So what kind of genie is AI—a monkey’s paw or Robin Williams?

Rick Rosner argues that recent “AI freak-outs” reflect real capability gains: systems can now produce usable code for longer stretches, shifting “learn to code” toward architecture, testing, security, and accountability. He rejects near-term “longevity escape velocity” promises as speculative. Scott Douglas Jacobsen asks whether AI is a monkey’s paw or benevolent genie; Rosner answers “both,” invoking The Tempest to describe destabilizing transformation. The discussion ranges from U.S. institutional trust—immigration enforcement surges, combative congressional testimony, and opaque Epstein-file disclosures—to proposed reforms like Supreme Court term limits, plus evolutionary notes on five-digit limbs and sensory fragility in a world of accelerating tools.

Rick Rosner: According to people who follow AI, we are in the middle of another periodic freak-out in the tech world. In the last several years, there have been recurring waves of anxiety that AI will disrupt large parts of the job market, especially knowledge work.

A few years ago, the common complaint was that you could only trust an AI system for short stretches before it made obvious errors in coding, arithmetic, or factual claims. In some high-profile cases, systems used for legal drafting produced citations that did not exist. More recently, the tools have improved: in many narrow tasks—especially boilerplate coding, debugging suggestions, and pattern-heavy writing—they can run longer and still be useful. That does not make them error-free, but it does mean the errors can be rarer, harder to notice, and sometimes costly when they slip through.

Not long ago, people were told to learn to code because it looked like a durable career skill. Now the argument has shifted: AI systems can generate substantial amounts of code so that the durable skill may be less about typing syntax and more about problem definition, system architecture, testing, security, and accountability. The “hockey stick” metaphor is often invoked here, but it remains a metaphor: progress has been rapid yet uneven, and it depends on constraints such as data quality, computational resources, energy availability, regulatory constraints, and real-world deployment limits. While AI can generate code—including code that improves AI tooling—this is not the same as autonomous recursive self-improvement proceeding without human oversight. Humans, institutions, and infrastructure remain central to development and deployment.

At the same time, some longevity advocates advance the concept of “longevity escape velocity,” the idea that medical advances could eventually extend healthy lifespan faster than biological aging. These claims are speculative and not part of scientific consensus, and timelines such as “within three years” are aspirational rather than evidence-based. It is accurate to say medicine is advancing and may continue to do so; it is not accurate to promise a near-term, indefinite lifespan.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So what kind of genie is AI—a monkey’s paw or Robin Williams? 

Rosner: Possibly both. It can produce real benefits while also generating unintended consequences and structural disruption. Ariel’s line in The Tempest, “Full fathom five thy father lies,” evokes transformation—something altered into a new and strange form under pressure. AI may grant capabilities we desire while also reshaping work, institutions, and identity in ways that feel destabilizing.

At the gym, you can see an early version of the “merging with the machine” narrative: people sitting on equipment, absorbed in their phones. You can resent it, or you can interpret it as a rehearsal for a future in which attention is continuously mediated by technology. I would still prefer that they vacate the chest machine.

Yesterday, politically, Tom Homan—former Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and currently serving in a senior border enforcement role—announced that a recent immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota had concluded. Homan is known for hardline positions on immigration enforcement. Reports indicate that ICE and Border Patrol personnel had been deployed in significant numbers to the Minneapolis area. ICE does not consist of “troops” in the military sense; it employs roughly 20,000 personnel nationwide, including officers, agents, and support staff. Minneapolis has a population of approximately 430,000 people, and routine city policing is typically handled by the Minneapolis Police Department, not federal immigration agents. Whether enforcement resources will be shifted to other cities remains to be seen.

In Congress, Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before lawmakers for several hours of testimony. The hearing drew attention for its combative tone. Critics argued that Bondi frequently deflected questions, while supporters characterized her responses as forceful and direct.

