This week's RAMD ("Rolling Across my Desk") is a longish essay on the real danger of AI fearmongering – how it's affecting jobs and obfuscating the real current practical risks. The TLDR is not that the only thing to fear is fear itself, but that this fearmongering is dangerous. And I miss Charlie Munger's ability to pierce hogwash like this. ---------------------------- 1. There is a war of narratives going on around AI --------------------------- On one side are what I would call the reasonable scaremongers. Bill Gates is probably the most prominent example. I agree with a number of things he says, but he also argues that "this time is different." "This time is different" has been said about technology, financial markets, economic bubbles and social change for a very long time. And it is almost never true. And then there are the unreasonable scaremongers. This week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit and said that people building AI earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade. Then Evan Hubinger, who leads Alignment Science at Anthropic, said he personally believes there is a greater than 10% chance AI could kill all humans within the next decade. A greater than 10% chance of human extinction? C'mon. ---------------------------- 2. Give me a break --------------------------- There is no scientific basis for assigning a number like 10% to the probability that AI will wipe out the human species. At the bottom of this email, I say a bit more about why extinction risk is ridiculous. But one of the worst things about it is that it distracts from the real dangers. ---------------------------- 3. The real dangers ---------------------------- The scaremongering covers over the very real dangers associated with AI. There are real problems here. Cybersecurity. Bioweapons. Even homemade nuclear weapons. Certainly, egregious copyright violations. Impact on student learning. The environmental impact of enormous data centers, including electricity and water use. The social and psychological consequences of people spending more and more time interacting with machines instead of other people. There need to be safeguards and limitations placed on this technology. But when we start talking about AI like it is some kind of magic voodoo that might suddenly become alive and destroy the entire human race, those real problems get lost. And there is another very real problem. Jobs. ---------------------------- 4. The jobs report tells an important story ---------------------------- Last week we got what looked like a very positive jobs report. The economy added 162,000 jobs. Great. But look underneath the headline. - Tech and information lost 23,000 jobs. - Financial services lost 11,000. So while the economy added 162,000 jobs overall, these important sectors for professional workers lost 34,000 jobs. Why? Many people in the AI world will tell you the answer is obvious. AI is replacing all these people. Except there is very little evidence for that. Economists are looking, but cannot find real evidence (there's some 'speculative' evidence but nothing concrete yet). Instead, what I see when talking to executives and professionals every day is uncertainty. Companies are uncertain. Should we hire this person? Will we really need them two years from now? This stuff is so strong that it might cause an extinction...well, then it surely will eliminate most jobs. The narrative becomes self-fulfilling. ---------------------------- 5. We are listening to the wrong people ---------------------------- There is another reason I am skeptical. We tend to give enormous credence to people inside these companies because we assume being close to the technology gives them some special lens. Maybe we have that upside down. Maybe their closeness is what makes them blind. When you are close, you buy into the assumptions of everyone around you. You can start extrapolating from what the technology can do today and assume that because AI can do A, it will inevitably be able to do B through Z. Sometimes the people closest to something are the least able to see it clearly. That is why we need more independent thinkers and why I miss Charlie Munger. ---------------------------- 6. Charlie Munger --------------------------- Munger, Buffett's longtime business partner, died close to three years ago at age 99. And he had an extraordinary ability to look through hype and unnecessary complexity and see what really mattered. And for most of this stuff, he would just call it hogwash. Hogwash indeed. A lot of what is coming out of Silicon Valley right now is good old-fashioned hogwash. We need more people who can stand outside the system, look at the incentives, look at the assumptions everyone is making, strip away all the unnecessary complexity, and ask what matters. I had my own experience with this during the Great Financial Crisis. In October 