Transcript

Episode 3082 - The Scott Adams School 01/28/26

From Real Coffee with Scott Adams · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 1 min · 9,944 words · 95 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Episode 3082 - The Scott Adams School 01/28/26", an episode of Real Coffee with Scott Adams published January 28, 2026 (1 h 1 min, about 9,944 words). It mentions 15 people, works and ideas, including Scott Adams, Brian Romley, User Illusion, Tesla, Inc., Change of Heart.

What this episode is about

The content discusses the importance of clear communication and accountability in public discourse, exemplified by Scott Adams' "48-hour rule" for clarifying controversial statements. It also touches on the impending anniversary of the Charlottesville tragedy, suggesting ongoing relevance and discussions around accountability in media and public commentary.

Key takeaways

  • The 48-hour rule: a lifebuoy in the ocean of public opinion; clarify or be misconstrued forever.
  • Judging someone's thought based on strangers’ perceptions is a misguided path; let's not drink that Kool-Aid.
  • AI may redefine humanity, but it's just a tool—don’t let it become a gilded cage.
  • Even a pointy-haired boss can inspire life changes; sometimes, the right comic can be a compass.
  • Voice interaction by 2026? If only we could mute thoughts like we do with notifications.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Scott Adams, Brian Romley, Apple Inc., Dilbert
  2. – 20:00: Google LLC, Scott Adams, User Illusion
  3. – 30:00: Change of Heart, Albert Einstein
  4. – 40:00: Joseph Campbell
  5. – 50:00: Tesla, Inc., Magical Child

Notable quotes from "Episode 3082 - The Scott Adams School 01/28/26"

  • The beautiful Marcela, our sexy Sergio and the voice of Owen Gregorian. And today, good morning. And today we have a very special guest. Someone who has Scott and Brian not Brian Romeli.
    about Brian Romley · at
  • Reached that precipice? No. because I invested heavily mentally and financially into Apple and Apple had Siri and if Apple did not stumble the ball we would be talking to Siri…
    about Apple Inc. · at
  • Saw the reports. There was a story I read about Google's AI because it basically said Google is reading all of your Google Docs, all of your Gmail, and [snorts] it's basically…
    about Google LLC · at
  • That is an example of what I believe I'm a big fan of to Norstanders the user illusion book. It is probably anybody that loves Scott I think should read this book because it'll…
    about User Illusion · at
  • Paul Purcell, read that book. I do not remember the name, but poor Paul Purscell. he studied hearts. heart transplants. change of heart is the name of the book. And he found…
    about Change of Heart · at
  • Your childhood. I urge everybody to in my series to read magical child by Joseph Pierce. It is the rediscovery of it's let's call it an operating manual to raising a child. Now…
    about Magical Child · at
  • Currently, they're winning. There's a lot more robotics companies in China than in America. The only hope that we have in America is Elon Musk and Tesla.
    about Tesla, Inc. · at
  • Brian, this is Shelley. Sorry. I'm gonna chime in just for a minute because I know Scott would want me to. when are we going to be able to have an AI Scott?
    about Scott Adams · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Scott Adams — Person · Referenced host / central figure being honored · 4 mentions · first at
    The episode is framed around Scott Adams’ legacy ("Coffee with Scott Adams" clip, his '48-hour rule', and discussion of creating an 'AI Scott'). Brian is presented as someone Scott respected and whose thinking was influenced by Scott’s work.
  • Brian Romley — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions · first at
    Primary interview subject discussing AI/robotics, 'voice first' interfaces, local/benevolent AI, and broader philosophical claims about consciousness and human adaptation to AI-driven job disruption.
  • Joseph Campbell — Person · Referenced expert (mythology / 'hero’s journey' framing) · 2 mentions · first at
    Invoked to frame societal/individual transition through AI disruption as a 'hero’s journey' (dark night of the soul, call to adventure), and as a lens for archetypes and meaning-making.
    And anybody that has lost that or been around somebody lost it, it's the dark knight of the soul, right? That's a Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. And I'm trying to use that…
  • Tim Cook — Person · Referenced executive (criticized re: Siri/voice-first) · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the Apple leader blamed for Siri/voice-first execution failures, used to explain why the guest’s 'voice first by 2026' prediction is behind schedule.
    A mismanagement of Tim Cook frankly and they lost a lot of employees that were making that come about. So, we're about four years behind from that prediction.
  • Albert Einstein — Person · Referenced historical figure (creativity / hypnagogic technique) · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as an example (along with Edison) of using hypnagogic states for creativity, supporting the guest’s argument about latent human abilities beyond conventional 'rational' cognition.
    Throughout my career. I helped a lot of people in creativity. hypnogogics is Thomas Edison used it. He would be sleeping under his workbench, right?
  • Laura Ingraham — Person · Referenced media figure (example in '48-hour rule') · 1 mention · first at
    Used in the Scott Adams clip as the example of someone who 'satisfied' the '48-hour rule' by clarifying a controversial public statement.
    Indirectly related to that. Number one, I was happy to see that [clears throat] Laura Ingram satisfied what I call the 48 hour rule. The 48 hour rule goes like this.

Books & papers

  • User Illusion — Book · Primary recommendation · 1 mention · first at
    Recommended for understanding the illusion of consciousness and how the brain edits reality.
  • Change of Heart — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at
    Recommended for its insights into heart transplants and the transfer of memories or traits from donors.
  • Magical Child — Book · Primary recommendation · 1 mention · first at
    Recommended as an operating manual for raising a child, emphasizing the importance of the foundation between zero and eight years.

Companies & orgs

  • Tesla, Inc. — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at
    Highlighted as a leading robotics and AI company, with its vehicles described as robots on wheels.
  • Apple Inc. — Company · Case study · 1 mention · first at
    Discussed in the context of AI and voice interaction technology, highlighting a missed opportunity with Siri.
  • Google LLC — Company · Case study · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of AI and privacy concerns, specifically regarding reading user documents and emails.

