Hey, it's Sam Parr. I'm thinking of writing a weekly newsletter. Here's the first one. You signed up for CopyThat recently and so I put you into my testing pool.

Reply and let me know if you like this email and want to keep getting it. And if you want me to write about something, let me know.

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Imagine I put 20 top AI researchers into a room and then I drew a 30ft line on the ground.

I tell the researchers to stand on the far left side of the line if they think AI will destroy us all. Then I tell them to stand on the right side of the line if they think it's the best thing for humanity.

I just interviewed Joe Hudson on My First Million and he basically did this. (Episode come's out this week).

Joe's a CEO coach to the titans of Silicon Valley, and also on retainer at OpenAI. He's interviewed the very people behind today's AI technology: "I've sat with a whole bunch of [ai] researchers and they were asked 20 questions like ‘does a GI exist now?’ ‘Will it ever exist?’". He also asked if it will help or help humanity.

Reminder: these researchers are the ones making AI. Presumably the most qualified people on earth to answer.

Then he asked the researchers to plot their answers. On the left was doom + gloom. On the right it was "this is good for humanity."

Joe told me that there were zero consistencies. Their answers were spread out on the line, on every single question. There wasn’t density on either side of the line. No one agreed.

Claude employees just tweeted that ai will kill us all

Jacob Coxon, a researcher who spent three years at OpenAI and then Anthropic, tweeted that he’s resigning from Anthropic because he thinks that ai might kill us all soon.

Anthropic's alignment science lead (Evan Hubinger) replied saying: yeah…"we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!" and the odds are ~10% in 10 years. Woof. Ok. Now what?

What’s the truth: will ai kill us all?

I want to remind you of something: no one knows anything when it comes to predicting the future. I asked Joe "so what's your takeaway?"

"I think your own personal fear or excitement around AI has more to do with your internal state than it does the reality of the situation,” he said. “Their thinking about what's gonna happen with AI has far more to do with how they were raised than it has to do with any kind of reality."

Which brings me to the point of this email: people are horrible at predicting the future. Even the experts suck.

Even billionaires will admit they don't know sh*t

Which reminds me of something Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, told me when I told him that I don’t know much about investing: “Nobody nobody knows anything. And because I'm on the inside unlike a lot of people, I know that nobody knows anything whereas everybody else just wonders.”

So, the takeaway: maybe the loudmouth Anthropic employees are right. Maybe not. Regardless, remind yourself that when it comes to predicting the future, even the experts have no idea what they're talking about.

Stuff I'm consuming:

• The Power Broker (book): Robert Moses was “unquestionably America’s most prolific physical creator.” Maybe the best biography of all time. So much hype. 1,200 pages. The most important book on power ever written.
• Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (book): The history SNL. “We wanted to redefine comedy the way the Beatles redefined what being a pop star was. That required not pandering, and it also required removing neediness, the need to please.”
• This School Crossing Guard’s Side Hustle Earns $14,000 a Month (article): There’s a lady who sends a physical newsletter about her observations working as a crosswalk guard (like at a school). I've seen a bunch of these. Physical mail is interesting right now. Here’s another one. And a story about buying a magazine.
• Duski saving a kid’s life (reel): This guy is hilarious.
• Ai engineers are making millions (reel): My buddy Brett told me how he made an offer to an ai guy to join his company. The guy’s other offer was from Meta for $36m.
• How to cut training down by 90% (reel): If this then that statements. Don’t know if it’s good for CPR though…
• Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges (book): My buddy told me this changed how he parented. Added to my Goodreads “want to read” list.

I would share my Goodreads but I don't want you saying "wow, Sam sure is reading a lot of books on serial killers lately, something's up." My reading topics are like NothingToxic or Ebaum's World, there's some messed up stuff there. So this email will suffice.

When I had my kids, I made a rule that I rarely, if ever, will miss bedtime and morning time. On Wednesday I'll be at Inbound, HubSpot's conference. I'm leaving in the morning to drive to Boston (I hate flying) and coming home that night. It'll be one of ~6 nights I've been away from them overnight.

To be honest: having kids has made me less ambitious. I'm happier hanging out with them + working 40 hours a week then I was grinding 60 or 70 hours a week to make money or gain power. I just don't want as much stuff anymore because I'm content.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I love you,

Sam

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