Such a great article. I’m a mixture of insanely curious about how this will all unfold & stomach turning worried about the potential economic fallout. No better time than the present to love thy neighbor.
We need to encourage more young people to go into healthcare. While AI will have an impact there, too, it is much more stable and person-oriented work. And with our aging population, in demand.
Right now, LLMs do a pretty good job of looking like they can write legal briefs (if you overlook the occasional hallucinated case citations), analyze contracts, draft patent applications, and the like.
But I think that’s because they currently have an ample supply of human-generated input to train on.
Let’s not forget that LLMs don’t actually understand what they’re saying. They’re just predicting the next most likely word on the basis of tons and tons of (mostly human-generated, for the moment) input data.
Look how they stumble over things like “how many r’s in the word ‘strawberry’?” or simple math.
I don’t think we’re on a straight-line path to Star Trek-level computers (let alone Lt-Cmdr Data or his evil twin, Lore) just yet.
You’re right, my skills may still be useful, but I can’t imagine that lasting beyond a year. I think you’re also right that we’re not riding a straight line. But with quantum computing now at our disposal, AI’s development will soon reach a tipping point and ramp up exponentially. I expect it to be sentient by 2030.
Yes, I would also classify those as knowledge-economy jobs that requires critical thinking and non-routine manual skills. Keep in mind that estimates don’t call for all jobs to be eliminated, but nearly half of them.
In the 80s they were talking about "Future Shock". The lectures would point out that the amount of change that you have experienced was equal to your age.
- 30 years of age meant you had experienced 30% of technological change.
- 75 years would be 75% of technological change.
I was required to sit through many lectures on the subject at the Highway Department in the 80s. As soon as they did the wave of lectures across the country, technological change essentially stalled. Yes, computers exploded, but everything else slowed way down, and that is not going to change.
Trump reindustrializing society will provide real jobs that will allow real families to start again. The population will start to rise again.
Population has been going down because all the jobs were off-shored, leaving no real work for regular people to be able to build a family.
- Do yourself a favor and wait four years before you start anything with FAIR about "AI".
See who the next President is, and the first 100 days of the administration, we will know by then if "AI" is still even a Talking Point.
- This talk of "AI" is just the latest PSYOP to disrupt society, the same way that the concept of "Future Shock" was a PSYOP used to excuse the collapse of the middle class in the 80s.
I've been warning about this blatant PSYOP for a few years now, and everyone is so enamored with the concept that they will not listen.
This is the 80s all over again. HA!
BTW, "AI" based hiring would be a DEI nightmare.
- "AI" trained to hire people will be as "woke" as the programmer.
Remember how "Initially, a viral post showed this recently launched AI image generator create an image of the US Founding Fathers which inaccurately included a black man. Gemini also generated German soldiers from World War Two, incorrectly featuring a black man and Asian woman." - BBC
Both books are pushing against the mania that is being generated by the tech people. All the hype, all the articles are paid for by the tech industry.
For years there were articles about "Transhumanism". They all stopped when Jeffery Epstein died. He was the source pushing the concept when he was alive.
One important thing that AI will never have is empathy. You’re completely right in that it doesn’t care if you are black, white, or brown, straight or gay, etc.
If it has no empathy, it can be employed for nefarious purposes by people also lacking empathy.
And if we have fewer educated people who are unable to think critically and realize when AI is being employed with ill intent—well, we are completely screwed.
Yes, everything is changing at warp speed right now. But I think it’s critical not to discourage people from getting an education. Dismantling and devaluing education is a tool of authoritarian regimes to consolidate power: get rid of anyone who is capable of understanding what’s happening and speaking the truth.
I think these times require walking a very fine line: understand what’s happening and use it to our advantage as best we can—yet continue to educate ourselves and build critical thinking skills so we don’t just blindly accept whatever the powers that be tell us we should.
Agree, Heather. Education is very important. I am only recommending that parents not send their children to expensive colleges and universities unless their field of study is AI-compatible or resistant.
Less expensive schools and community colleges are more viable options in this climate. You don’t need to spend six figures to learn to think critically. In fact, based on what I’m seeing on elite campuses and their restraints on free speech, there now seems to be an inverse relationship between the cost of tuition and critical thinking skills developed.
As for AI’s lack of empathy and potential exploitation for nefarious means, I couldn’t agree more and have posted about this in the past. My article isn’t meant to suggest that I embrace AI or welcome it; I’ve resisted and ignored it as along as I could. I am now simply trying to wrap my mind around the inevitability and the opportunities.
Whether AI is used for nefarious means or otherwise, there is still a chance that it could be a bridge to a better world IF we stand together and stop seeing one another as privileged, victims, oppressors, or members of other identity groups that dehumanize us and separate us. Let’s use AI as an impetus to finally do what we should have done long ago: unite humanity.
Thank you for this thoughtful and comprehensive response, Monica, I appreciate your taking the time and effort to clarify. I’m going to look up some of your older posts that you mention, in order to get a better context. It sounds like you have considered all of these issues from multiple angles, and reading more will likely add to my understanding.
Excellent points about less expensive schools and CC’s, as well as considering one’s field of study through the lens of how AI might affect opportunities.