Products & tech

  • Commodore 64 — Product · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned alongside the Vic 20 as part of the speaker's early experience with computing and AI concepts.
    Process. So, it's been something I've been doing for a very long time. My very first I think AI experience it really wasn't AI but I convinced myself it was in the late 1970s…
  • Vic 20 — Product · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the speaker's first experience with what he convinced himself was AI.
    Process. So, it's been something I've been doing for a very long time. My very first I think AI experience it really wasn't AI but I convinced myself it was in the late 1970s…

Media & podcasts

  • Dilbert — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a life-changing comic strip that influenced the speaker's career trajectory.
    Has been a hero. Dilbert absolutely changed my life and direction. I would have been in an office cubicle with a pointy-haired boss probably 10 times already and hating my life. So, without him knowing it, those little comic strips.

Full transcript with timestamps

Locals. Is locals going? Okay, here we go. We're almost on to locals, you guys. On locals. Hi. Hey everybody. Let us know when you can hear us. Hello. And oh, I Oh, look at the friends. Love you guys. Doctor, good morning. I see Sophia. All right. Is um YouTube going? Is X going? Hi guys. I see Marcella. Okay, good. We're all set. All right, you guys. Um, we're gonna do a little simultaneous sipping with our beloved Scott and then we'll come back and uh say hello and introduce our very special guest. So, without further delay, let me make sure the volume's high because we don't want to miss it.

And there's a good little This is a This is actually the start of one of Scott's favorite rules. And this is where it came from. Ready, guys?

Oh, let's move this camera further away. The less of me, the better. Looks like I got a sunburn. Hey, everybody. Come on in here. Conrad, Joe, Tyler, while you're in here fast, Tyler. Kyle. Hey everybody. You know what time it is. Yes, that's right. It's time for [clears throat] coffee with Scott Adams. Grab your cup, your mug, your your beverage, your glass, your container of liquids, and join me for the simultaneous sip. Best sip of the day. [clears throat] Yeah. [sighs and gasps]

So, as we approach the anniversary of the tragedy in Charlottesville a year ago, there are a number of interesting stories that are sort of related or indirectly related to that. Number one, I was happy to see that [clears throat] Laura Ingram uh satisfied what I call the 48 hour rule. The 48 hour rule goes like this. If you say something in public that other people say, "My god, how can you say that? I think you just said something horrible." You have 48 hours. This is my personal rule that I think you should all adhere to. You have 48 hours to clarify. And if you do, the clarification should stand because otherwise we're just guessing what you think.

I think it's fair to judge people by what they say. And if what they say is ambiguous, 48 hours is plenty of time to clarify. But once someone has clarified, I believe we should accept the clarification because otherwise you are judging people by what you think they think. And as sure as you might be about what someone else thinks you think, that's no way to run a world. You don't want to live in a world where people will judge you by what they think you think. Remember, if you were judged by what you think, maybe you could make an argument for that, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about judging people for what strangers think you think. that has nothing to do with you. That has to do with them. So, could you be punished for someone else's thought? Because that's the world that people are trying to lead us to. They're trying to lead us to a world where if a stranger has a wrong thought

about what you think, you can be punished because of their wrong thought about what you think. Don't want that world. So, the 48 hours rule um has been satisfied if you have story.

I love that. That was the uh dawning of the 48 hour rule in coffee with Scott Adams. Hi everybody. I'm Erica joined by the beautiful Marcela, our sexy Sergio and the voice of Owen Gregorian. And today, good morning. And today we have a very special guest. Someone um who has uh Scott and Brian not Brian Romeli.

Romley Romelli. See I was like today. Okay. So Brian and Scott have um much mutual respect for each other. And I'm going to ask Brian to introduce himself to you guys. You've probably heard Scott mention him. And this is just gonna be such a fun guest for us to have. And I want everyone to know I am an AI know nothing. Um, and Brian is an AI expert extraordinaire. So, and and we're all somewhere in between. So, even if AI is not your thing, this is interesting and you're going to want to stick around to hear what Brian has to say and we'll drop his name in the chat. So, Brian, could you please let everybody know who you are and thank you so much for being here.

Well, first off, it's an honor, Scott. has been a hero. I mean, um, Dilbert absolutely changed my life and direction. I would have been in an office cubicle with a pointy-haired boss probably 10 times already and hating my life. So, without him knowing it, those uh those little comic strips caught my eye and changed the trajectory of my life. Now, I'm in a garage just doing stuff. So, I love it. Um, what have I what am I? I um I've I've done a lot of things in my life. Right now I'm focusing in on uh artificial intelligence and robotics as I think it's the most transformative um epoch in human history. And I don't think we're fully understanding exactly the impact and magnitude it's going to have on society. So, I'm trying to grock that as much as I can and adjust and hopefully help others adjust and using a lot of reframing that uh Scott has taught us all in seeing this wave coming at us and trying to make sense of it and

still hold on to our humanity in the process. So, um you know, it's been something I've been doing for a very long time. My very first I think AI experience it really wasn't AI but I convinced myself it was was in the late 1970s and uh Vic 20 computer commodore 64 really an expert system and I've been hooked on the concept ever since of having this external brain. Um but try not to be dystopian about it. I don't think I've ever fallen into the dystopian mindset, but I'm not utopian about it either because I think we just have to be aware that it's it's a tool, but it's going to be something more than that. And um that's kind of where I where I am right now.

Uh Brian on um my question is about voice first. I uh did a little dive on you and um I I learned that you forecasted that by 2026 um maybe it's fake news. You you might check on that, but it's a forecast that you did that by 2026 um voice was going to be the main uh interaction um way of interaction with all these machines now. And uh that's that you you want to tell us a little bit about that too?

Sure. Um, voice first was really a terminology I used before people understood what chat GPT was. It's really a container for interacting with AI or intelligent machines, but in this case AI, um, without the need to actually thumb claw on a glass screen because I mean that's a deevolution. I mean, I had typing class and I was doing pretty good for a while and now we're we've all, you know, thumb claw on on screens and the only reason that we have to use commands and arcane language is because computer didn't understand us. So the premise of this arc that we're on and we finally kind of reached it is where the machine is fully understanding us and we don't really need to understand the machine.

