Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, they’re considering merging ChatGPT models this coming year, or what Sam Altman is posing as AGI. If that’s the case, we’re looking at a total re-evaluation of human analytic abilities. High-level analysis is the most valuable thing humans bring to the table right now. In the future? It’ll be more about taste and strategy.

AGI—Artificial General Intelligence. The holy grail of AI. It’s the ability to reason at a human level—or above. AI is already more competent and thoughtful than many people.

Rick Rosner: Anyway, we first met when you reached out to interview me ten years ago because of my IQ. You were reaching out to everyone in the high-IQ world. You’ve done millions of words of interviews with people in that space.

Jacobsen: And now, I’m finishing my work. I’ll keep a toe in for occasional one-offs, but the overall series?

Rosner: Which is appropriate timing. Because as you are leaving the high-IQ world, the world is replacing human high IQ with artificial IQ.

Jacobsen: It’s different. It approaches problems differently but reaches equivalent solutions faster and, maybe, more efficiently.

Rosner: Noam Chomsky had a quote about this on X.

He said AI isn’t human intelligence—it’s probabilistic inference. It chews through millions of data points and picks the most ly next word or outcome. And he says humans don’t do that. Humans draw conclusions from limited information. We sort through noise and make elegant decisions with little to go on.

Jacobsen: Even if that’s true, it’s irrelevant if AI still reaches the same conclusions.

Rosner: If you ask AI, “What’s going on here?”, a smart human might analyze it based on their knowledge. But AI has read every book, processed a trillion words, and statistically votes on the best answer.

Jacobsen: Chomsky is saying AI is less efficient.

Rosner: That’s not a counterargument.

Jacobsen: No. I don’t think that’s valid anymore. We’re entering the big data era. 

Rosner: We have large language models trained on billions of snippets, evaluated through probabilistic Bayesian feedback loops. The more self-learning and multimodal these models become, the more they’ll consistently outperform even the smartest humans. 

So yes—you’re leaving the high-human-IQ world right as we enter the high-artificial-IQ world.

Jacobsen: Spoiled. You figured me out! 

Rosner: And isn’t Sam Altman saying AGI will be here next year or this year—and ASI (Artificial Superintelligence) might take two more years?

Jacobsen: Yes, approximately. If you solve AGI, you can use it to solve ASI. And somebody—maybe Altman—said that AI is already in the top 50 coders in the world. By the end of the year, AI will be the best coder on the planet. That’s probably true. It’s a watershed moment.

Rosner: Too bad it’s happening at a time when incipient fascism is rising across multiple countries. But maybe that’s connected. The same tech developments that gave us AI also gave us social media—which enabled propaganda to fuel fascism.

Jacobsen: Maybe AI and fascism were always destined to show up simultaneously.

Rosner: By the way, I gave Carole a fascist micro-mosaic souvenir spoon today.

Jacobsen: …What?

Rosner: And that’s where the Duomo is. You can tell it’s from the Mussolini era because the font that says Ferenc is Art Deco.

Fucking Mussolini took over in 1922, and even though Italy had a fascist government, it remained a popular tourist destination throughout the 1920s and into the mid-1930s, even as the hammer of fascism was being brought down on dissent.

Carole took me to Florence for our 30th wedding anniversary, and I walked around, checking out antique stores because I  love that shit.

Even under fascism, Italian design was incredible. It was sleek and contemporary. I saw furniture and clothing, and I was , wow. Even though they were under a dictatorship, they were still creating great design work.

And it feels depressingly familiar now. We’re not in full-blown fascism yet, but the sword of it is dangling over us.

Jacobsen: I’m gonna go check on the dogs. They’re dogs. Appreciate them on their own simple terms.

Rosner: There are no terms. They’re that simple.

Jacobsen: No, dogs are complete idiots.

Rosner: Also, today, I ran into something on X. There’s a new young blonde woman named Olivia who joined in January. Already has several thousand followers. I’d guess she’ll be at 50,000 by the end of the month and a couple hundred thousand by summertime. And Olivia is MAGA-trained AI.

She’s a tweet engine trained on right-wing propaganda that responds with well-worded tweets, always on point with the MAGA perspective. It’s one more creepy dimension to all this. If AI is a propaganda engine, why wouldn’t they mass-produce these? Comments?

Jacobsen: No, sci-fi becoming real. We’re heading into a world where virtual people will be convincing before real people were ever convincing. And the Turing test? It turned out to be a joke. It held up for 60 years—maybe 70, but big deal. Young Earth Creationism held up too.

Rosner: Yes, until it didn’t.

Jacobsen: The moment something could actually challenge it, it collapsed.

Rosner: Yep. The anticipation is the overload itself. 

Jacobsen: Then the “Oh, shit.” moment. And then… the next thing. ChatGPT 3.5 to 4 was a big jump. Altman is saying GPT-5 is smarter than him. He asked a crowd, “Do you think GPT-4 is smarter than you?” Then he said, “I don’t think I’m smarter than GPT-5.”

Rosner: How long until it’s out?

Jacobsen: This year.

Rosner: That’s fast.

Photo by Martin Martz on Unsplash

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, The Humanist, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332-9416), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Free Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.