I remain baffled by the seeming lack of free speech on campuses, that has never been my personal experience. In fact it was always encouraged to learn how to sit with any personal discomfort in order to allow others the freedom to speak their truth. While some schools may have not have practiced this equally, free speech and commitment to working through dissent have always been a core value in academia. And I don’t see evidence that this core value has changed; I see the opposite. I’m hoping that all sides can enter constructive dialogue rather than resorting to blame, excoriation, and punitive measures.
I love that you’re hopeful that AI can unite humanity. The world needs realists, but also visionaries to help pull us into the best versions of ourselves. Thanks for writing, and for responding so thoughtfully and thoroughly to my comment.
You are forgetting that empathy is taught, directly and by observation. Even kids on the autism spectrum can be taught to mimic empathy (and often display it better than "normal" kids who weren't). There are quite a few people in the world who display almost no self-awareness, and possess minimal empathy. In that light we're setting the bar for AI "consciousness" much higher than we do for human beings, who get to declare they have a "soul" simply by being born.
The article confirmed my thought that vocational type jobs will be needed. Geez, remember when Obama said the only way to get ahead is with a college degree? The Socialists will be vying for position. Another discipline that will be needed are the natural resource managers/ -ologists jobs--the people that manage public lands, parks, refuges, forests, etc. You need field going people for those skills. Hmm, will the cyborgs become self-aware!
I feel the best, most hopeful AI outcome can be that we can center connection with each other and our environment. If AI can do all the BS marketing, web management, calendar maintenance, automate data analysis, etc., then humans are freed from The Office. It would give people time and resources to have many more teachers, caregivers, health professionals, and people who work on infrastructure and natural resource management. Imagine if education could have a 6:1 student:teacher ratio, if a mother could stay home with a stipend to care for her young children, or a man could take paid leave from work to care for an aging parent for the last year of their life, imagine if we didn’t have a shortage of maternity care providers. Imagine if everyone could have access to therapeutic massage, physical therapy, and personal trainers. How much could we improve the world with more people who can work on fixing roads and bridges, building a lot of housing for our growing population, finally get national high speed rail lines in the US, deploy solar panels on every roof that can hold them? And what if we had a massive corps of people who work on wilderness conservation, rewilding some areas, improving fire safety in others, replanting trees in areas of clear cuts? What if more people could work outdoors growing food or tending animals? What if there could be more time for making art, music, or just sitting on a porch chatting with neighbors without the stress of the 20th century rat race and scarcity mentality? That is the ideal promise of AI.
But, current trends suggest some combination of Idiocracy, Bladerunner, and GATTACA is the more likely future, because a small number of people always seem to decide that we can’t have anything nice around here.
I suspect that in the short term, while AI is taking over the screening of job applicants and competition for jobs skyrockets, it's going to be who you know—personal connections—that get people in the door. Maybe eventually AI will even out the playing field. Hopefully.
I've also been tuned into the coming AI tsunami, partly by reading Amanda Claypool but also Rod Dreher, who's been sounding the alarm on how AI is poised to become a religion of sorts as people begin relying on it like an oracle. He just wrote a piece today (paywalled) in which he urges readers to listen to this recent interview of someone who left the AI development field and warns people of how little restraints are in place to keep AI on a moral/ethical path.
I agree the AI onslaught is not something we're going to resist our way out of. It's coming and it's going to upend society in countless ways. So the best strategy is indeed to learn what we can about how to harness it for good. I'm really grateful I believe in God and His providence, because He will my anchor through what we're heading into.
Thanks for sharing Rod’s info. Will check him out now and listen to the interview.
This is an extremely precarious time — it’s like humanity has just discovered fire. We can either use it to warm ourselves and cook, or we can burn down the whole damn forest.
AI is starting to feel like a religion! I was just discussing this with my partner last night.
Remember “Trust the Science” and “I Believe Black Lives Matter”?
The same people who dutifully fell in line behind DEI and COVID masking — treating them like religions — will doubtless fall in line and surrender to whatever and however Tech Overlords decide to integrate AI into our lives. AI will become another cult in a long list of cults we are assembling…
Even crazier, as Dreher mentions in many of his AI-related writings, some of the Silicon Valley tech lords who are developing AI are also heavily into the occult and believe AI will act as a portal to connect with non/post-human beings. Their idea is that these super-intelligences (religious people might call them demons) will guide us into a post-biological (aka transhumanist) future, serve as gods to us. And enslave or destroy us. I'm not sure what to think, exactly, but from what I've read, this nutty-sounding possibility is being pursued by serious people for utopian purposes. Scary.
An AI religion. Ugh — absolutely the last thing we need!
I’ve decided I’m comfortable with AI — to a point. I don’t even think super-intelligent AI (one exceeding the collective thinking capacity of all 8 billion human beings on the planet) is necessarily an existential threat. As long as AI status in the non-physical world, I think humanity can muddle through what’s coming and have a chance of coming out better on the other side.
My biggest concern is with AI is that it might one day acquire the ability to manufacture and replicate non-organic or quasi-organic “super humans” equipped with AI super-intelligence. That’s the biggest threat IMO. That’s when we would enter Terminator territory and mankind would be in serious danger.
Monica, I also love sci fi. I agree with what you are saying about the threat of AI super-intelligence, which is the subject of a lot of sci fi. The trouble is that I don't remember the humans winning.
The NYT interview I linked above gets into this topic of Terminator territory and the need for ethical intervention. The interviewee left OpenAI (Sam Altman's company) because he "lost confidence" that leadership was doing what was needed to maintain safety and ethics.