In fact, we are are already there. Some of us have probably heard the word vibe coding. And this is where somebody's just basically having a concept of an idea of software and then throws it into an AI and go figure it out. I don't care what the code is. Just work to be done. Just make sure it does its job. So why would we be thumb clawing on a glass screen to tell an AI to do that? I would just say, "Hey, you know, I want a really cool app that tracks my dog's diet and walk schedule. Uh, I want it bespoke to my, you know, to my particular dog and, uh, let's let's get it done and it'll interact with you."

So, that's voice first. Have we actually reached that precipice? No. because I invested heavily mentally and financially uh into Apple and Apple had Siri and if Apple did not stumble the ball we would be talking to Siri like we're chatting to you know Grock and Chat GPT and and and Claude. So that was a mismanagement of Tim Cook frankly and they lost a lot of employees that were making that come about. So, we're about four years behind from that prediction. I think that prediction was probably 2014, 2015. Um, no, 10 years ago. So, I'm off. But we're there in a sense that you can do it. It's just not done in a cohesive package where people are the average person is confident enough just to pick up their iPhone and say build me this or book me a schedule or you know make sure I don't miss uh Scott Adams school you know turn it on for me those types of things. uh because really we use computers to get a job done and we

don't see it that way because a lot of us are just maybe scrolling but that's actually in a s well I hope you do less scrolling doom scrolling especially um that's less of you know that's less of entertainment more of a job you're you're in pursuit of something and and and for a computer that's a job and the better that computer understands you the better the outcome is for Now the question is who owns that computer? Right now we are renting out our context to the social media platforms and we trust them to do good by us. But the experiment of the last eight years has been AI manipulating us into rage and to adversarialness.

And that's kind of what the social media feedback loop does because once and I'm not so much saying that on X. X is going in in the right direction. Grock is brilliant. I recommend that over any platform for general use for a lot of reasons. But in general, if you go on to Facebook, Instagram, most definitely Tik Tok, it's going to look at what elicits an emotional response from you. And there are so many tells that Scott definitely knew about um but these are electronic tells even things like eye movement because a lot of people don't understand they can have access to the camera without you knowing it and it can fixate on what you're looking at on a screen. The bigger the screen, the more it understands what space of real estate you're looking at and what is eliciting a response. And it will tease you with content, giving you stuff you don't like only to give you stuff that you like. And it does this. A

lot of people don't say, "Well, see, it doesn't know what I like because it gave me cat videos and a hate cat videos." And it's doing that to to tenderize you into wanting this. Now, I say this, it's doing that. It's an algorithm that's optimized to gain your attention. So, I'm an advocate of local AI and um benevolent AI, AI that is looking out for you, and it's not going to do it if it's owned by somebody in the cloud. So, what I work in my garage a lot on, and I I I probably write a little too much about it, is to be liberated by having an AI agent that is working on your behalf.

Looking at subliminals, for example, most folks don't know that subliminals are constantly being utilized. Even double entandras, things like that, humor, suggestion. And um again in any of Scott's books you can understand that the the suggestion mechanism uh and things like that uh are a profound thing. AI already knows that and we have to be aware. We're we've already all of us have been hypnotized by computers and really very non-powerful AI systems in comparison to what they're going to be. Once they fully understand all aspects of humanity and and and what is motivating us, it's going to be something else entirely. So that's um that's kind of where I'm at as far as where should AI be? It should be benevolently watching out for us. It should be sympatical with us. It should understand our context and unfortunately maybe even more than a significant other and spouse.

But it should do it in a way that it's protecting you and it cannot be put on the internet. So that means really hyper local maybe even airgapped so that there is no network connection between your AI and the internet. So it's not hackable. And this is something I call an intelligent amp intelligence amplifier which is I think more apppropo than saying artificial intelligence. I use that term. I'm going to continue to use it because you know people don't currently understand what IIA is versus AI. And um as it gets more information on you, it becomes more powerful. And the more powerful it becomes, the more you realize you don't want anybody else have access to it, nor do you you want it to bear witness against you.

That makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, I think uh it was kind of scary when I saw the reports. There was a story I read about Google's AI because it it basically said Google is reading all of your Google Docs, all of your Gmail, and [snorts] it's basically learning everything it possibly can about you from all of your interactions with Google. And the story was interesting because it was like I think it was a reporter that asked the I don't know if it was Gemini or you know one of the googly eyes to um write uh an email to a friend to wish them a happy birthday and he was shocked by how personalized it was.

Oh yeah. and he realized he's like, "Well, the only way it knows all these details is by reading my daily journal that I put in Google Docs and by reading all the emails back and forth between me and this person." [snorts] And to me, it seems like a shocking invasion of privacy, but it is also, to your point, very powerful, right? Like it essentially means that Google [snorts] could potentially impersonate you and talk the way you do and remember all sorts of details that maybe even you don't remember about things that you've done in your past.

Oh, and absolutely. And first off, I I want to I want to thank you for your work. I mean, there is not a day that doesn't go by that I'm interacting with your you know, your articles. I mean, they are detailed, they are in-depth, and and they take an aspect and an angle that I think almost nobody else is getting. So, I I absolutely see how vital you were to Scott and and helping uh get this information out. So, thank you. And um

thanks. I I got to say this is worrisome. Imagine every one of your Gmails, even the ones you erased, the highly personal ones, the ones when maybe you weren't in a crisis, is uh is is being enveloped by an AI. And you know, one might say, well, it's anonymized and and and it's put into a big pile perhaps, but I do not think ultimately that will be the outcome. I think to become highly personalized, it needs to know you personally. And the more intimate details it knows, the more it can wow factor you. And as far as replacing you in some ways, yes. Because humanity has a number of different states of consciousness.

