Ask A Genius 1378: Joan Rivers, Shock Comedy, and P(Doom)
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/15
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.
In a humorous yet reflective exchange, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss Joan Rivers’ legacy, the nature of shock comedy, and a vampire-porn family rom-com idea. The conversation pivots to “P(Doom)”—the shifting probability that AI could end humanity—highlighting ongoing concerns among leading AI researchers about existential risks.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In Gilbert Gottfried’s memory, what is your opinion of the fabled bat-containing, unicorn-having, mythical Joan Rivers’ vagina?
Rick Rosner: [Laughing] What are you saying?
Jacobsen: What are your thoughts on Joan Rivers? He roasted her.
Rosner: She was a pioneer. No question. In her later years, sure, she got hacky. Some of the stuff leaned heavily on shock value. However, she was still clever—a lot of the time. She had timing. She had instincts. However, yeah, she would also lean hard on cheap laughs sometimes.
That whole tone—shock comedy, taboo-breaking—gave me an idea for a high school rom-com. Hear me out: it is a romance between a vampire and a kid from a family of porn stars and producers.
They are both outcasts. The vampire—obviously—has to keep a low profile. Cannot go out during the day. Lives on the fringe. Glamorous but also tragic.
And the kid? He is a pariah in his own way. Everyone knows his family. They are like the living version of The Aristocrats joke. His aunts, uncles, cousins—all in the business. Hardcore, wild stuff. Nothing illegal. Just… a lot.
So he is a weirdo, too. Everyone assumes he is into stuff he is not. He is stuck between the worlds of shock and shame. Moreover, these two—vampire girl, porn family boy—they meet, and it works. There is this connection in exile, this tension between visibility and secrecy, control and chaos.
That is all I got. I have got to run.
Rosner: We could talk about P(Doom) because we have not yet gone into that. We have talked around it, but not throughit.
Jacobsen: P(Doom)? Like zombie doom?
Rosner: No—P(Doom) as in Probability of Doom. It is a thing. Every few months, someone asks all the prominent AI thinkers—Hinton, Bengio, LeCun, Hassabis, Russell, et al.—what they currently think the probability is that AI will wipe out humanity.
Jacobsen: So you are saying it is non-zero and non-100%.
Rosner: Yes. Everyone seems to admit that there is a number between 0 and 1 in their heads. Moreover, if that is true, P(Doom) is a constantly shifting variable, not a binary outcome.
Jacobsen: And then P(Doom) becomes a derivative of P₀(Doom)—the initial probability—assuming no certainty.
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