AI in HR and being deployed willy nilly in companies that already struggle with dysfunction is going to be incredibly interested to watch. In looking at job postings at some of these companies behind AI, I note an alarming absence of posting for people like philosophers and moralists and chaplains. It appears that they are building a tech company that builds tech like other tech companies (I spent 10 years in tech myself) but this ain't "just any tech," not by a mile!
I absolutely can see AI being the "religion" of the masses, and suddenly I'm appreciating his book Live Not By Lies in a whole new light...
I feel similarly: it's coming, and I don't want to be ignorant or thoughtless about it or get swept up in it. And ultimately, having a relationship with God as the source of actual Truth is what prepares me for any storm.
Good article, Monica. And very important! Here is the passage where you hit the nail on the head regarding the most important thing for us to consider as a massive form of change confronts us within just the next few years:
"When the straight, White male CEO still has a job, but 50% of the workforce across ALL demographic categories gets pink slips, the real dividing line won’t be identity; it will be who owns the means of production in an AI economy — and the MAGA-loving guy behind the counter at Enterprise Rent-A-Car isn’t part of the means-of-production-owning class."
Whoop, there it is. As I mention in most of my writings for Lightning Press on Substack and Medium we need to come to grip with the fact that capitalism, i.e., a system where a few own all the industrial technology -- including all automation, which includes AI -- and utilize it primarily for making a profit for a few while forcing the rest of us to accept a paycheck providing us with access to a comparatively tiny portion of it *has got to go.* It is not the "best possible system" in a post-Industrial era now heading into the next phase of a game-changing technological revolution.
The CEOs you mentioned, along with all the tech barons like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and the rest in the capitalist class, are thinking this right now: "How do we maintain class rule in the coming revolution? We have to make sure that the masses of people whose labor is becoming increasingly useless to run our businesses and make our profits own as little as possible, if anything at all. How do we keep them in line? How do we get them to accept a subordinate position in the world now that technology has advanced to the point where we can produce an abundance for all, and we're entering an era where human toil can be all but eliminated?"
We, the people of the working class, need to look past trying to find ways to preserve a system totally archaic in a post-Industrial, post-Work world simply because we are used to it, and it's never become more crucial to reject the rule of a few or an economic hierarchy. I too am hoping that this threat to all our livelihoods, along with a realization of what a boon this new technology can be to us as a civilization if we all collectively own & control its use, finally spurs us to this realization. It is, as you said, a perfect opportunity for a post-identity world where true equality for everyone can finally become a reality. But this will not happen as long as class rule exists, a concept that is now completely obsolete.
True equality for everyone has never existed, and will never exist, and if it did, it would be horrible. So no thank you to that idea. But I do share your concern that AI will only concentrate wealth and power in the existing techno-capital class to an astonishing degree. I think the access to the best AI models will be (it already is) restricted. What is left over will only be for for second class work, and entertainment, a la the Matrix at worst, and facilitating hobbies at best. Masses of people will end up with no meaningful work to do. This will lead to pandemic levels of psychological and spiritual despair.
That said, I'm still not convinced that AI is ready for prime time, but that's quite possibly because (a) as mentioned above, we (the public) get the second-best models for the masses, or (b) despite having a master's degree in machine learning, I'm already a second class citizen in the AI skills race.
I assume we're talking about equality of outcome. I'm all for equality of opportunity, but that leads to the kind of disparities that Christopher seems to be advocating should not exist.
But that’s kind of the rub, all a society can do is provide quality of opportunity. The outcomes depend on the skills, the talents and the efforts of individuals.
Even within families where opportunities and backgrounds between siblings are equal you still get different outcomes and varying levels of success.
Some people excel at mathematics , others at artistic expression. Individuals have a wide array of talents gifts and personal preferences therefore the outcomes one sees will vary from person to person even with equal opportunities.
Exactly. Disparity is baked into the human condition. It’s one of the vicissitudes of individuality. It’s acceptable and understandable that disparities will exist, even when equal opportunities are given, because no two human beings are alike. What we don’t want to see are disparities that arise from a lack of equal opportunity.
"True equality for everyone has never existed, and will never exist,"
Prior to the Industrial Revolution in the relatively recent past, it was impossible for economic equality to exist once the class-divided societies had begun between 8 and 10 thousand years ago. This is because only a small surplus could be produced with the primitive level of technology at the time. That situation changed in a big way once we developed sufficient technology to mass produce what we need and therefore provide an abundance for all.
"and if it did, it would be horrible. So no thank you to that idea."
I disagree, James. I see nothing horrible about everyone living a life of material comfort; no one controlling the lives of other people or making all the rules because they have an obscene amount of wealth where millions and millions of others cannot even keep a roof over their heads and are struggling just to survive in a world where we now have the technological capacity to eliminate these inequalities. The world would improve vastly, as well as the way we treat each other as competition that rewards the most ruthless will be replaced with cooperation that rewards amiable co-production. Nothing horrible about that in my estimation.
What is horrible to me is how so many people continue to support inequality in a land of plenty, and do not acknowledge the vast difference between living in a pre-Industrial world and a post-Industrial world where human toil and the mindless pursuit of profit were no longer necessary. We must accept that this change opens possibilities that were not open to people living as recently as the 19th century.