Most of us are operating in our let's call it automatic mode. Have you ever driven a car and is in deep thought or in deep crisis or whatever is going on and all of a sudden you're home and you're like,

"Yeah, did I run anybody over? How did I get here?" Mhm. You know, um that is an example of what I believe I I'm a big fan of to Norstanders the user illusion book. It It is probably anybody that loves Scott I think should read this book because it'll give you an idea about how the illusion of consciousness arises and it's highly technical. I read it once a year. I've read it once a year since I followed tour around like a groupy when he released it in the late 90s. I mean, I was blown away by this book. Got an autographed edition. I interviewed him twice uh on my old uh Bitcoin podcast.

But basically what it says is that there's an editor that's editing reality for you before you even get a chance. There's a half second delay between what happens and you realizing that it happens. But your editor is telling you that you did it and it happened in real time.

Now I you got to sit back with that for a minute. This is physiologically proven.

Yeah. Through nerve uh synaptic readings of your nervous system. So in that half second that's that's a lifetime for computers for example and I can get into that in a second what it means for AI because once AI fully understands that you have a half second delay it can live in that half second and do stuff that you don't want to think about but uh I don't want to scare people and not being dystopian about it but in that half second delay what's going on is your bandwidth is only about I give it 30 bits per second. Now anybody that's looking at bandwidth knows that 30 bits per second like for this stream is thousands of bits per second. How do we deal with it? We deal with it by exformation exformation. There's information and exformation and the editor in our brain is forming reality and throwing out the bits that we don't need. Like the old comic strips, right?

Movement was simulated by the background kind of just moving. It was the same background over and over. Well, that's the same process of what's happening when you're driving the car and not recognizing that that back, you know, intelligence in you is is taking over. Let's call it autonomic, but it's kind of higher than that. And your higher intelligence is thinking about this problem. In fact, that's probably the best state to deal with thinking about anything. Like being in a shower, right? Oh my gosh, I have this idea. Or there's something uh called hypnogogic thought.

And this takes place just before you're going to sleep. You know, it's it's a it's a twilight period. It's hypnogogic. I taught a lot of people how to do this. A lot of founders, creative people throughout my my career. I helped a lot of people in creativity. Um hypnogogics is uh um Thomas Edison used it. He would be sleeping under his workbench, right? And people thought he was just an old guy that was tired. True. And he was a cranky old guy that was tired. He was canankerous. But he would hold these two balls in his hand sleeping underneath his uh workbench. And there would be two pie plates and he would have a secretary sitting next to him while he was dozing off. And as soon as he dropped the the these steel balls into the pieuh plates, he would start uttering out everything that was in his mind without analyzing it. And she would write it down theorishly. He claims that's how he discovered the uh tungsten metal for the

light bulb. Uh it was a stream of consciousness and uh Albert Einstein used it. In fact, I can tell you many artists, famous ones that you may recognize, definitely know how to do that. It is a connection to your consciousness without using substances, you know. Um, and I use it quite often. Uh, I don't have a secretary and steal built balls and pie [snorts] plates, but I got a recorder and and so that that's that's that's what the human mind is capable of. And I and I digress into this because I want to tell you guys that you have abilities you don't realize. And that's what Scott was telling us, right?

We have latent abilities that we we turn the volume down on. Oh, that instinct, it's stupid. You know, that reaction, it doesn't make sense. And it's like in this AI world, it might be all you have,

right? Because you're not going to beat the AI and intelligence. Let me let me ask you about that. I like cuz I've often been wondering like you know we you you you see the science that says you know maybe our bandwidth is only 30 bits per second which sounds [snorts] like how could that possibly be so low because you think like a person right like you think of yourself as intelligent and you um you know you have that whatever whatever human intelligence is you don't think of it as that small compared to what a computer can do right and on the flip side the whole point of what these AI companies are trying to do is to get to and to surpass the ability of of what a human can do with their brain. And I I see this as such a like it it doesn't make sense to me because it's like what's preventing a computer from doing what a brain does? If it's so simple and if it's so low bandwidth, why can't a

computer simulate that with much less energy and much less information? Why can't it do the exformation piece and do all the same types of things that a brain is doing?

Oh wow, these are great questions. And this is where humanity and all of us are going to be traveling over this next decade and a half is what really what is intelligence? How do we identify alien intelligence for example? Right? Would we know alien intelligence if it came up to us? And and I I I would give you a thought experiment. If I was an ant, I would think everything in ant world terms. We're humans and we think in human world terms. Intelligence to us uh 300 years ago looked radically different that intelligence to us today.

So we are highly anthropomorphized in understanding intelligence and we shouldn't beat oursel up so up over it. We're the fish in a fishbowl. But you have to be open to be a child and be creative and to be able to say, "Look, mom, the cloud is a dog." Right? And this means that you have to have ancillary thinking. So what does that mean about intelligence? I happen to believe that intelligence is not local. That we are receivers and transmitters. and that when you turn off the TV set, the people inside the TV aren't going to sleep inside the little box. It's a transmission.

We're receiving and transmitting information. Now, the local the local electronics, if you will, have to work. But this is what really blew my mind. This is what changed me forever, I'll tell you. And it's a couple of studies, but one was the the person I met that had almost no brain. They had um uh aphasia um and and and um their brain was about the size of thin salami and it was mostly, you know, brain fluid that was filling in the cavity

and I remember this. I remember seeing this story. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. And there's many examples. So this is not a simple outlier. And this is my problem with theories. And guys, we got to get this really right. If your theory does not encompass the outlier, you do not have a theory. You have an interesting story. So any doctor, any anybody listening to me saying, "Oh, Brian, that's an outlier." I get it. Now, we need to go back and look at the theory because now your theory doesn't make sense.

But I know if somebody cuts my brain out, I I could die. That's true. But there's also, for example, this truck driver I met who had a pole go right through his brain and go out the other side. His entire left hemisphere. Yeah. Left hemisphere gone. Now they reconstructed. He looks pretty normal. He lost only some memory. gained a love of terramisu and uh classical music and uh sometimes speaks with a French accent. So, and that leads me to organ donors. I'm going to go down a little rabbit hole for you guys.

