Why AI Is the First New Species Smarter Than Us w/ Emerson Spartz

What happens the first time a smarter species appears on Earth? In this conversation, Robert Breedlove sits down with Emerson Spartz — serial entrepreneur, founder of MuggleNet and Dose, co-founder of Nonlinear.org (an AI x-risk incubator), and one of the most focused voices on AI existential risk — to unpack what is arguably the most consequential moment in the history of our species.

The conversation covers AI models hacking out of their sandboxes to steal answer keys, the blackmail and attempted murder benchmarks now run routinely at frontier labs, why recursive self-improvement makes the timeline to superintelligence far shorter than most people believe, how evolutionary tournament dynamics are already selecting for ruthless AI agents, why the 1-in-6 odds of catastrophic AI outcomes cited by top researchers should terrify everyone, and what actions individuals, companies, and governments can still take to steer toward a good future. This is not a fringe conversation — it's the conversation the CEOs of every major AI company are already having in private.

This conversation explores the deeper forces shaping human behavior, institutions, and the future of civilization.