"But I do share your concern that AI will only concentrate wealth and power in the existing techno-capital class to an astonishing degree. I think the access to the best AI models will be (it already is) restricted. What is left over will only be for for second class work, and entertainment, a la the Matrix at worst, and facilitating hobbies at best. Masses of people will end up with no meaningful work to do. This will lead to pandemic levels of psychological and spiritual despair."
I hear what you're saying there, James. The majority of people today, however, also have no meaningful work, but instead toil for 40+ at jobs they hate, and which today could be easily automated. If we were free from that, we could find meaningful things to do, which would be things AI and automation could not readily accomplish. We just need our time and efforts freed up for that purpose.
"That said, I'm still not convinced that AI is ready for prime time, but that's quite possibly because (a) as mentioned above, we (the public) get the second-best models for the masses, or (b) despite having a master's degree in machine learning, I'm already a second class citizen in the AI skills race."
That, my friend, is more problems related to the fact that those with the most money in a class-divided system get the best of everything, whereas the masses whose labor power was once essential to the machine but is now becoming increasingly obsolete cannot afford the best.
Equality would restrict freedom. Some will always strive for more than others, and under these conditions, equality can only be achieved by theft or enforced confinement of ambition and activity. No thank you.
I agree there's a problem, I just don't think you're fully on the right track with the solution. I think you think the AI future will be a land of milk and honey, with plenty for all, and happiness will follow if only we agree to divide it equally? As I said, I fundamentally didn't believe in equality. I do agree those at the top stand to become even richer, and entrenched in their power, and this is a problem. I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect it is by regulation of the technology and its ownership ... but realistically, I don't think this is going to happen.
We already have the technological capability to produce an abundance for all. There is already potential for plenty for all. The scarcity we currently experience is artificial scarcity, unlike the real material scarcity that human life revolved around in the pre-Industrial era. That changes a lot. And it enables us to improve humanity in ways previous eras never could.
I fully believe in equality of material comfort, with ownership and therefore economic power fully disbursed evenly among everyone. No one deserves comforts that others do not, especially not in an era when we can produce an abundance for all for the first time in human history. The misery I both see and personally experience due to this inequality has made up my mind about that.
" I do agree those at the top stand to become even richer, and entrenched in their power, and this is a problem. I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect it is by regulation of the technology and its ownership ... but realistically, I don't think this is going to happen."
If we allow material inequality, then it's inevitable that a few will hoard more and more of it until we end up with a few billion people struggling to survive while less than a few hundred own five mansions, a private plane, a yacht, and enough to literally buy the governments' loyalty.
And if we allow ourselves to believe it's not possible, then we succumb to the ruling class propaganda we've been spoon fed all our lives that nothing can ever change. But considering where things are now headed, we need to break through that learned helplessness fast and make the necessary changes. This new forward march of AI technology can result in a far better world or a dystopian nightmare, depending on what the vast majority decide to do... or, rather, not to do.
Nope, your utopian equality is only achieved by force, so, no thanks. I prefer the alternative, despite its messiness and in uncertainties. Not to mention you have no solution for finding meaning in your would be utopia.
No use of force has ever achieved equality. And no attempt at force has ever been *to* achieve equality, but to impose *inequality*, i.e., class rule and imperial dominance on others. The need, let alone the utilization, of force is antithetical to achieving equality.
When people live in material inequality, there is no need to impose order by force. It sustains itself through a world of happy, cooperative, and mentally stable people who are not compelled to compete against each other and struggling just to survive, or attempting to achieve economic dominance over each other. That's when force is utilized, or is seen as necessary.
Considering the struggling I have to do just to survive, and seeing the toll it is taking on so many good, hard-working people I know while a few sociopaths control everything, I prefer the other alternative.
There would be plenty of ways to find meaning. You cannot find meaning very easily in a world where you have to struggle just to survive. Then it's not about finding meaning, but simply endeavoring to survive into the next day. When you have full material needs met and no need to toil for others, then you are very free (at last) to seek out endeavors that are truly meaningful to you.
That is not a "utopia," it's simply a better world that modern technology now makes possible.
I'm a believer that we have to embrace the AI revolution.
A lot of artists fear AI. They believe they'll lose jobs, but it's already a hyper-competitive feild as is. It's considered theft, or inauthetic and inhumane, reasons usually given on grounds of philosophical or moral sensitivities rather than practical ones.
But the tech is here whether we like it or not. We can't stop it by complaining the thumbnail images bloggers are generating for their human-written writing "lack soul." I'm not going to let my own work sink. Rather, I'll stand on the shoulders of giants, as we always have with tech, and get ahead of the game. Welcome AI into my creative process.
I’ve come to the same conclusion. I fought it for a long time, then finally realized that was pointless. The only sensible option is to accept the revolution and figure out how to make it work to our advantage. It might or might not be possible, but resistance is a losing strategy. Embrace it with knowledge and awareness and hope for the best!
We should resist, at least in as much as we should demand 1) restrictions on AI to ensure their safety and control their capabilities, 2) transparency over what is and isn't generated by AI (and what is and isn't a robot, when the day comes that we grow them in labs), and 3) social agreement over how people's lives will have meaning (which, outside of spirituality and love, mostly comes from struggle and achievement), and 4) a slew of other issues I probably haven't thought of.
This ends in Brave New World in too many of the scenarios in my head.
