Rick Rosner: I’ve got a short one. We have a lot of streaming services for TV, and we’ve been trying to cut our bill down. Our cable and all that shit was way too expensive. We cut loose some of our boxes and some of the channels we could get.

And now we have to connect through various streaming platforms that throw in their own super shitty ads. They’re not network TV ads. With network TV ads, you at least get a certain level of professionalism, quality, and competence—usually.

But these ads for local streaming, as opposed to something like Netflix—which is national and international streaming—are garbage. This streaming bullshit through Spectrum, our fucking local provider, throws up these crappy ads.

And over the past few weeks, I’ve realized that the voiceovers in these ads are AI. It’s cheaper—if you’re making a 90-second shitty ad selling some waffle iron or some other nonsense—instead of paying a real voiceover actor, you just have AI read it. It’s not the most inviting voice in the world, but unless you’ve been hearing it for a while, it’s one of those things that temporarily passes a Turing test.

One of the things Turing never—maybe he did—realize is that in an era where there are Turing tests everywhere, thanks to AI, a lot of shit passes the test only temporarily. Most AI-generated content, we can still see through once we’ve seen or heard enough of it. Or once someone points it out to you, and you realize, “Oh yeah, that’s bullshit.”

Carol and I each saw the trailer for Forrest Gump 2, and it looked strangely half-assed. The plot looked like garbage, the de-aging on Tom Hanks was terrible, and something about it just felt off. Then, a couple of weeks later, I saw the trailer for Titanic 2, and that was complete bullshit.

It made superficial sense at first—like, “Oh, Jack didn’t die at the end, he survived, and they got back together.” There were a bunch of scenes, but then they got back on another fucking ocean liner. About halfway through, I was like, “This is such bullshit. What’s going on?” And then I realized—this is pure AI.

AI generated the narration. AI generated the scenes. The whole trailer was just someone running AI bullshit, which explained Forrest Gump 2 as well. Then I looked it up, and apparently, there are thousands of these bullshit AI movie trailers.

Did I already talk about this? AI-generated movie trailers can temporarily pass a Turing test. That Turing test lasts exactly one trailer. You see two of them, and you go, “Oh, I see what the fuck is going on here.”

Same thing happened with AI-generated art. When AI first got good at making art but still hadn’t figured out hands, you could look at dozens of AI-generated pieces that didn’t involve fingers, and they’d look fine. But once you started seeing the weird hands—or once you knew to look for them—it stopped passing the Turing test.

Yes. There you go. Temporary Turing test.

Jacobsen: What do you think of M-theory, multiverse theory, and string theory?

Rosner: I don’t think string theory has delivered in terms of advancing our understanding of the universe. And a lot of other people with some exposure to physics think the same thing. It could eventually be useful, but right now, it’s too broad. It doesn’t rule out enough possible arrangements of the universe.

It seems to be a mathematical framework that is potentially applicable to a lot of things in physics, but it doesn’t actually advance physics. It’s not super predictive. It predicts too many things—it allows too many possibilities under its math.

And it occupied a lot of—

Jacobsen: What about the argument that it’s a beautiful theoretical mathematical framework?

Rosner: Yes. That’s fine. But look at general relativity. Einstein was trying to figure it out, and he spent five or ten years working on it. He was getting bummed out, talking with his math and physics buddies a lot—probably bitching about how hard it was. He was going over the various challenges he had in trying to do the math until something rang a bell with one of his math buddies. Someone said, “Hey, try this.”

Now, I don’t know general relativity well enough to know exactly how it went, but it was something like, “Try this 10-variable matrix. See if that does the trick.” And it did the fucking trick.

Before it turned out to be applicable to general relativity, I don’t know if that particular type of matrix had been super useful at all. It must have been “mathy” enough that at least one mathematician knew about it, but I’m not sure how much relevance it had until it fit into this general relativity slot. I don’t think string theory is tight enough to do things on its own. It will potentially be helpful when physics advances in other ways—enough to integrate with string theory in productive ways. But right now, it’s just one of a number of ways of looking at the universe.

And it occupied physicists for decades. It probably even slowed physics down because people were so into string theory—trying to make it describe the universe—that the project wasn’t entirely successful. So, a lot of physics time got wasted on fucking string theory. That’s my layperson’s understanding of it.

Jacobsen: You think smart people waste their time?

Rosner: Don’t make me sad. SNL already made me sad.

Jacobsen: Why did SNL make you sad?

Rosner: It’s the fiftieth-anniversary special.

And the grand old legends are watching right now. Yes. I had terrible people—my year overlapped with so many people from that cast. I missed huge opportunities because I didn’t know where my destiny would fucking lie.

Jacobsen: Destiny?

Rosner: I should’ve known. I was in New York City. And, yeah, a lot of people were in New York City. But I didn’t know I was going to be a comedy writer. If I had figured that shit out earlier, I could have been something besides a bouncer.

Jacobsen: What? You were mostly a bouncer?