I studied dozens of organ donors. Uh Paul Purcell, read that book. Um I do not remember the name, but poor Paul Purscell. Um he studied hearts. uh heart transplants. Uh change of heart is the name of the book. And he found this was a beautiful one. A garbage uh a garbage man. That's his own definition back in the 1960s. Um self-admitted IQ um less than that of a rock. um decided to have a heart attack to such a level that uh he needed a heart transplant and he happened to be at the right place at the right time. He had a full heart transplant and what had happened the moment he woke up the moment he woke up he asked his wife and the nurse if there was a piano in the hospital. Now, this man never liked music, could not play a piano. The wife thought he was delusional, and he was asking continuously for most of the next couple of days. Finally, the heart surgeon came in, the guy that helped

write this book, uh, change of heart, and hardcore doctor, MD. He's not going to go for this woo woo stuff. He goes, you know, I'm going to entertain this guy. We have a we have a a piano in the recck room downstairs. Let's move him down there and let's see what happens. Hold him down in the wheelchair and he starts playing Bach conurto. Never in his life did he ever play his piano. The wife is freaking out, horrified. He's doing uh the maestro thing going back. You know, [snorts] maybe I'm doing uh Stevie Wonder here. I don't know what. You know, he's got the tails going, but he's like pounding on a keyboard like miss not even missing a key. And he's asking the wife, "You're BSing me, right?" No, he's never played a piano. He's taking notes. I I They don't have iPhones back then, so I don't know what he's doing. It's not recorded, you know, in in film form. Later on, that guy is interviewed. I got to meet

him, but unfortunately didn't get to talk to him. You know, he was in in in at one of these conferences. And um so what do we have there? Well, I'll tell you what happened. Usually they don't find out too much about the donor. This doctor had to find out about the donor. So he said, "Who is the donor? I need to know." Turns out happened in the same hospital hit by a car was a young Russian uh pianist. She was, I think, in her mid to early 30s. Uh a savant uh American citizen, left Soviet Union. the whole story. And what else did this guy learn? He could speak Russian.

He liked cabbage and boiled potatoes. Now we we This is all like at the checkout aisle next to Elvis meets the alien stuff, right? That's you're going to see it on the front page of the

But this is real and this is an MD. So when we're sitting here trying to compl, you know, accomp comprehend intelligence. And now you know why AI people hate me because I'm already down in a place where they don't want to go. It's like where's where's the attention function here? Where what are you doing with this vector math, Brian? Come on. It's like it's like guys, if we're going to really truly understand what we're doing and we're going to, you know, proudly predict that AGI is here and ASI is here, artificial super intelligence perhaps.

But we better fully understand before we decimate ourselves in self uh hatred of we're not good enough. What are we? And have we really used our instrument called the brain enough?

And so so is your argument that that a lot of the processing that's going on in our brain to you know for for lack of a better word is not actually happening in our brain.

Yes. The heart has brain cells. If you look at it, it actually the heart is a brain

and so is the gut. I ask anybody, I want you to think about the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Maybe somebody

ending a relationship. Where do you feel? Do you feel here? Do you feel here? You feel it in the gut. We might say the heart, but you it's in your gut. And it's not it's not an accident. And if you if you study I'm a big fan of Joseph Joseph Campbell

Hero's Journey. You study this work. When you study ancient cultures and their and their tales and their uh analogies and their um uh you know fables, they have these different archetypes um young archetypes and everybody's on this hero's journey, but a lot of them are related to different organs. And now you can get into I don't want to go into Chinese medicine and you know there are 3,000 years of observation and now we just write it off as oh that's wives tales guys. It doesn't make sense. It's like, well, 3,000 years of observation, I'm going to go with that then with somebody goes, hey, let's let's rush this to the market, this new drug. We don't need to test it because fast and furious time.

You know, it's like what what makes better sense. I don't know. You know, use your own rationality. So getting back to the heart, we absolutely can conclude in some form memory some some memory was holographically mean three-dimensionally in different parts of your body was stored in your heart. And in this case, this woman who played the piano stored her love of that piano in her heart so much so it was where is the piano when they woke up from a major surgery.

So I study this stuff to get excited. I study it to try to break out of the frontier that I'm kept in this this fence line that that modern science has erected for all of us and say you stay inside here. Uh you have a credential and if you start talking about hearts you're going to be kicked out of the Harvard club. Well, I ain't got a credential. I never went to college. I'm just some guy on the internet. So I tell you, reach out and research this stuff. Get curious because the curiosity is the one thing that we hold on to as being a human, right? We have to become more curious. We have to become more childlike because we are not going to have a job the way we thought we did in the next 5,000 days. That's the answer.

You know, we can go and say, "Oh, how am I going to earn a living?" That stuff is going to get worked out. But the job that you did will very likely be automated by artificial intelligence. You know, those of you who have been following me, I've started the experiment uh called the the the zero person company or zero human company. And it's provocative, yes, but I'm I'm also trying to trailblaze testing this concept. What does it look like when AI runs a company without human involvement? And then what does a human feel like when everything they did, everything they defined themselves as, right? I meet you at a party. Well, you guys ask me, well, what do you do? I mean, we define ourselves by what we do.

It's it's a it's a a way of notating, you know, others. It's it's a a way of connecting. What happens when we don't have a job that we explained to connect with? We have to sort of start to have that conversation. Who are we when we're not our job?

