my mind-
Right.
It wasn't something I thought about.
And so now, since then, it's kind of every room I walk into I'm like, I could hack that.
I could do that.
[LAUGH] Is that like your reconnaissance, like every time you walk into a room?
Yeah, or I think people are constantly recording me, or watching me, or tracking, or something.
That I'm like Now in my head everything is what's the worst case scenario and think it's actually happening.
Right, well that doesn't sound like a lot of fun to live life like that.
It's great.
It's wonderful, I'm constantly looking over my shoulder.
Yeah who doesn't want to live like that?
What do you think maybe like the next generation of people who don't remember a world.
Where everything wasn't connected.
What do you think they're faced with?
It's so weird to me, cuz I feel like, I was born in 1990.
I feel like I'm almost the last generation that experienced printing out MapQuest directions.
Sure.
And not having a cellphone and.
And they would just pile up in the shotgun seat of the car.
Right and you get lost like there's nothing to do.
And so it's crazy to me seeing all like younger kids living on iPads and learning on iPads and it really scares me.
I feel like there are a lot of the art of handwritten things or reading a book or.
You know, it's like law.
For sure.
I think a lot of people kinda take umbrage with the fact that no one really knows how to develop a relationship with somebody.
Yeah.
Like you can have a conversation as much as you want online and we can send little emojis back and forth and really express the way we feel about each other.
But you know sitting down at a bar with somebody and observing someone's facial expressions and their body language, that's going away and I don't know, that kinda just makes me wake up in the middle of the night.
Well, it's crazy thinking, you know, when you'd go to a restaurant or go somewhere and be waiting for your friend, even have your phone to play with or distract you and
You kind of would just be looking around and sitting there.
What did we do before?
I don't know.
Twiddled your thumbs.
[LAUGH]
Into the carpet or something.
Yeah.
I don't know.
But I just now it's like we have this false sense of intimacy and relationships of people and a connection where we
See pictures on Instagram and so I know what you did for Christmas so I don't feel the need to call you and ask you what you did for Christmas.
Right.
And I think so much of it is we feel so much more connected but at the same time we become more and more disconnected because we're not having actual human interactions.
Yeah I worry that
This over-indulgence that we seem to be having with social media.
I don't know, do you think there's a way back from that?
No.
I mean this is, you don't?
No.
So we're too far gone.
Yes.
It's over.
[LAUGH] And we're done, everyone go home.
It was nice while it lasted.
[LAUGH] Yeah.
That was fun.
I don't know, I just feel like-
Do you?
I want to say yeah but-
Cuz where do you, you just what?
Take all of that away?
You can't.
Cuz I think there are so many benefits to social media.
For me personally, I've been able to develop relationships with people via Twitter.
Sure.
And I think it gives people such a great way to reach out and have a bigger platform and a way to express themselves.
But there also is kind of the ability to hide behind a computer screen.
People think they can say whatever they want.
For sure yeah
I think to me that's the scariest part
Yeah, I mean I think
I think when this exploded I think social media is the best and the worst thing that has happened.
Right agreed.
Simultaneously right?
I don't know if there will be this I mean we are kind of like the guinea pigs for it.
Where it's like let's see if humanity can survive this.
Right.
And then as the dust settles maybe they'll be
Sort of like a withdrawal of it, a little bit.
When you ask, can we come back?
I make [UNKNOWN]
When you say come back, does that mean-
Find a balance.
Right, I don't think we can find a balance for anything in this world though, apparently.
Wow, this show's really-
[LAUGH] I'm so cynical, I'm like we're all gonna die, fine.
It's fine.
[LAUGH]
So going back to the show Mr. Robot, what I mean there's obviously there's the huge sort of sociopolitical impact that that society has on the world.
The culture sort of stuff.
I think a lot of that is also about privacy right?
People Kind of having the line blurred about what privacy, what digital privacy is to people.
Do you think we're living in a world now where people just have no sort of concepts of the fact that they are giving that up.
Not unwillingly but.
You know there's no sort of warning anymore it's just sort of there okay I'll scroll through it ok and move on I mean the biggest thing for me was when Pokemon go came out and people Would just accepted and then they just realized that then their location, their phone, everything in their phone, everything that they were doing was being tracked.
Right.
And everyone wants to play game and say okay, nobody's things about what they're actually signing themselves up for.
But I think, I kind of have the same thing about, well, I have nothing.
What do I care?
Yeah.
If someone hypothetically has that information.
It's that mentality like, I got nothing to hide.
Right.
Yeah.
About all those things about, not to get so political.
But like [LAUGH]-
Forget it, let's go there.
With Snowden and
And, exposing all of that.
Cuz it's like, well I don't care if someone is listening on my phone calls, I'm not saying anything bad.
Right.
And one of the coolest things I actually went to this panel that he did via robot.
Okay.
But he was saying, he was like
Saying not that you don't care is kind of like saying we don't need freedom of speech cuz I have nothing to say.
Right.
It's a slippery slope.
Right.
And I think that's something that the show does a really good job at warning people about.
I think the reason Mr. Robot is so compelling is because it doesn't really glamorize The entire situation.
And, I feel like up until then, the notion of hacking was this sort of super hero [UNKNOWN] kind of thing.
And no, it's real bad, it's real ugly People die.
Yeah.
The ramifications are intense.
Well I think the coolest thing was, you know, season one our goal is to have, to start this revolution and to take down the 1% and help the 99% and take down the biggest conglomerate.
And then you see that It wasn't everything we thought it would be and the consequences that we suffered and the reality of that, of not being like, we're superheroes and now everybody is saved and here's the real world, about sometimes starting a revolution can do more like.
Thinking you're doing that can do more damage and all these things with technology.
So I feel like everything that's going on is a catch 22, all these things that people think are helping or benefiting even like social media there's always that Like double edged sword of it all.
Right.
It's a fine line to walk, absolutely.
Yeah.
Well Carly.
This has been fantastic.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Round of applause for Carly everybody.
[APPLAUSE]
