[caslon]

> What kind of format are they expecting to hear when interviewing academics? Jimmy Fallon meets Bill O'Reilly interviewing a Democrat?

This question suggests that you no longer have the intellectual curiosity to imagine an alternative to incredibly dull, surface-level questions even on subjects the interviewer claims to know about, except for... incredibly dull, surface-level questions.

And that's pretty depressing.

[klelatti]

The thing that completely invalidates what you’re saying here is that very little of the actual talking is done by Lex. I’m not an unqualified fan but he does at least create the space for knowledgeable guests to talk at length about their subjects - or put another way he generally gets out of the way.

[caslon]

I listen to a lot of his interviews, actually. A lot more of the talking is done by him than you're implying, and the questions he asks occasionally derail really interesting tangents a guest is on in favor of really dull, extremely generic questions you could get from anywhere. The Lenat interview, for example, was full of him doing it.

[janderson215]

I agree he interrupts his guests, and he admits as much on almost every podcast. I also agree that sometimes it detracts from the conversation and it is a net negative, but you must also recognize the times that his interruption fills in gaps, as well.

[caslon]

When does it fill gaps? The only way I could possibly see it filling gaps would be for completely non-technical people.

[janderson215]

Correct, and is that unimportant? Or do you think your level of competency is the lowest that Lex should cater to?

[caslon]

Honestly? If a podcast sells itself as being an "AI" podcast, and the creator doesn't expect the audience to know what a computer is, I really do think that it is unimportant.

[klelatti]

We’ll have to disagree then. Not sure why you’re listening to so many of his interviews if you find the questions extremely dull and generic. Insomnia?

[caslon]

The questions are dull and generic, but the people come onto the show with an agenda. I like hearing about what they're wanting to talk about, between instances of boring questions.