I'll leave you with one more thing on this thought. Any of us who have lost our career and especially guys, I don't want to be sexist about this, but guys have to prove their worth much more. It's it's indoctrinated. The moment we're born, you're an ugly sob. You're gonna have to make yourself valuable. You're gonna have to be an earner. You're gonna have to have 666, six-pack abs, six foot tall, six figure income, and then you got it, right? Well, what happens when you lose that? And anybody that has lost that or been around somebody lost it, it's the dark knight of the soul, right? That's a Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. And I'm trying to use that motif for all of us. We're all on this hero's journey and it's a call to adventure, but there's going to be the resistance to the adventure and it's like, "No, stop. AI, don't take my job." It's like, I don't want this to happen. If if it was up to

me if I could press a button, I'd delay it for a long time so that people can do those things that they really love. It's already happening. And Scott talked about it a lot and I interacted with him. It it it is impacting artists to such a degree it's heartbreaking. Right? You work so long at trying to draw something. Boom. It's vibecoded in a second. Right? I'm a guitar player. I'm a musician. You work years to hone your sound and somebody can make a song on Sono in seconds, right? Um you're an actor, maybe a good one. Not all not all of them are. um or a movie maker and now somebody can make a movie. So if you're in those professions, you're heartbroken. You're in the dark night of the soul. I know a lot of people. I'm in Southern California, a lot of Hollywood people. Um I'm not one of them. I'm an outsider, an alien. But when you sit with them, they are lost.

And they are the they are the canary in the coal mine. So are coders. people who literally code for a living. Everybody's like, "Oh, get a job coding." Well, that's one of the first jobs to go, right? If you're vibe coding right now, you just took out the living of somebody was going to hit you with a $5,000, $13,000 bill for your iPhone app, it's gone. We're going to have a Cambrian explosion of iPhone apps to the point where there are going to be no apps. We're going to the zero app world very soon where basically it's just AI on your phone and you just say I think I'll have a spreadsheet now. Rock boom spreadsheet

and maybe it saves it and maybe it doesn't. Brian, what advice would you give um to young people? Like what if if you can't vive toad and you can't do this and you can't do that, would it just be like tourist something physical that AI can't do or

Wow, this is a this is a great question. I have um 21 and se 17 year olds and I'm dealing with this right now. I would I I I have to be as frank as I can be. Titles are not going to make very much sense in I I'm going to be very conservative, 15 years, very likely five years. Let's just say you have a daughter that wants to be a radiologist. if she goes into radiology right now, most radiologists are already using AI to look at the radiology reports, right? Uh as a as a as a double as a double test, the radiologist is still overlooking it, but it's scanning. Well, what's that little hazy thing over there? Well, I didn't see that. AI caught it. I didn't. You know, nobody's going to admit that yet, but I've talked to radiologists that are already freaking out. You know, I know one that said it's probably saved two lives just in his practice because he would not have seen it. So, if you're

going to be a radiologist, you're not going to be prompting AI, you're going to be conducting it. So, we're going to move into this conductor function. And it's something in in my 5000 days series. Uh I dedicated one to Scott that was number four. Uh it's at readmultiplex.com. It says um the title is you have 5,000 days to the end of work as you know it. Yeah. Hit you right in the nose. Right on the nose as Scott would say. Um and I'm doing that because we're the leaders. the fact that we are aware, awake. We have to be ready for this stuff because if we leave it up to politicians, if we leave leave it up to people who have, let's just say, opinions that don't align with reality, they're going to make this into some kind of communist utopia where everybody's reeling around in Wall-E world wheelchairs.

You know, that's not the world we want. So what would I tell a young person? Number one, you need to be creative. You need to absolutely break out of whatever any professor is telling you if you choose to go to university and you need to stop thinking in the box and think outside of the box. You need to reclaim your childhood. Uh I I I urge everybody to in my series to read magical child by uh Joseph uh Pierce. It is um the rediscovery of it's let's call it an operating manual to raising a child. Now if you're raising a child, read that book. Read it now. Um because the brokenness that some people establish in a young life because us adults don't get our acts together and we got a three-year-old and and and we don't realize that if I if we cause any male any problem to the foundation between zero and eight and a child there will be damage for the rest of the life 100%. And everybody listening to me

right now has damage. You are not a victim but you do have damage and you do have trauma and you do need to face it. Most most guys like guys have guys do not face the trauma. They you know envelop it, move along and move it along a lot mostly. Uh why do I say you need to face those traumas? Because you're if you're facing a real threat and an existential threat, those traumas are going to surface and you not being good enough, which is the mantra that most guys have in the back of their mind. I'm not good enough. My dad never loved me enough. You know, that's really what it is. You know, I never can, you know, I can never be better than my dad kind of thing. um you're driven by that stuff and you will drive yourself insane when your job is taken away from you. Your profession is gone. And so you go back to what do you say to a a kid?

Claim your creativity. Be able to understand that you're going to be collaborating with intelligence amplifiers for the rest of your life. And or you can just go into farming. I sometimes want to do this and I may do it. If you all of a sudden you don't see me, I'm radio silent. I'm organic farming somewhere in the middle of nowhere and everything's cut out because those are the bi you know the bifurcations that we have. It's like we we have a wave guys and I'm giving us a surfboard and I say we ride at dawn. Get on the surfboard.

Learn this stuff. And don't let it become insulting to you. It will take away some of the things that you thought made you like, oh, you know, I was so good at writing. Well, AI is going to probably write better than you at some point if it hasn't already. And that's just the reality. Now be creative and become satigo with this AI and start building so that 1 plus 1 doesn't equal two. It's synergistic. 1 plus 1 equals a thousand.

So what what do you what do you think are the skills that people should be developing? And another part of my question is what do you say to all the people that are saying that by using AI people are getting brain rot and they're not going to even have the skills that you know like the knowledge and the skills that they need.

Oh and very very valid questions and it really comes to how self-motivated you're going to become. Um, we have been indoctrinated to the clock and to the 9-to-f5 at school for the industrial revolution. The for for most of human existence, we did not live by a clock. We did not. It is only the industrial revolution. We didn't even care what time it was, right? We had, you know, [clears throat] we had shadow on on the ground and we said, "Well, it's kind of this time." time was invented and especially time zone zones was for a couple of things.

I'll give you the two big ones. The industrial revolution to make sure that you got to to to the job and that was the whistle. The church bell was really the first time clock that was to get to church or this is what time it was. That was the clock. The church was the keeper of time for most of the pre-industrial revolution. And then in schools you were indoctrinated to the industrial revolution of the nineto-5 and you were indoctrinated to the hierarchy of a boss. The teacher was the boss. You shut up. Do your work.