The session also touched on the Jeffrey Epstein case. Several survivors of Epstein’s abuse were present. At one point, members of Congress asked whether they had sought information or engagement from the Department of Justice and felt they were being ignored; multiple survivors expressed frustration with the process. The Department of Justice has released millions of pages of Epstein-related materials, though many documents remain heavily redacted, and additional records have not yet been made public. The DOJ maintains that it has followed legal and privacy constraints in its disclosures.

The Department of Justice cannot logically claim to have released “every document” if millions remain unreleased. The DOJ has, in fact, released millions of pages related to Jeffrey Epstein, many of them heavily redacted, while acknowledging that additional materials remain under review or subject to legal constraints such as privacy law, ongoing investigations, or court orders. Critics characterize this as stonewalling; the Department frames it as compliance with legal limits. Both interpretations circulate in public debate.

Reasonable Americans who oppose Trump hope that controversies like this will persuade more voters to reconsider their support. That is a political judgment, not a settled fact.

As for global reputation: international polling over the past decade has shown that Donald Trump has been widely unpopular in many allied countries, particularly in Western Europe, Canada, and parts of East Asia. He is the most loathed person ever. Comparative global favorability data vary by region and time period. Some populations have viewed him favourably, particularly in certain countries and political subgroups.

U.S. global favorability ratings declined during Trump’s first term and rebounded during the Biden administration, according to surveys by organizations such as the Pew Research Center. It is also accurate that volatility in U.S. policy on trade, NATO, climate agreements, and tariffs has contributed to perceptions of unpredictability.

The United States maintains roughly 750 to 800 military sites overseas, depending on definitions and accounting methods. These installations often inject funds into local economies and serve strategic alliances. At the same time, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has expanded its economic footprint across parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, offering infrastructure investment as a form of geopolitical influence.

U.S. midterm elections could shift congressional control, affecting legislative oversight and executive constraint. Structural reforms—such as changes to campaign finance laws, voting access, districting practices, or executive authority—are frequently proposed by scholars and policymakers to strengthen democratic resilience. Whether such reforms will occur depends on political will and electoral outcomes.

One structural reform people often propose is term limits for Supreme Court justices. At present, U.S. Supreme Court justices hold lifetime appointments under the Constitution. Clarence Thomas has served since 1991, which means more than 30 years on the bench. Because justices can serve for decades—especially if appointed in their 40s or 50s—some scholars argue that fixed terms, such as 18 years, would regularize turnover and reduce the strategic timing of retirements. Advances in healthcare mean that a justice appointed in midlife could plausibly serve into their 80s or 90s. Whether term limits would require a constitutional amendment or could be structured legislatively is debated among legal scholars.

That is where the institutional conversation stands.

Jacobsen: Now, why do our hands and feet typically have five digits each? 

Rosner: The answer is evolutionary history, not deliberate design. Early tetrapods—four-limbed vertebrates that emerged from lobe-finned fish roughly 360–390 million years ago—experimented with different numbers of digits. Fossil species such as Acanthostega had more than five. Over evolutionary time, the five-digit, or pentadactyl, limb became the dominant pattern among most land vertebrates.

Five digits are a stable developmental arrangement produced by conserved genetic pathways, including Hox genes that regulate limb formation. It is not that five is mathematically optimal; it is that this pattern proved workable and became evolutionarily entrenched. Mammals, reptiles, and birds inherited variations of this structure. In some lineages, digits were reduced—horses evolved a single dominant toe forming a hoof; birds fused and modified digits for wings; dogs and cats walk primarily on four weight-bearing digits.

In humans and other primates, the five-digit structure, combined with an opposable thumb, supports fine motor control. The opposable thumb allows precision grip—holding a pen, threading a needle, manipulating tools. That feature is more decisive for dexterity than the sheer number of digits. Adding many more digits would increase neural and muscular complexity without a clear adaptive advantage. Evolution tends to modify what already exists rather than redesign from scratch.

