Sept. 25, 2026
🎭 What Tom Cruise Really Thinks About AI
1. “Here’s the thing: There is nothing like human… I always believe in humanity… You know, [AI] is coming, and it’s going to happen. But people want to see real things.”
—Tom Cruise, actor, Mission: Impossible, at BAFTA “Life in Pictures” event in London
*Source: Variety
🕶️ Zuck Makes AI Twerk & Runs From “Pervert Glasses”
2. Never mind the fact that in exactly two weeks, Mark Zuckerberg will be spit-roasted once again on the silver screen in The Social Reckoning. No, avert your gaze, and instead peer deeply into the magic lenses of Meta’s new VR glasses, and other treats, announced at this week’s Meta Connect 2026 conference. At least that’s the hope of everyone at Meta, as Zuckerberg continues to invest in his vision of the metaverse, alongside his new AI obsession.
I’ve been covering Meta in-depth for a long time, and I’ve tested their previous wearable products extensively. Here’s my flash take on the new releases that matter:
Meta VR Glasses: A few years before the reveal of Apple Vision Pro, I predicted that the device would be a light pair of smartglasses with a tethered computing puck. Apple didn’t agree with my vision of Vision Pro, but Meta did, in the form of its new Meta VR Glasses. The problem? Despite Zuckerberg taking a shot at the Apple Vision Pro in his presentation, Meta still has a long way to go to catch up to the polish of the Vision Pro experience and its content ecosystem, which makes it a perfect (albeit wildly expensive) private luxury home movie theater.
The upside (for shareholders)? Selling Meta VR Glasses for $1,300 is directionally correct, since at this point, most VR users are primarily dedicated enthusiasts willing to pay a premium. Instead of focusing on a cheaper Meta Quest headset, this is the way. Still, as a mostly niche gaming platform, VR is alive, but remains on the relative margins of the major tech swings capturing the public’s bank accounts.
Honorable Mention: Getting once-estranged, unceremoniously fired Oculus (which Meta acquired for $2 billion in 2014) founder Palmer Luckey to come back and bless the device in its promotional video is actually a huge achievement for Zuckerberg.
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Ray-Ban Meta Audio: The company’s new non-camera smartglasses are obviously a response to the culture labeling the camera versions as “pervert glasses.” The pivot comes after one too many social media influencers went viral for sharing non-consensual video interactions in public with people (often women) recorded via the smartglasses. It’s a smart move on Meta’s part. And I’ve often wondered how a version of the Ray-Ban smartglasses that just offered audio and AI assistance would play with consumers.
Although I don’t expect this to kick off a trend of cameras being removed from allsmartglasses, the prospect of always being in someone’s sights for potential social media clout is enough to make such devices a tricky accessory choice in 2026 and beyond. And let’s be honest, it’s not just the cameras, it’s the company. Many consumers have grown to distrust Meta (formerly Facebook). You’re not seeing the same kind of camera glasses pushback on Snap’s new Specs. And the prospect of Apple releasing camera-equipped smartglasses hasn’t seemed to raise any alarm bells among the public.
Muse Charm AI Assistant: What if I could get you to wear an always-on tracker that isn’t seen as a sinister data-gulping device integrated into all your digital interactions, but is instead framed as a cute pet? That’s pretty much what Meta has introduced with its Tamagotchi-inspired Muse Charm, a hardware portal for the company’s Muse AI agent, which is powered by the Muse Spark AI model. The device is designed to encourage users to engage the Muse AI agent to handle various digital tasks, facilitate shopping, manage schedules, trigger automated app functions, as well as other AI agent functions. The idea is that instead of getting users to adopt an AI agent on their smartphones (a hard sell, particularly for non-techies), the cute avatar-led Muse Charm will become a virtual pet assistant that makes the AI agenting feel less invasive and more like a warmer, cuddlier version of the assistant in the Spike Jonze film Her.
I think the execution and the marketing humor around the avatar are brilliant. But I see the device as a less-controllable mobile product that doubles as a kind of human leash and superpowered Apple AirTag tracker that delivers far more information to Meta and Zuckerberg about users than ever before. Look, I love innovation. And I love some of Meta’s products. But the company hasn’t earned enough trust with me to slap its digital leash (no matter how cute or bootylicious, Mr. Wang) on my body for the rest of my life.