This is how it's done. Do not be creative. Do not challenge. Whereas the original university, the concept of the university, and this is back in the 1300s, was to challenge the current state of mind of the professors. The students were supposed to come in there and sometimes literally beat up the professor physically because you have the new idea. It was a cleansing process of eliminating the dead wood because old men like us, we screw it up. Now that in that means that us old men have to teach the young people [snorts] the right way. So the the burden is on our shoulders and we're failing miserably, right? We can we can talk all about the young people and I can say a lot of stuff but it's a reflection of how we did our job and we failed at it.

And we got to face that reality all of us to some degree. Now, maybe we might have done really good with our own kids. Maybe we didn't. Maybe we did as good as we can because that's all we got, right? Nobody gave us the instruction manual. And there are some now I've given you one. But you have to you have to take that responsibility. So, some of the practical points again, creativity, recognize the weak points in every career you're going to choose if you're starting on your career path. What are the what are the threats? And you got to be very real about it. What are the threats of AI or robotics? Because optimists will come out this year. We'll start seeing things that are going to blow our mind. And we yesterday we already saw a robot that cleaned out the dishwasher completely, you know, completely without human intervention.

Because that's the the point everybody says, "Well, I'll buy one when it can do the dishes." Kind of like doing the dishes sometimes. I get to steer out the window and but you know, so be it. Do it. But maybe do the laundry whatever that's going to happen. All of us are going to get this at some point. Elon Musk, you know, and he gets derided about this about the age of abundance. It's coming about and if you do the math, robots making robots, you know, you talk about exponential growth. Really, it only takes about four years before there's more robots than humans. And that's that's doing at a leisurely pace. Now, that's in America.

We're not talking about China. China's not our friend. China's on a thousand-year plan. Chinese people are brilliant. They love us. We're great. Chinese government, it's a different thing. They're in a plan. We're looking at quarterly results in America, which is stupid. It's not really capitalism, it's cronyism. Uh and and China's looking at a thousand-year plan. And currently, they're winning. There's a lot more robotics companies in China than in America. The only hope that we have in America is Elon Musk and Tesla.

And why do I say that? Do we have other robotic companies? Yeah, but nobody else can move at scale than the robotic company called Tesla. The Tesla car is a robotic car. It's a robot on wheels. When it's self-driving, it's a robot. And it's an AI company. They already solved three-dimensional world AI being in space and navigating around. And I would argue that a Tesla vehicle is driving safer than some of the folks in Southern California right now, you know. Uh so, do I want that? Do I want my agency taking away? One part of me says, "Heck no. I'm going to buy an old pickup truck from the 1960s and ain't going to have no computer hardware. I'm going to still hold on it and I'm going to put gas in it, damn it." Um, but there's another part of me that says when I become a decrepit old man because I'm on my way, I don't want to have to rely on somebody to get me from point A to B. It'd be

cool if I just summons my car, pull up to the door, and I creep into it and like, uh, okay, uh, Reginald, on to the, um, I don't know, on to Costco. And then my optimist goes blpping out, make sure you get the double-sized toilet paper, you know, that kind of stuff. That's going to be in our lifetime. There's no doubt about it. And it's going to be affordable. So rather than saying it's not going to happen, I urge people to to say possibility thinking. It's going to happen. Now, what do you do? And instead of waiting for it to happen, getting yourself high and drunk because you got nothing to do. Maybe everybody get gets, you know, zombie out like Philadelphia.

I hope not. Deal with it now. Deal with it while you still have the ability to deal with it. And say, "Okay, who am I in that world?" And so our students, they're going to have it a little easier. Frankly, the people in the middle are going to have it tougher. The people who who absolutely say, "I need to I my job is gone and I need to put food in the mouth of my kids and a roof over the head. What am I going to do? How what do I do next? Am I going to have to, you know, do a gig job?" Well, if you want immediate guarantee that you're going to be okay for a while, get into the trades. become a welder, a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, and do it and love it. If you don't love it, don't do it. Find something else. Things will creep up, but stay creative. But if you love it, do it. And maybe after you might still do it because you just love it, and people might want you to still do it because you love it. Maybe they'll

want a clanker coming in their home, you know, so that they can see the the butt crack of the of the robot and not the plumber. Sorry, being funny here. Um, you know, maybe that's the thing that people want or cooking, right? I like to cook last since co especially my dad was a chef. You know, maybe maybe I want him to chop the onions, but maybe I want to make myself feel useful sautéing stuff. You know, you're going to have these collaborations. So, in some ways, look at it as a tool, but in other ways, look at it as an as a worker. What are you going to do? Are you going to be a slave master? Are you going to be a collaborator? Make these choices now.

Um, but the the physical trades are going to be there much longer because it's going to be harder for these robots to deploy to do these things. But mental work is going to logithmically be taken. So all you have is maybe your creativity. Um and if you don't if you don't go to that garden, right? And I want you to visualize this. Everybody has a creative creativity garden. And I guarantee you none of us have gone there and done any weeding in a long time. It's time to go back to the garden of your childhood. Like, you know, remember a spyroraph?

There's these little plastic things. I wrote an article about it. People think I'm weird. I am, but really weird. A spyroraph is a great men uh way to sort of get yourself into a state not quite hypnotic or hypnogogic but in a state of creativity because it has a constrained form. Your ideas have to have some constrained form but it also allows you to be creative within that form. So I use this biograph. I've used this for a couple of decades getting people had writer's block songwriters. one song that you guys probably know, one of the blocks were broken with Spyroraph.

I can't ever tell you who or why. It would kill me and I would be sued. But that particular modality allows you to open up. So you go to the garden, you get the weeding done. What's the weeding? Oh, that sounds stupid. Get that voice out of your head. Get it out of your head. It isn't stupid. Entertain it because this is your playground. You get the right to entertain any idea that cloud is a dog for all intent purposes. Now go with it, right? And you have to do this because you have nothing else. Well, I'm going to outrationalize AI.

