Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the near future of museums? Rick Ronser: Carole and I visited The Broad Museum in downtown Los Angeles today. It's not very large. We only spent about half an hour there because we didn't purchase tickets for the temporary exhibition. Instead, we viewed their permanent collection. My kid has worked …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1228: What is the near future of libraries?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How has the world changed since we started collaborating in the summer or fall of 2014? Rick Rosner: Smartphones became mainstream around 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone, though widespread adoption accelerated between 2010 and 2012. Life still feels normal in some ways, but what we accept as normal today vastly …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1227: How has the world changed since we started working together?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Hey, Rick, what would Jesus think of life today? Rick Rosner: Well, of course, he'd be astonished by all the technology. There wasn't much technology in the 1st century CE. At that time, the world population was estimated to be around 200–300 million, about 3–4% of today's population. Naturally, he wouldn't have …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What else should we do? You had Matt Gaetz’s' stuff come out. Rick Rosner: It was stuff people already knew, with some surprisingly additional numbers. I'll let you talk about that because I know nothing about it. All right. So Matt Gartz is a congressman from Florida who resigned because the …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let's start. Rick Rosner: You work for humanist publications and just interviewed a prominent humanist earlier today. So, how would you define humanism? Jacobsen: "Reason, science, compassion," you might say. It’s the shorthand: reason, science, compassion. So, it has a certain amount of overlap with existentialism. There can be an overlap with …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1224: Rick Takes Humanism to Task!
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: This is the reasoning system test brief. Rick Rosner: All right, here's my question. Let me know when you're ready. Hey, ChatGPT, humans haven't been acquitting themselves so well lately. How likely is it that future AI will assess itself as better able to make decisions about humans than humans? Jacobsen: …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1223: The Reasoning System Test 3
Rick Rosner: Switching topics: I’ve been thinking about pseudo-emotions and pseudo-consciousness in AI. These large language models are trained on data that’s the product of people — who are themselves conscious and have emotions. It seems like AI should, if not now, then in the near future, behave as if it has consciousness and emotions. I thought …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1222: The Reasoning System Test 2
Rick Rosner: Eight years ago, Trump got elected, and I thought that sucked, so I wanted to do something. I wanted to get involved in some way with politics, even though I’ve sucked at politics before. Also, sometime during the Trump administration, I hooked up with this Kevin guy who was pitching a series about …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1221: Rick’s Trump Distraction
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What do you say to people who say AI is going will be so disruptive that it will doom civilization? That it will destroy civilization. This is on the ChatGPT-01-preview: Concerns about artificial intelligence potentially disrupting civilization are shared by some experts, policymakers, and members of the public. While it is …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1220: AI on the Future Gone Super Bro, Broski
Rick Rosner: So, we're about a month away from Trump potentially taking office again, along with Musk and Ramaswamy—assuming they all remain allies until then. I consider myself a middle-of-the-road liberal. Probably 30% of Americans are more liberal than I am, and about 20% are more conservative. I'm right in the middle—not wildly or radically …
Rick Rosner 