Coffee With Scott Adams — Knowledge Archive May 24, 2026
Scott Adams Philosophy Archive
Search ideas
Episodes Episode #2841 Segments
MainContent AI & Technology

Back to episode — Episode 2841 CWSA 05/16/25

Context —

y're thinking when they answer the question? So that would be yet another reason why you can't trust the polls on any of this. But here's what I do think. I think the opinions in the region would be so far all over the place that if you propose any kind of two-state solution that even the people who said they were in favor of it would be opposed to it because of the specific way you said you want…

← Previous segment →

about this week is that it could come up with some algorithms that we couldn't come up with? And then I say, what would be those algorithms? And how are those changing the world? Well, AlphaEvolve, I guess that's the flavor of AI that's doing this, came up with more efficient algorithms for several kinds of computations. Several kinds, I say several kinds, not just one, several kinds. For example, it came up with a method for calculating that involve matrices that are a better method for calculating matrices. And it's better than the Strassen algorithm that has been relied on for 56 years. So how good do you feel about that? I tell you for 56 years I've been relying on the Strassen algorithm to calculate my matrices and the whole time I was, well there's got to be a better way. Does anybody have a better and sure enough AI came up with a better way to calculate your matrices better than the Strassen algorithm. It improves the computational efficiency by reducing the number of calculations required to produce a result. So that's not nothing.

Does it feel to you like all the little hints are suggesting that AI may be reaching some kind of a limit that we weren't expecting? Now the next level of AI, you know, where it's super AI and AGI and all the whatever we're thinking is that next level. That really depends on us inventing things we don't know how to invent yet. How long does it take to invent something we don't know how to invent? Remember I told you the other day that the estimate for when we would have humanoid robots that could live in your house and you just tell it, "Oh, I've got a new task for you. You've never done this before, but here's how you feed the dog." And then it would just watch you do it. And I go, "Oh, okay." We're not really close to that because you've never seen that even demonstrated, have you? Let me give you the demonstration of apparently what is the best our current AI can make a robot do. If you're just listening to this, this is me dancing like jazz hands. Do you think it's a coincidence that every time we see a demo, it's doing something that you wouldn't need at all? Are you going to buy the dancing robot or the robot that can do back somersaults or the one that can carry a predetermined size box into a predetermined size place and not much else? And then you saw some estimates that maybe it'll be two or three years before you buy a humanoid robot that can just do stuff around the house. Two or three years doesn't suggest that we have current technology that can do it. That's not just tweaking it for two or three years until it works. That really depends on inventing something that we haven't invented. So I'm pretty skeptical on this whole AI thing. I think we may be approaching a plateau, but you know, that could change in a minute if somebody's invented something new.

Well, are you watching the Supreme Court conversations? Let me try to explain the Supreme Court situation because you're not all lawyers and you don't have the deep understanding of law and the Supreme Court the way I do with my complete lack of experience in that domain. But apparently somehow, let me just say this in case you can't pick up the sarcasm. There's nothing I say about the Supreme Court that you should trust. It's really complicated at the moment. So apparently there are two questions. Birthright citizenship and then the universal injunction thing. That's the thing where a federal judge who in theory would be in charge of some small part of the country would make some kind of ruling that says the entire country can't do this thing. Now, it's been applied to a lot of the executive orders from Trump. So all you need to do is get some lefty judge to say, "Oh, yeah. I give you an injunction so that nowhere in the country can you do that." And then of course the people who are normal say why can this one judge who's only in charge of this little slice of the country tell the entire rest of the country what it can and can't do.

Now both of these questions you'd think would be good questions for the Supreme Court. But for reasons I don't fully understand, the only way to get it in there was to jam them together and talk about how birthright citizenship had been blocked with a universal injunctive relief. So it would cause the Supreme Court to have to deal with both issues in ways I don't quite understand. So I listened to a bunch of the arguments. I didn't understand a damn thing I heard. Did anybody have the same experience? You know, some of you might be lawyers, so you understood it. But I didn't understand any of it. And I don't understand how they can just staple these two items together and take them both to the Supreme Court and expect that you're going to get some kind of answer to them individually. Don't get it at all. Absolutely baffled by the whole thing.

But the smart people, the people who know way more than I do and Politico has some writing by Josh Gerstein and Hassan Ali Kanu. They're saying that the birthright part is getting a frosty reception, meaning that don't expect the Supreme Court to come up with any ruling that says that birthright citizenship will go away or be limited. So it looks like maybe both the lefty and the righty parts of the Supreme Court are just saying, "Hey, we got precedent. We got clear writing in the Constitution. We're not going to change it." But the situation of the judges that are making these broad rulings that affect the whole country, there does seem to be some wiggle room on that one. So we don't know. You know, it's too early to know how anybody's going to vote, but there's a possibility that when they're all done, nothing about birthright citizenship, which is you get to be a citizen if you're born in this country, probably nothing about that will change. But the idea that a judge can, a federal judge in one part of the country can do something that affects the whole rest of the country, there might be some changes coming in that domain, but that's speculative at this point.

Well, as you know, Trump's big beautiful bill is getting ready for the prime time. They're still marking it up and playing with it, but basically they've got the bill kind of close and I think Trump's kind of happy with it. But Rand Paul says, quote, "It will be a record for Congress to raise the debt $5 trillion, but also it indicates that this year the deficit will be over two trillion, but it means they're anticipating close to three trillion for the next year." So Rand Paul is questioning the raising the debt ceiling by 5 trillion and especially in the context of DOGE was supposed to save us all this money but we don't see anything like that. We don't see anything that looks like a DOGE saving. Where is it? What happened to it? Did we go through all that for nothing? And Paul says, he summarizes it by saying, "It's really a slap in the face at those of us who were excited about Elon Musk and DOGE and all the cuts." Well, that's me. That's me. I was excited about Elon Musk and DOGE and all the cuts, and I consider this bill a slap in my face. I feel insulted. Literally insulted.

And let me just put it this way. Congress had one thing that they had to get right. We'd like them to get everything right, but they had one thing they needed to get right, which is not to spend us into a certain death. And those Republicans, I'm only talking about you Republicans. You came up with a bill that will spend us into oblivion. And you know it. You know it. And you're doing it right in front of our faces. Am I insulted? Yes. Can I support Republicans when they're doing this right to our face? No. No. I'm out. I am so out. You need to at least put a little effort into it. Don't try to shove this up our asses one more time. Do you think you didn't get the message that the public is done with this? We're so done with this. Go back. Take five or 10% off or whatever you need to do. It's going to hurt.

Here's the problem. We have

Context —

a goal which is to have fiscal responsibility. But we don't have a system that can ever get that for us because the problem is that if any politician cut anything enough to make a difference, they would not get reelected. So we shouldn't be surprised that the people who are in the system that they will be punished to do the right thing. They will be punished. They will be punished if they do the r…

Next segment → →