Ask A Genius 1235: The Lord of the Rings and PodTV
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/01/08
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you ever watch The Lord of the Rings?
Rick Rosner: Parts of it—it puts me to sleep. Superhero movies do the same thing. I fall asleep for about an hour and 20 minutes, sleep for 10 minutes, and wake up refreshed, but still not caring about what I missed. It’s even worse with The Lord of the Rings. Do you like them, however?
Jacobsen: Yes. I appreciate them, especially knowing J.R.R. Tolkien’s sensibility came from his experiences in the trenches during World War I. You can see how he built that into the story.
Rosner: I tried starting The Lord of the Rings once or twice but have yet to get far. I wanted to push past five pages, but I never did.
Jacobsen: It’s an acquired taste.
Rosner: I do a lot of podcast- things on PodTV with people. I go on there with others; honestly, it’s a lot of yelling.
When I tell Carole, “I gotta go yell,” it’s because you must interrupt and shout to get a word in. It’s a free-for-all. We did a session today where AI came up, and we were early to worry about AI conversation. We discussed it eight years ago, but now everyone is discussing it to some degree.
AI and deep fake technology are all over the place, especially in the context of elections. It’s not that 80% of the content is AI-generated, but you don’t have to look far to find something suspicious. For example, Tim Walz went to a University of Michigan football game—maybe they were playing Wisconsin, I don’t remember—but someone yelled something at him as he left. There’s a video of him flipping the person off. It looked strange because, as someone who’s flipped off hundreds of people, I can tell you that a good flip-off is straightforward—you get your middle finger straight up. Some people have all their fingers down, but the pros get the adjacent fingers slightly raised to stand for testicles. That’s the master-level flip-off.
In the video of Walz, though, it looked off—his angle was weird, and the whole thing seemed doctored. MAGA supporters were saying it was real, but this guy was a schoolteacher, a coach, spent 12 years in Congress, and has been a governor for eight years. He’s not dumb enough to flip someone off in public. It’s unbelievable on its face. Then, when you look closely, his middle finger looks way too long. It’s fake.
Someone posted another video from a different angle showing the real moment. Walz was doing a “We’re number one!” gesture with his index finger. Someone used bad AI or whatever to turn his index finger into a middle finger, and it was a terrible job. Luckily, that’s the level of deep fake we’ve been seeing—nothing convincing. Plenty of fake accounts and bots are out there, but we haven’t seen any truly persuasive videos yet. We still have 33 days to go, though, so who knows?
Thankfully, we haven’t seen any convincing AI-generated videos of Walz or Harris saying something , “Yes, and then we’re going to kill all the billionaires,” which someone could technically put together. But no one has—yet.
Jacobsen: I don’t think we were wrong to be worried about AI back then, and the people who are newly concerned about it now are right to be worried. I’m sure there are a lot of misguided fears about AI—things that experts would tell you are silly to be afraid of—but there are also plenty of legitimate concerns.
Rosner: If you asked experts to estimate the probability that AI could end humanity in the next 20 years, I don’t think any of them would laugh and say, “Zero percent.” Everyone has some percentage in mind.
Jacobsen: Most people estimate the chance at around 10%, but it’s a legitimate worry if you’re not at 0%. One concern that comes to mind is when people start getting chips implanted in their brains regularly to help with neurological problems. For instance, Michael J. Fox has some device—maybe a pacemaker—implanted to assist with brain function, possibly in the pituitary or pineal gland. There’s some gland in the brain that deals with dopamine, and with Parkinson’s, which he suffers from, there’s a shortage of dopamine, among other things. Somehow, this chip helps regulate his malfunctioning dopamine system to work a bit better.
Rosner: Right, and people with cochlear implants—deaf individuals who can now hear—also have chips in their brains. There are even experimental cases of people with chips in their eyes. Your eyes are essentially extensions of your brain, after all.
Jacobsen: Yes, they used to be part of brain tissue in early development, which then evolved into eyeballs. So, several people with chips are already implanted in their brains. But imagine the speculation when it comes to high-profile figures Biden. A persuasive theory I’ve heard is that he might have neuropathy—specifically peripheral neuropathy, which causes constant pins and needles or numbness in the extremities. If his feet feel they’ve fallen asleep all the time, it would explain why he walks gingerly; he’s not getting feedback from his feet.
Rosner: That’s plausible. Some say he has Parkinson’s, but the White House has denied it, and I tend to believe they wouldn’t lie about it, especially this White House. But hypothetically, if Biden had Parkinson’s and they implanted a chip in his head, imagine the lunatic fringe saying, “How do we know China is not controlling him?” It sounds ridiculous now, but in 10 to 15 years, that could be a legitimate question.
Jacobsen: Exactly. Fast forward to when someone ice Gorsuch is 79 and still on the Supreme Court, but he has some mental issues. Let’s say they implant a sophisticated chip in his brain connected to an advanced processor via Bluetooth or something. At that point, it would be a legitimate concern to ask: are Gorsuch’s thoughts truly his own, or are they being influenced by his information processing system?
Rosner: Yes, when people augment themselves—whether to fix a neurological deficiency or enhance their cognitive abilities—it raises serious questions. Are their thoughts and decisions still their own, or are they being influenced by technology? It’s a real concern that we’ll face sooner or later.
Jacobsen: Exactly, and while we might be a long way from fully controlling someone’s mind through these chips, the idea of subtly influencing or massaging certain patterns of thought is feasible, even if it’s still far off.
Jacobsen: Well, 20 years—it depends on whether you consider 20 years far away. With the current rate of progress, yes, that might feel far off.
Rosner: Still, I hope we’re both around in 20 years to watch how this all plays out. It’ll be interesting.
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