Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let's examine the concept of enshittification—a term popularized by Cory Doctorow and applied to recent technological developments, particularly social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. These companies start by attracting a large user base with attractive deals and free services, burning through venture capital during their initial, money‐losing phase. They quickly …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How many parameters do you think the human brain's language model works off of? In artificial neural networks, a parameter is typically a single numeric weight. The human brain has roughly 80 to 100 billion neurons, each with thousands of synaptic connections. Rick Rosner: Suppose you treat each connection as a parameter. …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1262: Encoding Information and AI
Rick Rosner: Imagine you're talking to two guys in chat one-on-one. One of them mentions talking to Claude, the latest version of that model. How do you compare GPT‑4 to Claude in terms of quality? What did it say to you? GPT‑4 from OpenAI and Claude from Anthropic are two advanced language models with unique …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did we discuss enough about how parenting has changed and will continue to change as our culture shifts dramatically? That's a significant issue. Rick Rosner: Throughout history, someone has always had to explain to a child who has reached sexual maturity how sex works, whether it's their first experience or not. But …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1260: Messaging, Culture, and Sex
Rick Rosner: Dave Chappelle gave the longest monologue in the history of SNL tonight and received a standing ovation. He mentioned regretting some of his past remarks—perhaps those made during the Trump era. I wish him luck and hope he gives the historically disenfranchised a fair chance. I also remember a snippet where he praised …
Rick Rosner: Okay, here goes: Think about how we are made of gossamer forces, yet torn apart by the wimpiest of a star's core, which had to exert immense pressure and heat sources. To form a nucleus containing more than a single hydro and heat. Once assembled, the nucleus attracts electrons held in place by …
Rick Rosner: Since we started talking, the diamond business has been entirely disrupted. You could make quarter-carat or half-carat diamonds in pressure chambers, which was when we first discussed this. But now, new technology lets you create flawless diamonds of arbitrary size for almost no money. There's even an alphabetic scale for the colour of …
Rick Rosner: Carole and I were watching the "Greatest Portrait Artist Competition" in England. In this show, artists from around the UK compete in portraiture. Tonight's subject was the performer who portrays Dame Edna Everage—a renowned drag performer. Carol thought he had died because the show is from 2021; apparently, he suffered a fall in …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1256: “Greatest Portrait Artist Competition” and Falls
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I found an article in Mother Jones about AI becoming as powerful as human cognition by 2025 worth reading. The article is from 2013. The article was scaled up in search results somehow. Some parts of it could have been written ten years later. It uses Moore's law from 2013 to predict …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do you feel about Trump's first stint in office? Rick Rosner: Trump is, as usual, making much noise. He's taking harmful actions—although, on rare occasions, one might argue that not everything he does is disastrous. What I find most disconcerting about his first week in office (roughly six days) is that the …
Rick Rosner 