Ask A Genius 1575: Merging, Understanding, and the Limits of Belief

In this conversation, Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen examine whether humans can maintain meaningful understanding in an AI-driven world. Rosner argues that advanced intelligence will force people either to merge with AI or accept a diminished grasp of reality, comparing non-integrated humans to household dogs navigating a world they cannot interpret. Jacobsen responds that many communities—such as the Amish—function pragmatically within limited worldviews, even when those frameworks are false. Together, they discuss religion, pseudoscience, and functional ignorance, concluding that long-standing human tendencies toward siloed understanding will likely intensify as AI accelerates the pace of complexity.

Ask A Genius 1491: Gen Z’s Digital Dependence, Declining Sex Rates, and Future in an AI-Driven, Modified World

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss Gen Z’s deep reliance on digital devices, reduced face-to-face interaction, and declining sexual activity. Using the “hermit crab” analogy, Rosner suggests Gen Z feels vulnerable without phones but functions well in a tech-supported world. Data shows historic lows in partnered sex, masturbation, and romantic relationships among young people, driven by over-entertainment, anxiety, and social challenges. While this trend could lower birth rates and ease environmental pressures, it also raises economic concerns for consumer-driven capitalism. The conversation explores potential societal shifts, AI integration, and acceptance of future human modifications as adaptation strategies.

Ask A Genius 1396: Envisioning Diverse Paradigms of Future Computation

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner outline potential compute futures: dystopian “cruel” systems, protective “conservative” networks, uncompromising optimization turning everything into infrastructure, leisure-driven “endless fun,” passive “idiocracy,” market-driven “capitalist,” adaptive “contextual” orchestration of CPUs, GPUs, QPUs, and speculative “Darwinistic” evolution where compute outlives humanity, cost, time, and energy efficiency optimization.

Ask A Genius 1394: Swear Words, Utilitarianism, and AI Ethics: A Deep Dive

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Rick Rosner in a wide-ranging conversation starting with swear words and diving into utilitarianism, longtermism, effective altruism, AI ethics, simulated consciousness, moral uncertainty, and capitalism. Rosner critiques modern frameworks, explores future consciousness, and calls for ethical clarity amid rapid technological change.

Ask A Genius 1390: AI Sex Robots, Ethical Dilemmas, and the Rise of Machine Agency: A Deep Dive from Berlin to 2035

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss Berlin’s controversial AI-operated “cyberbrothel,” raising urgent ethical questions about consent, violence, and societal norms. They explore future scenarios involving conscious AI sex robots, examine agency and emergent personhood, and reflect on humanity’s diminishing ethical control as AI intelligence accelerates beyond human comprehension.

Ask A Genius 1367: What are rising social awareness and global leadership changes?

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Rick Rosner about the nature of therapy, particularly couples counseling. Rosner shares his extensive experience in therapy, noting the importance of unbiased therapists. He reflects on the complexity of discussing current events, like the Israel-Palestine conflict, within therapeutic environments, recognizing the emotional weight it carries for many, including American Jews. Rosner expresses frustration over politicization in counseling and stresses the need for impartiality. He relates this dynamic to personal communication challenges with his wife, emphasizing the role of therapy in fostering constructive dialogue about personal and external issues, including political tensions, without ideological bias.

Ask A Genius 1190: Is there more to it, or no?

*Interview conducted in November, 2024.* Rick Rosner: So, naturally, I think that Big Bang physics is a theory that has not entirely caught up with observation. Everything is relatively new. Essentially, everything we know about the universe has been learned in the last 100 to 120 years. The farther away a galaxy is, the more …

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Ask A Genius 1182: Follow the River Where the AI Lead

*Interview conducted in November, 2024.* Rick Rosner: Let's ask ChatGPT: "What are three significant technological advances expected within the next five years?" Scott Douglas Jacobsen: That’s a reasonable way to phrase it. "What are three significant technological advances expected within the next five years?" Responses include widespread adoption of artificial intelligence and automation, breakthroughs in …

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Ask A Genius 974: “Her” by Spike Jonze

Rick Rosner: In the Spike Jonze movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his phone’s operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Spoiler alert, but the movie is already nine years old? I believe it was released in 2015. One of the factors leading to their separation is that the operating system becomes increasingly frustrated with …

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