Thanks for the thought provoking article. I fear that discussion of us 'all coming together' is wishful thinking. The only time that we all come together is when the threat is exogenous, like a war. We come together for protection as there is safety in numbers, but once the threat gets sorted out, there are inevitably those who will want to climb to the top. I can't imagine a war of man vs machine, as people will ally with machine vs other men. Look at Ukraine/Russia drone warfare. Sure hope something miraculous happens.
“Nobel Laureate Robert Solow once said that “you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity figures,” and today we see AI everywhere but in the productivity (and revenue figures). Those revenue figures should appear long before evidence of productivity improvements emerge, and they did before the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, but it still burst.
Nonetheless, AI hypesters cling to their fanciful forecasts. Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates recently predicted that “within 10 years, AI will replace many doctors and teachers — humans won’t be needed ‘for most things.’” Other tech bros are saying similar things but let’s instead talk about what’s really happening.
Where are the profits or even the revenues? OpenAI had losses of about $5.5 billion on revenues of $3.5 billion in 2024, and the finances for other startups are even worse.
The big companies aren’t very transparent about their profits or revenues for AI.
Microsoft provides the best information, but even its figures are unclear. Analysts have estimated its AI cloud revenues were about $10 billion in 2024 and about $13 billion annually based on fourth-quarter 2024 revenues.
Google parent Alphabet reported a 28% increase in cloud revenues over the past year, reaching $12.3 billion for the first quarter of 2025. But Alphabet has offered a cloud service since 2008 and most of those services have nothing to do with AI. Analysts estimate that AI cloud services have revenues on the order of billions each quarter, so the annualized total is probably about $10 billion.”
This is a fantastic essay! Thanks for the shoutout!
You raise really good points particularly this one: How viable will any DEI model be when the great majority of jobs lost will be among “privileged” white collar workers?
I like the idea of this transitional period being an identity equalizer. For far too long we've self-segregated ourselves based on status: type of job you have, where you went to school, and thus the neighborhood you live in and the social activities you engage in.
Now we're all about to be equal. The investment bankers on Wall Street and media personalities we see in the news are going to be at the same level as the rest of us. It's going to hurt a lot of people, especially those who have enveloped their sense of self within their career and the external validation it provides them. But it's also going to be an opportunity for many people as well.
It's scary and exciting, but one thing continues to emerge from these conversations -- community matters. To your point, we can't segment ourselves into identities and compete for dwindling resources. We MUST work together. All of us.
We're in a profound period and it'll be very disruptive. But the other side of this could be remarkable. That gives me hope.
Thanks so much for your kind feedback, @Amanda Claypool. It’s a challenge to be hopeful in a time of such uncertainty, but the more I study this issue and wrap my hear around what’s at stake, the more firmly I believe that we can make this transformation one that works for mankind, not against us. We are truly at a fork in the road, and we have the power to choose wisely. I am so thankful of the efforts of you, @Shawn K and everyone else who is bringing much-needed attention to this issue!
As a former college instructor, I can see a role for educators in this transition. It would be challenging and exciting for teachers to show the connection of the subject matter to AI. As a writing instructor, I would love to show students how they could alter their skill in a creative partnership with AI. This would be daunting, but I think do-able. Yes, AI will make many white collar jobs go away, but many jobs might also "morph" into new categories, making the people who can adapt to this change the winners.
I ate all this up, as my interest/alarm/excitement about AI and its likely/possible/potential impacts grows by the day. A friend thought I was kidding when I told her that I probably spend 8 hours a day reading or actively or at least passively thinking about AI and just how many people are oblivious to all of it.
For example: I visited Gallup Polls careers page, since I recently read their 2025 report on employee engagement (tl;dr: global employee engagement is abysmal) and wanted to see how/if they are trying to ready themselves for AI changing everything, and there wasn't a single job posting that mentioned AI. Maybe they have internal, existing teams already on it, but I've heard of at least one tech CEO who thinks AI is just a flash in the pan, that in a year no one will care about it.
A couple things I find myself thinking about is: who will be able to afford to pay for blue-collar work, if white-collar work is disrupted so much, and how this could shift things politically. I have friends/family who avoid using it at all because a) they dismiss its capabilities but more pertinently b) know that it's energy consumptive and bad for the environment. Could this lead to an interesting flip in political influence if the early adopters of it are more conservative, assuming we'll find ways (like we have with most other advancements) to make it less energy consumptive, and use it to actually do good things for our planet?
Omg, I didn't even consider the political implications. You're so right. If white collar jobs lose influence in the short term we are likely to see progressive states lose political power as the wealth of their base contracts. I would expect the savvy among them to see the writing on the wall and pivot accordingly, but it feels to me like one of the biggest handicaps of the Left is a cult-like embrace of certain perspectives and mindsets. In other words, if you were raised to believe that being college educated in the humanities, getting a JD, MD or MBA is the "correct" path, then it will take a lot to get you to deviate from it.
I saw this play out with COVID. Very early on, it became clear to me that the vaccine wasn't very effective, yet when I mentioned this to my friends in CA they would dismiss me and head to CVS for their next booster. It took nearly three years before most realized the vaccine was a relatively low value proposition. So it could take some time for progressives to assess what's really happening -- technologically, economically and politically -- and respond in a way that advances their interests.