Rosner: Yes. But bouncers don’t achieve greatness. The only bouncer to achieve greatness was Mr. T, and I’m no Mr. Fucking T.

But I wrote shit. I wrote a little bit for Sandler on an MTV quiz show. I was Colin Quinn’s personal trainer a couple of times because we were on the same show, and he knew I lifted. He had me take him to the gym. I wrote for Kevin Nealon for Crank Yankers. I did all that shit.

Now, what I should have done—my late stepbrother, who had a lot of balls, went out and took on the fucking world. He turned himself into a stand-up comedian. I’ve done it a few times, and you can’t do it a few times and not suck ass. You’ve got to do it hundreds, thousands of times.

But I was in fucking New York City, and I could’ve done that shit. And it never fucking dawned on me to develop skills in that direction—even though it turns out that I have skills in a fucking comedy direction.

So yes, I wasted a lot of time doing the whole high-IQ cul-de-sac bullshit, which we’ve talked about before.

Jacobsen: I’ll poke the dragon. Do you think there’s a lot of self-pity among high-IQ candidates, particularly men? There could be.

Rosner: Yes. Because it’s the same self-pity you see in 1970s and ’80s high school nerd movies. Those movies about the nerd who’s desperate to get laid—he’s a nice guy, he’s a smart guy, and he’s wondering, “Why won’t anybody touch my dick?”

And in some movies—the quintessential example being Revenge of the Nerds—the nerds finally manage to get their penises touched, because they’re not as big of assholes as the jocks. That’s the basic structure of high school nerd movies from the ’70s and ’80s, and it’s also the basic structure of high-IQ self-pity: “Why doesn’t the world appreciate me?”

My self-pity is more along the lines of, “Why was I such a lazy asshole? Why didn’t I grab the world more by the balls?”

But I still have a shot. Not only could I be a contender—I am a contender. I’m gonna keep trying.

I’ve got this book. If I get it done enough… I once had a book deal for four days with Riverhead Press. An editor at Riverhead saw my book pitch. I had an agent, the whole fucking thing. She said, “We are gonna publish your fucking book.” Then four days later, she called back and said, “Yeah, I thought we were gonna publish your book, but I couldn’t convince my publishers to go along with it.”

That was ten fucking years ago. So it’s fucking time. I believe the book is pretty good. I’ll eventually send you chunks of it—though you’re not the ideal reader because you don’t read a lot of fiction. Anything else?

Jacobsen: I like watching clips of horror shows. From. That show is terrifying.

Rosner: What’s From?

Jacobsen From. It’s called From.

They have a guy named Boyd in it. It’s absolutely terrifying. You don’t know what’s going on. We still don’t know what’s going on. It’s the new Lost. They even got an award recently or something. I’ve watched clips of it, and it’s absolutely terrifying.

Rosner: Lost turned out to be bullshit. The producers were lost. They were lost for, what? Five years? Probably longer.

They said they knew what they were doing. They said that by the series finale, all questions will be answered. That turned out to be bullshit. They didn’t know what the answers were. People had very sophisticated and complicated theories about what was going on.

But there was no overarching structure. They were just paddling away. I’m hoping that, for your sake, From has actually figured their shit out.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: Carole and I are watching Severance.

It’s Lost-y. It’s got a lot of mystery, and the whole structure of the thing is only slowly being revealed. But it seems like a quality enough production that it won’t bullshit us. Lost was still a great show to watch, but expecting good answers by the end turned out to be…

Jacobsen: A lost cause?

Rosner: Yes. The writers were lost in Lost. The producers were lost.

When they sold the show, they said they had the whole structure figured out. They said, “Trust us.” They were good producers. But they were bullshitting.

Jacobsen: What else?

Rosner: I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Inside the Actors Studio.

Jacobsen: I love that show.

Rosner: He didn’t get his digs in.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: But his show was pretty much a blow job to everyone who went on it. It was all, “You’re so talented. Tell us about how talented you are.”

Jacobsen: Yes.

Rosner: It was totally submissive. Totally kiss-ass. Everyone got to meet a movie star. And because it was framed as a seminar with students in the audience, it seemed educational. But really, it was just, “Come watch us talk to Brad Pitt for an hour.”

It didn’t have much substance. But everyone loved going on it because it was so flattering.

If you can do interviews that aren’t that kiss-ass—but still aren’t about making people look like assholes—then that’s a good spot to be in. Your interest is in finding people’s strengths and talking to them about it.

Jacobsen: Yes, I’m flexible. I try to make sure my interviews are strengths-based. There’s no point in talking to a politician about quantum physics or equestrianism. You mostly focus on comedy, politics, critiques of Trump, your debates with Lance, and then physics. But that’s about it, correct?

Rosner: Yes. 

Jacobsen: That is a strength-based approach. I am not going to talk to about your dogs or anything necessarily, but yes we can. Our collaboration is quite unusual, though I have certainly done a wide range of work with other people as well.

Photo by Possessed Photography 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; International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416); The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576); Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066); A Further 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.