William Shatner & Neil deGrasse Tyson think ‘The Universe is Absurd’ (Part Two)

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.5 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kim Masters wraps up her two-part conversation with legendary actor William Shatner and famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Shatner reflects on his deeply emotional journey to space at age 90 and Tyson shares why he isn’t picky about the show biz gigs he takes. The pair also reflect on technological disruption, including how the rise of AI inspired Shatner to record a heavy metal album about the Industrial Revolution. Their two-night live event, The Universe is Absurd, will be at The Saban Theatre May 19-20.

Plus, Masters and Matt Belloni break down the strength of the new AI protections outlined in the recently finalized four-year agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the studios. They also discuss Disney’s awkward upfronts pitch, and Netflix’s continued expansion into live sports and events.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is The Business. This week, part two of our talk with William Shatner and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Trust me, this conversation takes some unexpected twists and turns, as it did when we strayed onto the topic of Elon Musk. Well, he did say, I don't want to live on Earth, I want to die on Mars. Yeah, but that's ridiculous.
0:21.4	Well, it's a, it's a tagline.
0:24.1	You're going to inhale all that red dust and die of emphysema.
0:29.1	It's very fine particle dust.
0:31.0	That's right.
0:31.4	It's very, totally lodge in your alveoli.
0:34.9	Bill and Neil dig into everything from Shatner's deeply emotional journey into space at age 90,
0:40.3	to how the rise of AI inspired him to record a heavy metal album.
0:44.3	But first we banter. Stick around.
0:46.3	It's the business from KCRW.
0:50.3	I am joined by my colleague in banter Matt Bellany. Hello, Matt. Hi there. So, a lot going on. Let's start with SAG AfterA. The SAG After Board apparently overwhelmingly approved this deal with the studios. Four-year deal, as we have mentioned previously. We're getting a little bit more look at what's in the deal. And I think one of the principal things is the question of AI, of course. That's a source of paranoia. And, you know, I guess you could argue that they won certain concessions. But to be honest, I'm reading some of the summary of the language. And a lot of it to me feels like, I think this is just an area where it's
1:28.9	difficult to be precise and difficult to build an impermeable wall. And it feels like you can
1:34.1	drive a truck through some of it if you want to, if you're, if you have lawyers who are going
1:38.2	to come up with language justifying the use of whatever. Yeah, I mean, the specifically the use
1:43.0	of synthetic performers. so AI performers.
1:46.1	They can only do this on the studio side when there is a, quote, significant additional value, end quote,
1:52.6	provided to a production. Now, the Guild is saying that that has to be a significant additional value,
1:58.8	not only over a person that they would have used,
2:02.0	but also over a digital replica of a real person. So I don't know. Does this mean that
2:09.9	the studios can't use synthetic people? Like, what does significant additional value actually
2:16.5	mean? That's exactly what I'm talking about, that kind of language.
2:20.3	And there's other instances of that.
	...

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