And the Gallup info is stunning. Do you have a link to the careers page and the 2025 report? I've had the same experience in my circle. When I mention the rapid acceleration of AI and what is likely coming in the next few years, 99% of the people I speak with have no clue. They've either heard nothing about this and most continue to believe it's 10 years down the pike. I suppose that's because many take their cues from "breaking news" headlines in the NYT or on CNN, and as far as I can tell this isn't an issue that's on the MSM's radar. It reminds me a lot of how crypto grew quietly for more than a decade before most people even noticed that it existed. The difference here is that AI will be FAR more impactful and it's happening at lightning speed.
I think you mentioned that you spent 10 years in tech? Are you in that space now?
The people spending 8 hours a day reading or thinking about AI are going to be the winners in the coming job situation. The other 99% are going to be far behind the curve.
This made me laugh, but also bet you're right. If we're all on a Titanic of sorts, I hope to be one of the more informed and prepared passengers, help others, potentially shape it and how people find/create meaning when everything is more uncertain than we've ever known...
Such good points and comparisons, to COVID and crypto. Blindly following what the experts on MSM say (or in this case, DON'T say) is going to be incredibly detrimental to white-collar, traditionally credentialed and often Left-leaning people, as will a lack of intellectual curiosity and wrestling with ideas and a tendency to outsource well-being to HR or the government.
Another huge problem I see is that so many of the white-collar workers are so busy in the dysfunctions of corporate systems, and living with very little financial buffer between them and the next paycheck, so they have to maintain status quo vs questioning things or advocating for thoughtful implementation of AI or taking time to study, much less think about it and its implications for their job, or the world as we know it.
(the US is faring better than a lot of the world with something like 50% of employees reported as "engaged")
And here's the link to the Gallup careers page. I just checked and see that they do have 3 jobs that have "AI" in the posting which is not to say it really is looking for artificial intelligence experience. (And no postings for "What the Heck is Coming for Companies and Employment as We Know It Philosophers")
I actually left tech 2.5 years ago (web dev/people manager/ops + marketing technologist) and am finishing my second book—a wakeup call to dreamers in corporate to prioritize their personal autonomy and creativity--so still somewhat adjacent to tech/corporate. Given my interest in all this AI stuff I'm considering looking for at least PT work in AI ethics or the like. On a totally human note, I think I read somewhere that you and your family live in Montana? That's my home state--you picked a good one.
>> Another huge problem I see is that so many of the white-collar workers are so busy in the dysfunctions of corporate systems, and living with very little financial buffer between them and the next paycheck, so they have to maintain status quo vs questioning things or advocating for thoughtful implementation of AI or taking time to study, much less think about it and its implications for their job, or the world as we know it.
So true!! The white collar path is a treadmill that keeps you running with blinders on. It’s a lifestyle that also keeps you ignorant of corporate dysfunction and societal dysfunctions.
I remember this so vividly when I worked at Viacom. That was about 15 years ago, and I remember driving through parts of L.A. on my commute that were descending into homelessness — not anything like it is now, but if you were paying attention you could see the changes. Anyway, when I’d mention my observations to my co-workers they would just stare at me like I’d grown horns. Life was fine west of the 405 freeway, so as far as they were concerned there wasn’t a problem. White collar myopia is real. Blue collar workers, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of ignoring reality. I bet if you did a survey blue collar workers would be more aware/concerned about AI because they are used to paying attention.
Thanks for sharing the Gallop link! Can’t wait to check it out.
What’s the name of your first book, btw?
Oh, and yes — we are in Montana, in the Flathead Valley. It is absolutely fabulous. Wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else. Where are you from?
This: "White collar myopia is real." It really is, even when the companies I worked for did try to volunteer in the community and talked a lot about "our values" which looked nice vinyl-ed on the walls. The pretending is next-level and concerning!
I'm intrigued by what you're suggesting about blue-collar workers, and would love to dig into that/have conversations with them about it. Please let me know if you come across anything on this front, and I'll do the same!
I'll also share if I come across other companies in the HR consulting space that really should be raising awareness about AI and aren't/those who are.
My first book is Dear Fellow Spender https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Fellow-Spender-Savings-Create/dp/B0C9SP2ZF2, and will pair well with this next book about waking up to life and taking risks etc. It's kind of a money book, but even back then, I was more interested in connecting money management with intentional living. Who knows what money will even look like in the coming 2-3 years and beyond, but it still makes sense to me that smart people will use this time to get out of debt and prioritize exploring work and what it means to be human.
And you picked such a pretty spot. Is the Seattle-like "grey" real there? I'm born and raised Gallatin Valley, lucky to still have family there.
>> I'm intrigued by what you're suggesting about blue-collar workers, and would love to dig into that/have conversations with them about it. Please let me know if you come across anything on this front, and I'll do the same!
I actually don't have any hard data on this. It's just my "thin slicing" based on what I've learned about how "educated" vs "non-educated" minds work in the modern era. Since moving to Montana I've seen first hand how the latter group actually seems to exercise more critical thinking these days in their ability to identify inconsistent arguments, compare the reality they're fed by media and government vs the reality they touch and feel, and a skepticism toward people with bad track records for truth telling (if you get my drift).
Given this and how vulnerable they've felt for the past few decades, I suspect blue collar workers are more likely to perceive AI as a threat to their livelihood -- because they've been living under constant threat. The white collar crowd, on the other hand, has never experienced vulnerability, and certainly not anything approaching this level.
