The Future Is (not) Boring

AI assistants, real life quests, & reading recommendations

Hi everyone, Ezra here 👋

This weekend, I went down a rabbit hole. I discovered an incredible newsletter called Not Boring by Packy McCormick. Packy and I write about similar topics, but it’s clear that Packy has been writing much longer than I 🤪

So, here’s my best attempt at stealing his newsletter format.

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I’ve already written about how AI will transform our work in the near future, but I’d like to dive a bit deeper.

Let’s say you’re a social media marketer looking to get more clients. You’ll do the market research, scope of work, outreach, and courting in one fell swoop. You’ll tell your AI to do something like this:

“Give me a list of businesses with 10 to 50 employees in a 15-mile radius. Then, research their current marketing plan and write a friendly intro email identifying areas of improvement specific to my marketing strengths. Give numbers-based examples of how my marketing agency can help them grow their business. Lastly, research the decision-maker for paid marketing, and send a custom $100 gift to their office, and don’t send the email until 3 hours after the delivery to their office is confirmed.”

I’m more of a rocket scientist than a predictor of the future (and I’m not a rocket scientist), but I think it’s safe to say that this level of automation is less than five years away.

I recently stumbled on an essay by Isaac Asimov, describing a future free of the simple and repetitive tasks that are essential but boring & easy aka subwork.

I’m including the entire essay because it’s worth the read, even though it’s a bit lengthier than what I usually put in these newsletters.

Source: hermiene.net

In a world where your whole life is an elective, don’t you want to attend the fun classes?

While choosing the fun classes, consider pursuing a “Good Quest.” The thought is that spending your time and energy on a good quest (something that moves society forward) is the right thing to do, and it’s immoral to spend your time on a ‘bad quest’ by chasing easy money and retiring early if you’re capable of moving society forward.

I hope you see that the world is making it ever easier for you to do great things if you spend your time on a good quest.

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That’s all, folks! Talk to you next Monday at 7 am ET :)