Will AI Actually Kill Us All? & It’s True–Online Returns Are Getting Harder

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The board recommends approving me.

SPEAKER_2 (0:01)

Regarding that seat on the committee, we're promoting... to boost quarterly earnings...

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Neal Freyman (0:30)

Good morning Brew Daily show. I'm Neal Freyman.

Toby Howell (0:33)

And I'm Toby Howell.

Neal Freyman (0:34)

Today, diesel prices have gotten so high, gas stations are running out of signage space.

Toby Howell (0:39)

Then people are finally waking up to the fact that AI could wipe out humanity. It's Friday, September 11th. Let's ride.

Neal Freyman (0:55)

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on US soil that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington, DC., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, including 343 FDNY firemen. Memorials and tributes will be held across the country to remember the victims and stand together with their families.

For many middle-aged and older Americans, we'll never forget 9-11. I was in the fifth grade and recall scared teachers huddling us all into a room where we watched live news coverage on a grainy television until our parents came to pick us up. But 25 years is a long time, roughly the span of an entire generation. At this point, tens of millions of Americans were born after 9-11 or don't remember it. They never looked up at the gleaming towers as you took the Staten Island ferry into Manhattan or experienced in real time the shock, chaos, and heroism when the buildings came down. But they've surely been told by their parents how life in America was never the same after that day.

Toby Howell (1:52)

Yeah, I'm one of those people who was too young to remember. My entry point is a lot of secondary coverage in the years since. On YouTube, one creator put together this multi-view dashboard showing eight news channels coverage of the first 18 minutes of the attack. On X, there's this account called 2001Live, where they posed as a reporter embedded in the year 2001 with no foreknowledge of what is coming. And yeah, speaking from experience, it can be chaotic and illuminating in equal measure. Receiving 9-11 content 25 years later, filtered through the blender that is social media. So whether it is part of your memories or you're encountering it through more modern means, it's worth it to take a moment to stop, remember, and reflect.

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Neal Freyman (2:43)

Yeah, that's like the whole point.

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Weird, the place I just stayed at at a work trip didn't have those.

Neal Freyman (2:48)

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Neal Freyman (3:06)

That way, you can book work trips faster. Just set your preferences once and get results tailored to your business travel needs. Plus, get up to 20% off select hotels instantly with member discounts and earn rewards for future travel.

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It's not often that Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, and Cheryl Crowe all sound off on the same topic at the same time, but the looming AI apocalypse will bring people together in unexpected ways. This week has been dominated by the terrifying reality that AI progress could spell the end of humanity, a message that's been delivered by many of the people responsible for building it. In a thread that has racked up nearly 150 million views, former anthropic employee Jacob Coxen said that the systems being built by AI companies could cause human extinction. His posts and the general sentiment was confirmed by other employees with one saying, we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans and put the odds of that happening at greater than 10 percent. Ted Cruz chimed in on the view saying he read that whole tweet thread that the developer put out, adding it was highly concerning. Bernie Sanders echoed the sentiment saying, American people overwhelmingly want to ban artificial superintelligence and pause the development of AI. Heck, even Sheryl Crow posted an Instagram story weighing in on Cox's post saying, people should demand our leaders put aside their greed and prevent this from going forward. To sum up the general vibe, Axios wrote an article titled The AI Twilight Zone, where it noted the inherent contradictions that define the AI debate today. On the one hand, a lot of everyday people haven't really found a use case for AI beyond treating it like a more powerful Google, and yet here we are being told that it could end all of humanity. Then you have the people loudly warning of the imminent extinction of our species and yet continue to build it anyways. Meanwhile, you look at the market and how it's pricing in the end of days, and stocks are hovering near all time highs powered by the AI trade. Neal, help me make sense of all of this. Is the end nigh?