Bottom line, I think it all comes down to the extent to which we're connected to reality. And in my experience, white collar myopia often leads to a disconnect from reality.
Fascinating thoughts, thanks for sparking the conversation and thinking. Those connected with reality they can touch and feel, and I would add some of those (even in the white-collar world) who recognize a higher power vs relying on the government and pushed ideologies. "Bad track records for truth telling" made me laugh, and yes, I get your drift.
After the election, someone asked me to summarize each party in one word. I came up with "intervention" vs "independence." Obviously, a generalization, but the more I see, the more it proves true and proving to be pertinent to this conversation about AI, who sees it coming, who doesn't and WHY.
Such a great article. I’m a mixture of insanely curious about how this will all unfold & stomach turning worried about the potential economic fallout. No better time than the present to love thy neighbor.
Same here. I think that’s a healthy and normal reaction.
We did not consent to a small number of humans deciding this for the rest of us.
I heard somewhere: we're racing toward a future than no one wants and no one voted for.
We need to encourage more young people to go into healthcare. While AI will have an impact there, too, it is much more stable and person-oriented work. And with our aging population, in demand.
Agree. I would classify nursing as one of the few valuable knowledge-economy jobs that requires critical thinking and non-routine manual skills.
As a lawyer, I am already obsolete. Good thing I have other skills!
“As a lawyer, I am already obsolete.”
I’m not sure that’s true.
Right now, LLMs do a pretty good job of looking like they can write legal briefs (if you overlook the occasional hallucinated case citations), analyze contracts, draft patent applications, and the like.
But I think that’s because they currently have an ample supply of human-generated input to train on.
Let’s not forget that LLMs don’t actually understand what they’re saying. They’re just predicting the next most likely word on the basis of tons and tons of (mostly human-generated, for the moment) input data.
Look how they stumble over things like “how many r’s in the word ‘strawberry’?” or simple math.
I don’t think we’re on a straight-line path to Star Trek-level computers (let alone Lt-Cmdr Data or his evil twin, Lore) just yet.
You’re right, my skills may still be useful, but I can’t imagine that lasting beyond a year. I think you’re also right that we’re not riding a straight line. But with quantum computing now at our disposal, AI’s development will soon reach a tipping point and ramp up exponentially. I expect it to be sentient by 2030.
And the same for radiology technicians, physical and occupational therapists and others. Many opportunities and ongoing need.
Yes, I would also classify those as knowledge-economy jobs that requires critical thinking and non-routine manual skills. Keep in mind that estimates don’t call for all jobs to be eliminated, but nearly half of them.
Yikes! Wait a moment.
In the 80s they were talking about "Future Shock". The lectures would point out that the amount of change that you have experienced was equal to your age.
- 30 years of age meant you had experienced 30% of technological change.
- 75 years would be 75% of technological change.
I was required to sit through many lectures on the subject at the Highway Department in the 80s. As soon as they did the wave of lectures across the country, technological change essentially stalled. Yes, computers exploded, but everything else slowed way down, and that is not going to change.
Trump reindustrializing society will provide real jobs that will allow real families to start again. The population will start to rise again.
Population has been going down because all the jobs were off-shored, leaving no real work for regular people to be able to build a family.
- Do yourself a favor and wait four years before you start anything with FAIR about "AI".
See who the next President is, and the first 100 days of the administration, we will know by then if "AI" is still even a Talking Point.
- This talk of "AI" is just the latest PSYOP to disrupt society, the same way that the concept of "Future Shock" was a PSYOP used to excuse the collapse of the middle class in the 80s.
I've been warning about this blatant PSYOP for a few years now, and everyone is so enamored with the concept that they will not listen.
This is the 80s all over again. HA!
BTW, "AI" based hiring would be a DEI nightmare.
- "AI" trained to hire people will be as "woke" as the programmer.
Remember how "Initially, a viral post showed this recently launched AI image generator create an image of the US Founding Fathers which inaccurately included a black man. Gemini also generated German soldiers from World War Two, incorrectly featuring a black man and Asian woman." - BBC
But I digress.
HA!
I stumbled across this book yesterday while I was buying another book that talks about the future hype.
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DCZKG777
I was buying this book:
More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D3DV4PW2
Both books are pushing against the mania that is being generated by the tech people. All the hype, all the articles are paid for by the tech industry.
For years there were articles about "Transhumanism". They all stopped when Jeffery Epstein died. He was the source pushing the concept when he was alive.
- AI hype will only stop when the money dries up.
One important thing that AI will never have is empathy. You’re completely right in that it doesn’t care if you are black, white, or brown, straight or gay, etc.
If it has no empathy, it can be employed for nefarious purposes by people also lacking empathy.
And if we have fewer educated people who are unable to think critically and realize when AI is being employed with ill intent—well, we are completely screwed.
Yes, everything is changing at warp speed right now. But I think it’s critical not to discourage people from getting an education. Dismantling and devaluing education is a tool of authoritarian regimes to consolidate power: get rid of anyone who is capable of understanding what’s happening and speaking the truth.
I think these times require walking a very fine line: understand what’s happening and use it to our advantage as best we can—yet continue to educate ourselves and build critical thinking skills so we don’t just blindly accept whatever the powers that be tell us we should.