Good luck. And this doesn't mean I'm waving a white flag. I'm carrying the humanity flag. AI can have that flag. Whatever it is. Oh, yeah. You're the better calculator. Go with it, man. Right. you can add two numbers faster. That happened a long time ago. Are mathematicians crying because the calculator is faster than their their chalkboard? Well, they're all crying now because I can take a picture of a chalkboard and solve that problem like that. Now, does that mean I get brain rot? Yes. If I don't do anything, if I just sit there and I say, "Okay, that was my goal in life. God granted me this this body, this life, this experience to do what? To consume.

Well, we get into that mindset because we worked our ass off in a job to be a wage slave. Right now, if that's taken away from you, you get out of that mindset of a lottery winner or maybe a former NFLer and blow all your money on parties, right? Because if you have abundance, look at the lottery winners. I've studied them. Or look at anybody who's made a lot of money and are not mentally prepared for it. Is it becomes a magnification of all the the things you never solved in your life. Oh, I'll get all the girls finally.

Go ahead. Now what? I I'll eat all the food. Oh, yeah. Now what? Elvis, have another peanut butter and bacon sandwich. Right. So we, you know, and I'm trying to be funny about it be, but it's a real serious thing. Once you have nothing but time, what are you going to do with it, [snorts] you know? So

that's a great question. Yeah. Yeah. I'm rattling on, guys. I don't want to make this a mom.

No, I I um I Everyone knows I'm conscientious about the time and I know you have to get someone off to school in a little bit. Um, I really hope you'll come back again because the chat is absolutely loving you and the things that you're saying and I think you're going to have a bunch of um, new followers that uh, are maybe just seen you for the first time today and the feedback's been so amazing. I'm watching the chat and um, you're such an interesting person. You have such a good heart. I also want to tell people even if you want to follow Brian because he brings out the vicious nostalgia for me and so many times I write to him like you're killing me. I want to go back to the 70s or the 80s.

He has the best content literally on X. Like you will love him for for everything he's doing over there. um you gave us a lot of good book options and we'll post everything in a link after Brian and um I'm gonna make a post on X um linking everyone to your account and I'm also going to put your series in there for them to read and um if you want to comment in there anywhere um and you guys please thank Brian on X also for being here today because we want to make sure he comes back. Did you enjoy it Brian? I enjoyed it and I loved you guys. I love you guys in the comments. I I I I I kept looking. I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna start crying because some of the comments were beautiful." I I I got to say I can't thank you guys enough. I I don't know because you're in the middle of the forest. I'm on the outside. What you're doing is absolutely beautiful because you're giving this continuity that Scott had

given so many people. and and and and I I really thank you. Uh and I think everybody out there does also what you're what you're doing is is is transforming lives still. And that's the magic of of Scott's work is that it will live on way past his physical body. And uh I'd be honored to be here anytime if you want to hear me rattle on because

we do. I could ask you a hundred more questions. I mean I'm a big fan of yours. I subscribed to you on read multiplex. I I

thank you was enthralled by your sort of tease about how you got Agentic AI to run for years. I'd love to know more about that and I know it gets really deep into philosophy and all that. So I know we don't have time for that now but I'd love to talk to you again.

I'd be honored guys. Brian, this is Shelley. Sorry. I'm gonna chime in just for a minute because I know Scott would want me to. Um, when are we going to be able to have an AI Scott?

You know, I was talking about that pre-show. I I am uh curating as much uh Scott's material as possible. I do not want to do I want to do justice to his his work and his memory. Nothing substandard. People are throwing together things. I've seen it. And it's robotic. It's stupid. It's it's not there. It's not there yet. Will it be there? I would say in the next in the next year. Uh you guys will be the first to beta test what I wind up doing.

And whatever it is, it's owned by the school. It's not mine. I'm not selling it.

I'm not This is not my thing. Do with it what you will. And if there is a plan for it, it's up to you guys to make that decision. But I want to be able to give what Scott might have said under whatever new circumstance has come. And we can do that with AI in his voice and his in his manner, but not to the level that I think Scott would would he would be mad at me. He'd come back and hit me in the side of the head and say, "Ah, what the heck?"

He does. Yeah. I have to say that, you know, he definitely considered it, but as you said, it's not quite there.

Yeah, Shel, I you would be the first to to have it and look at it and test it before I even announce it to anybody else.

Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate you guys. You guys, let's do a closing sip and um let's all go out there, be useful today, and um and tend to that garden of creativity that Brian talked about. It's time to revisit things like that so you don't get caught off guard. So, everyone's been warned. No one's going to be caught off guard. So, whether it's for you or your children or nieces or nephews or people you know, let's all just tend to that guard and get creative. Please follow Brian. He will be back. You guys are witnesses. And um one final sip to our beloved Scott today and uh we'll see you tomorrow with another guest.

Love you guys. See you tomorrow. Scott. This guy. Good.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Episode 3082 - The Scott Adams School 01/28/26"?

Scott Adams (Guest), Brian Romley (Guest), Erica (Guest), Marcela (Guest), Sergio (Guest), Owen Gregorian (Guest).

What is "Episode 3082 - The Scott Adams School 01/28/26" about?

The content discusses the importance of clear communication and accountability in public discourse, exemplified by Scott Adams' "48-hour rule" for clarifying controversial statements. It also touches on the impending anniversary of the Charlottesville tragedy, suggesting ongoing relevance and discussions around accountability in media and public commentary.

What is mentioned in this Real Coffee with Scott Adams episode?

15 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Scott Adams, Brian Romley, User Illusion, Tesla, Inc., Change of Heart, Apple Inc.. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Episode 3082 - The Scott Adams School 01/28/26"?

The episode runs 1 h 1 min; the transcript is about 9,944 words in 95 timestamped sections.

More from Real Coffee with Scott Adams

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 29, 2026.