🤖 Apple’s New CEO On AI Assistants vs. Humanity
3. “Siri AI is not designed to be your friend. It’s designed to be an assistant, and it’ll resist any attempts to create a relationship. I think that’s very important. I think [we’re] focusing on: How do we help people be a better version of themselves, help them get out their creativity and their productivity, and come up with new ideas. That’s the approach we want to take to avoid [humans becoming machines]… Human relationships are very important. They’re how we learn. They’re how we grow. They’re how we find joy and happiness. And so we don’t want to replace human relationships.”—John Ternus, Apple CEO, after the reveal of an updated Apple Intelligence/Siri AI
*Source: Clique TV, France
🎬 Elon Musk’s Hollywood Launch via WarnerMount?
4. The looming influence of Big Tech in Hollywood is poised to grow like a rolling mass of infected human flesh in Zach Cregger’s new Resident Evil, in the wake of a new report involving none other than, yes, again, Elon Musk.
Paramount Skydance, led by David Ellison (the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison), may be looking for investment cash from Musk, according to sources in contact with Semafor. The financial breadcrumbs appeared just after Ellison sealed a settlement deal that will allow his acquisition of Warner Bros. to move forward.
Assuming Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approves the settlement, allowing the $110 billion merger to be consummated, it would make Ellison the head of the largest studio in Hollywood. The new company would also put him in control of CNN, HBO, and a vast library of Warner Bros. franchises (including DC superhero movies), TV shows, and music catalogs.
Tech Hollywood: Musk’s potential involvement would further burnish (at least in the minds of insiders) Ellison’s reputation in Hollywood as leaning away from the liberal politics that have typified the film and TV narratives of the last couple of decades. Furthermore, David enjoying a double-barreled tech consigliere council of Larry Ellison (cloud data) and Musk (AI software) could hasten the arrival of AI-generated feature films and animation from what some have come to colloquially refer to as WarnerMount.
🎥 Disney Veteran Becomes Hollywood AI Cheerleader
5. “There is growing fear and resistance surrounding AI within the creative community… Hollywood needs to accept that AI is not going away. The energy they are spending trying to make it disappear is energy they are not spending deciding the terms on which it will exist. And the terms are everything… The artists who learn to wield these new instruments will do things the engineers never dreamed of.”
—Jeffrey Katzenberg, frmr. Disney Studios chairman, co-founder of DreamWorks SKG
*Source: Twitter/X
🎤 Rapper Meme Goes Viral: AI Video Mainstream Liftoff?
6. I can’t close this edition of Man And Robots without mentioning the most viral AI video meme that has dominated social media this week. It’s the most mainstream AI video meme I’ve ever seen, and it involves modifying the rap performance of “Hotel Lobby” performed by Quavo and Takeoff for Colors. So far, the meme has given us OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei rapping together, as well as Elon Musk with Altman, Walter White with Jesse from Breaking Bad, Gus Fring with Saul Goodman from the same TV series, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and her documentarian Nathan Fielder, Tupac with Biggie, and Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang with AMD’s CEO Lisa Su.
But it was clear that the AI video meme really took off when celebrities started using it. Martin Lawrence used it to pair his old sitcom characters Romey Rome with Dragonfly Jones, and music mogul Russell Simmons used it to pair himself with his ex-wife Kimora Lee (which did not go over well with fans).
This is the AI video meme moment I’ve been expecting. Not an AI video creator’s version of Superman fighting Spider-Man to rack up social media clout, but an organic social media moment where AI just happens to be the tool used to spread the idea. There are still a lot of AI video haters out there who worry the technology will cost human jobs, but this is one of those cultural moments that solidifies the lighter side of a new technology and often softens those who were initially resistant to it. ✍︎
MAN AND ROBOTS is a weekly column from MARS Magazine on AI, Hollywood, and the future of work. All editorial text is written by humans.
Cover image: Photo illustration of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with the Muse Charm AI assistant via Meta/Alexandr Wang via Twitter/X
