I saw Tyson take such a dismissive attitude toward the threats of something like AI, specifically, AGI/ASI with the flippant “but we’d just shut it off!” kind of thing, it really grinded my gears.

However, I guess I’m falling into the same trap that so many do - expecting this guy to be all things to every aspect of anything that smacks of “science” and that’s just not a realistic expectation. I’ll stick with him on things like the re-make/update of Cosmos and ignore his random hot takes on virtually everything else. Probably also when he’s putting pen to paper vs. the hot take kind of thing on a talk show. He seems to be a frequent guest on talk shows and I remember a few being quite cringe at times.

I seem to remember a certain kind of person (usually your local WELLAXKTUALLY guy) getting butthurt about the way Sagan was being held up (in their view) as the arbiter of science or something, repeating “he’s not a real scientist he’s just a generalist” as a constant refrain.

Fuck it, who cares. If guys like this are good at getting whole generations of people interested in science, more power to them…science could use all the PR it can get in the age of Idiocracy.