Our Dilemma Grows Dire

A Conversation Between Pablo Kjolseth and Jeff Orlowski-Yang

Pablo Kjolseth recently corresponded with local Boulder filmmaker Jeff Orlowski-Yang, the director and producer of The Social Dilemma, a quintessential documentary examining the effects of big tech algorithms on our brains. Six years after the doc’s release, these two discuss the film’s message within the current climate, while exploring the overlap between The Social Dilemma and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, released over a half-century earlier in 1968.

Pablo Kjolseth: When you were doing research on The Social Dilemma, did you ever come across any of the early ads from Apple where they depict the iPhone as the monolith from Kubrick’s Odyssey?

Jeff Orlowski-Yang: I’ve heard of the Kubrick iPhone ad, but hadn’t seen it for the making of the film. But the Ridley Scott Apple ad was a huge inspiration, where an athlete destroys the image of “Big Brother” in a play on George Orwell’s novel 1984.

PK: In your documentary The Social Dilemma, you get several former employees from Goog…