During a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience with guest Cheryl Hines, Rogan touched on the topic of artificial intelligence and its potential impact on society.
Rogan expressed concern about AI’s disruptive potential across all aspects of life. “There’s not a real good road map that I’ve seen where AI is not completely disruptive in every aspect of our life,” he stated during the conversation.
He acknowledged that some proponents, including Elon Musk, believe AI could increase productivity to the point where “no one will have to work anymore and you’ll have what they call universal high income.” However, Rogan identified a fundamental problem with this scenario: “What do people do with their time?”
Rogan emphasized the importance of work to human identity and fulfillment. “So many people really identify with whatever they do as a job,” he explained. “People like being good at something, right? If you’re the guy that, you know, if there’s something going on, you need something fixed and you go to Henry. Like Henry loves the fact that Cheryl calls him up because she knows that he knows how to fix things.”
He compared the potential impact of AI displacing workers to a fundamental structural problem: “What do we do with Henry when Henry loses his job? We say your job’s useless. You’re basically like a guy who owns Blockbuster Video.”
Despite his concerns, Rogan presented an optimistic perspective on what universal high income could mean. “If that was the case, the real positive aspect is you wouldn’t have to work for your basic needs and what you could decide to do instead is pursue something that you’re really interested in,” he suggested.
He continued: “Why do we need to just work all day? If you’re a laborer, is that really the only use of your time? If you’re doing it for food, I get it. You’re doing it for housing, I get it. It’s a good job. It’s a solid, honest way to make a living. But if you don’t have to do that anymore, and then you just get money from the government and from whatever income AI is generating, wouldn’t you rather play soccer or go do this or whatever your thing is, painting, whatever your thing is?”
Rogan also discussed the possibility of AI assuming governmental functions. He acknowledged that AI could, in theory, eliminate corruption and make society more efficient.
“That’s the real scary thing about AI. AI is going to come along and be logical and say, ‘Let us handle this. You guys aren’t good at this,'” he warned.
Hines agreed, asking, “I think they’re doing that now.”
Rogan stated, “All this corruption, we could put a stop to it immediately through AI. Of course. We can make things very efficient.”
But that efficiency comes with a disturbing trade-off: the more AI is capable of controlling information and creating believable simulations, the harder it becomes for people to trust anything at all.
Rogan replied, “Jesus has to come back. Please Jesus. If you’re going to come back, Jesus, now’s a good time.”
He continued: “But if he came back, everybody like, ‘It’s AI. They think we’re dopes.’ If Jesus hovering over the Pentagon, please stop with this war. They’re like, ‘This is AI.'”
Hines understood immediately: “Nobody believes it.”
Rogan elaborated: “Yeah, that’d be the real problem. That’s going to be the conundrum. Jesus is going to come back when AI hits its full peak and no one’s going to believe.”
Hines concluded: “They’re going to go, ‘What?’ There’ll be a few, but then that’ll be really divided. It’ll be like three people and the rest of the world.”
When AI becomes sophisticated enough to fabricate convincing videos, audio, and experiences, the public may become so conditioned to doubt what they see that even a legitimate miraculous event would be dismissed as artificial.