2008, about a month after Lehman Brothers collapsed, I had dinner with roughly 30 Wall Street executives. Not one of them had anticipated a financial meltdown coming from the mortgage crisis. Meanwhile, sitting in my office, not working in financial services and looking at the system from a distance, I had become deeply concerned about the mortgage market as early as 2005. Not because I was a genius. I wasn't. I had distance and I wasn't surrounded every day by people who had accepted the assumptions – "home prices never go down nationally" (hogwash!) – that made the system seem normal. The people on Wall Street were too close to it. I worry that the same thing is happening today with AI. ---------------------------- 7. Never ask the barber --------------------------- There is a Buffett and Munger quote that should be printed at the top of every article about AI: "Never ask the barber if you need a haircut." We should not solely depend on the people running or working in AI companies to tell us what AI is going to do to the world. They are hopelessly conflicted. They are raising money. They are selling products. They are competing with each other. They need investors, customers and employees to believe that what they are building is enormously important. And I am equally wary of the ideologues. Some of the people in the effective altruism and AI safety worlds have built careers around extinction-level risk. Munger warned about ideology. "It cabbages up your head," he would say. We need more people looking at AI from outside the system and asking basic questions. What do we actually know? What are we assuming? What are we extrapolating? What incentives are shaping what people are telling us? What matters? And where is the evidence? ---------------------------- 8. And now for some student stories --------------------------- One thing we know for sure in this world -- college students are struggling to find a job. Here's what you may not know. 40% of students graduate into jobs that they could have gotten in high school. And that has been true for decades now. It pre-dates AI. AI fearmongering and uncertainty may be making it worse, but it's not the cause. We've had a lot of students use the College Edition, but this is the first time a Professor has run a course taking the students through it. I'm happy to report it's going well. The Professor just sent me some feedback he got after they began their Listening Tours. It's exciting to read how 19 and 20 year olds created Mnookin Two-Pagers, and then learedn how to go out and talk to people. You can read their anonymized feedback here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dbsGo4zG5K0dGaRWSkz_SHWBzsCWjvigVm70qtz8xzQ/edit?usp=sharing ---------------------------- 9. Launch date for the College Edition --------------------------- My team and I are working fast to soft-launch this book by Dec 1 so readers of this newsletter can pick it up for children, nieces, nephews, and friends before the year ends. Stay tuned. We might miss that date and have to publish in Jan 2027. Sign-up to be kept up to date on our progress and be notified when the College Edition is available: https://0sulml7kjpu.typeform.com/to/E9w5PGgU (p.s. Just like the professional edition, *every* dollar we get will go into the free college program and *not* into my pocket – and, btw, if you want to support the program we have today, buy books for friends – they need the help and we need all the financial support we can get!) ---------------------------- 10. Read the Iliad with us this Fall --------------------------- In this age of AI fearmongering, there's nothing like reading a text from thousands of years ago in community with others. No surprise that the Odyssey reading groups this summer were a big hit. We are continuing with the Iliad this fall. It's free and you can sign up here to join us: https://forms.gle/QBNrYinKrC5n7Fwr7 Do it fast because we are going to run out of spots again. ---------------------------- 11. New York Times Asking for Help article --------------------------- In response to the New York Times article last week about asking for help, thousands of you "liked" and many of you commented. You can read what everyone wrote here - wow! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-jUm2sdI-ElDpiSAXNfBo-74dr3CIUW7tBGuwYqMXHk/edit?usp=sharing ---------------------------- 12. Daytime Disco --------------------------- If you’re anywhere near NYC on Sat, Nov. 21, come join us as we build community and dance together in this fear-driven topsy-turvey world. More info here: https://0sulml7kjpu.typeform.com/to/jCPwAOVS ✨ ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨ 💃💃💃💃💃💃💃💃💃 With love and sequins, Phyl P.S. We thrive on volunteers (including me). If you want to help, please review the volunteer opportunities below. --------------------------- 1. Social Media Volunteer - URGENT ---------------------------- We need someone who can develop a social media strategy, create campaigns, and track engagement for Never Search Alone. https://forms.gle/fvjAD58HNyxcXu5H6 --------------------------- 2. NYC 2027 Pride March Coordinator ---------------------------- We are looking for someone to coordinate a successful NYC 2027 Pride March for our NSA Community! This will be our third year and it's a lot of fun and communtiy-building. Learn more and apply here: https://forms.gle/1p5hwrAUwH2zFxf47 --------------------------- 3. JSC Early Experience Volunteer ---------------------------- The role of this volunteer is to monitor all of the feedback, respond, answer questions and help our members have a successful experience. https://forms.gle/L4G3ggQac4u9p3vY9 ---------------------------- 4. High School and College World of Business Reading Group (WBRG.org) --------------------------- Our high school and college business literacy program is going really well. Based on the philosophy of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, it is live taught in a small zoom class by senior executives with serious business and investing experience. You can sign-up to be notified when applications open for our summer 2027 program: (they will open sometime in Jan of 2027 and typically we run out of space quickly) https://www.wbrg.org/student-notification ---------------------------- 5. JSC Moderator Application for Alums ---------------------------- We are looking for Job Search Council alums who have a job and are willing to come back and moderate a Job Search Council. Details here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Du74FGMpr32jG3Nv4LPZO38b__1pHpd2dj4dJEH1K1w/edit?usp=sharing Apply here: https://forms.gle/yB74Xjz4tMYsECeJ9 ---------------------------- 6. Looking for Recruiters ---------------------------- If you are a recruiter and you want to help job seekers discover their Candidate-Market Fit, please consider volunteering. You control how many sessions you do a month and it's great way to give back. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd5vLUurBne89xPMpM8whVfnhc-dNCTm-v6PMHrAr0A4BCWxg/viewform ---------------------------- 7. Podcast Contacts? --------------------------- To help spread the word about Never Search Alone, we are trying to get me on to some larger podcasts (like Lenny's, which had a huge impact). Do you know anyone at the podcasts listed in this document or other larger audience podcasts? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PmcXy4ZTmW_IcXZQ3qB7-Y6-AtCsnv-U/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.ndit9t56zy2y If you have contacts, please let our volunteer Liz Nilsen know at liznilsen4@gmail.com. ---------------------------- 8. Media Contacts? --------------------------- Business Insider published a feature following the journey of one of our Job Search Council members who was laid off while pregnant. It opens with: "Getting laid off broke my heart... and I couldn't stop myself from crying." Read more: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7374445590107176961/ Note: this came from a job seeker talking to a reporter. If you know any reporters, please encourage them to write about us or reach out to Liz Nilsen at liznilsen4@gmail.com with potential contacts. ---------------------------- 9. More on the "extinction risk" --------------------------- How would AI make humans extinct? What is the actual sequence of events that gets us there? Not millions of people dying. Not even hundreds of millions. The extinction of the human species. More than 8 billion people. Every single one of us. Human beings have survived some extraordinary things. There is a long-running scientific hypothesis that roughly 74,000 years ago, the human population went through an extreme bottleneck and may have fallen to only a few thousand people. Scientists still debate exactly what happened. But Homo sapiens survived. Think about what an actual extinction event means. Bioweapons can do terrible damage. I think the possibility of AI helping someone create a biological weapon is a serious risk, and one we need to safeguard against. Same with nuclear weapons. Cyberattacks can do terrible damage. But extinction risk? I have yet to see anything evidence that allows anyone to put a number like 10% on it. That is science fiction. And don't forget, a lot of people in Silicon Valley grew up reading science fiction. There is something exciting and important about imagining yourself at the center of a story about the survival of the human species. This email was sent to [email address suppressed]. If you are no longer interested, you can unsubscribe instantly: https://collaborativegain.createsend1.com/t/t-u-ydpkrc-l-r/ Collaborative Gain, Never Search Alone, Slow Art Day, and WBRG 1350 Avenue of the Americas, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10019