Raccoons, rodents, and other mammals retain five digits because they descend from the same ancestral template. They use them differently depending on the ecological niche. Elephants, for example, have five toes embedded within a padded foot, though externally they appear columnar; their trunk compensates as a highly dexterous organ. Horses rely on a single hoof for efficient high-speed locomotion. Different environments select for different modifications of the same ancestral plan.

Five digits are not a cosmic rule. They are a historical inheritance that proved versatile enough to persist. Evolution is conservative: once a structure works, it gets repurposed rather than reinvented.

Jacobsen: Why are we so debilitated when we lose a sense? 

Rosner: The short answer is that our sensory systems are not redundant luxuries. They are tightly integrated calibration tools. Vision, hearing, balance, touch, proprioception—each feeds continuous data into the brain. Remove one, and the whole predictive model the brain uses to navigate the world becomes noisier.

Watch a dog losing vision. Frida is a terrier—high agency, high confidence. As her eyesight declines, she bumps into furniture, hesitates before jumping onto a couch, and loses trust in her own movements. A calmer dog might adapt more quietly, but an assertive one feels the loss. She compensates—tracking treats by sound, using motion cues—but it is partial compensation. The nervous system can reorganize, but it does not simply replace sight with “super-sight” from the other senses.

That is where the superhero myth collapses. In Marvel’s Daredevil, Matt Murdock’s other senses combine into a cinematic version of vision. Real neuroplasticity is powerful, but it does not grant a literal visual overlay. Blind individuals often develop sharper auditory localization or tactile acuity, yet they still face real constraints. The brain reallocates processing power; it does not conjure new physics.

Jacobsen: Why do we not have tougher skin or harder bones?

Rosner: Evolution is a trade-off, accountant. Bones are made primarily of calcium phosphate in a collagen matrix. That combination is strong, lightweight, and repairable. Make bones much harder, and they become brittle; increase density, and you increase metabolic cost. Biology optimizes for “strong enough,” not “indestructible.”

Humans also evolved less body hair than many mammals. Several hypotheses exist: thermoregulation during endurance hunting, parasite reduction, and sexual selection. Clothing later supplemented what fur once provided.

You mentioned whether our bodies “need” to be tougher. The deeper answer is that evolution favours reproductive success over durability. Humans invest heavily in offspring—decades of care. That long dependency period likely intensified social bonding and sexual selection pressures. Traits that enhanced cooperation, attraction, and pair-bonding could outweigh brute physical armour.

We are not built like tanks because tanks do not reproduce well. We are built like negotiators with fragile skeletons and very large brains. Evolution selected for flexibility, cognition, and social complexity over raw toughness. Biology rarely chooses maximum strength. It chooses a workable balance.

Human bodies have changed in ways that reflect both biology and culture. Compared to other primates, humans are relatively hairless, have more visible secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts, and commonly engage in face-to-face sexual behaviour. Some anthropologists propose that reduced body hair may relate to thermoregulation, parasite reduction, or sexual selection. The idea that certain traits became more pronounced because humans could rely on clothing and tools for protection is plausible, but evolutionary explanations are usually multi-causal rather than driven by a single factor.

Indeed, our skin and bones are not optimized for resisting bullets or high-velocity trauma. Evolution selected for mobility, metabolic efficiency, and reproductive success—not armour. In modern societies, protection comes from technology: body armour, reinforced vehicles, and other engineered systems. Future biomedical or materials innovations could improve injury resistance, but embedding ballistic materials under the skin or genetically engineering “bulletproof” humans remains speculative and would involve major trade-offs in weight, flexibility, healing, and energy demands.

The idea of making humans “bulletproof” by making consciousness replicable or downloadable is, at present, science fiction. Neuroscience does not yet understand consciousness well enough to copy, store, or transfer it independently of a living brain. Brain–computer interfaces can decode limited signals, and digital preservation of memories through data is routine, but full mind uploading is hypothetical.

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.

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

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