Agree, Heather. Education is very important. I am only recommending that parents not send their children to expensive colleges and universities unless their field of study is AI-compatible or resistant.
Less expensive schools and community colleges are more viable options in this climate. You don’t need to spend six figures to learn to think critically. In fact, based on what I’m seeing on elite campuses and their restraints on free speech, there now seems to be an inverse relationship between the cost of tuition and critical thinking skills developed.
As for AI’s lack of empathy and potential exploitation for nefarious means, I couldn’t agree more and have posted about this in the past. My article isn’t meant to suggest that I embrace AI or welcome it; I’ve resisted and ignored it as along as I could. I am now simply trying to wrap my mind around the inevitability and the opportunities.
Whether AI is used for nefarious means or otherwise, there is still a chance that it could be a bridge to a better world IF we stand together and stop seeing one another as privileged, victims, oppressors, or members of other identity groups that dehumanize us and separate us. Let’s use AI as an impetus to finally do what we should have done long ago: unite humanity.
Thank you for this thoughtful and comprehensive response, Monica, I appreciate your taking the time and effort to clarify. I’m going to look up some of your older posts that you mention, in order to get a better context. It sounds like you have considered all of these issues from multiple angles, and reading more will likely add to my understanding.
Excellent points about less expensive schools and CC’s, as well as considering one’s field of study through the lens of how AI might affect opportunities.
I remain baffled by the seeming lack of free speech on campuses, that has never been my personal experience. In fact it was always encouraged to learn how to sit with any personal discomfort in order to allow others the freedom to speak their truth. While some schools may have not have practiced this equally, free speech and commitment to working through dissent have always been a core value in academia. And I don’t see evidence that this core value has changed; I see the opposite. I’m hoping that all sides can enter constructive dialogue rather than resorting to blame, excoriation, and punitive measures.
I love that you’re hopeful that AI can unite humanity. The world needs realists, but also visionaries to help pull us into the best versions of ourselves. Thanks for writing, and for responding so thoughtfully and thoroughly to my comment.
You are forgetting that empathy is taught, directly and by observation. Even kids on the autism spectrum can be taught to mimic empathy (and often display it better than "normal" kids who weren't). There are quite a few people in the world who display almost no self-awareness, and possess minimal empathy. In that light we're setting the bar for AI "consciousness" much higher than we do for human beings, who get to declare they have a "soul" simply by being born.
The article confirmed my thought that vocational type jobs will be needed. Geez, remember when Obama said the only way to get ahead is with a college degree? The Socialists will be vying for position. Another discipline that will be needed are the natural resource managers/ -ologists jobs--the people that manage public lands, parks, refuges, forests, etc. You need field going people for those skills. Hmm, will the cyborgs become self-aware!
I feel the best, most hopeful AI outcome can be that we can center connection with each other and our environment. If AI can do all the BS marketing, web management, calendar maintenance, automate data analysis, etc., then humans are freed from The Office. It would give people time and resources to have many more teachers, caregivers, health professionals, and people who work on infrastructure and natural resource management. Imagine if education could have a 6:1 student:teacher ratio, if a mother could stay home with a stipend to care for her young children, or a man could take paid leave from work to care for an aging parent for the last year of their life, imagine if we didn’t have a shortage of maternity care providers. Imagine if everyone could have access to therapeutic massage, physical therapy, and personal trainers. How much could we improve the world with more people who can work on fixing roads and bridges, building a lot of housing for our growing population, finally get national high speed rail lines in the US, deploy solar panels on every roof that can hold them? And what if we had a massive corps of people who work on wilderness conservation, rewilding some areas, improving fire safety in others, replanting trees in areas of clear cuts? What if more people could work outdoors growing food or tending animals? What if there could be more time for making art, music, or just sitting on a porch chatting with neighbors without the stress of the 20th century rat race and scarcity mentality? That is the ideal promise of AI.
But, current trends suggest some combination of Idiocracy, Bladerunner, and GATTACA is the more likely future, because a small number of people always seem to decide that we can’t have anything nice around here.
I suspect that in the short term, while AI is taking over the screening of job applicants and competition for jobs skyrockets, it's going to be who you know—personal connections—that get people in the door. Maybe eventually AI will even out the playing field. Hopefully.
I've also been tuned into the coming AI tsunami, partly by reading Amanda Claypool but also Rod Dreher, who's been sounding the alarm on how AI is poised to become a religion of sorts as people begin relying on it like an oracle. He just wrote a piece today (paywalled) in which he urges readers to listen to this recent interview of someone who left the AI development field and warns people of how little restraints are in place to keep AI on a moral/ethical path.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/opinion/artifical-intelligence-2027.html
I agree the AI onslaught is not something we're going to resist our way out of. It's coming and it's going to upend society in countless ways. So the best strategy is indeed to learn what we can about how to harness it for good. I'm really grateful I believe in God and His providence, because He will my anchor through what we're heading into.
Thanks for sharing Rod’s info. Will check him out now and listen to the interview.
This is an extremely precarious time — it’s like humanity has just discovered fire. We can either use it to warm ourselves and cook, or we can burn down the whole damn forest.
Precarious is definitely the word. And great analogy.
Here's Rod's recent book, which also touches (but is not focused) on the AI religion issue. Highly recommend: https://a.co/d/9LxTHDs
It’s in my cart!
AI is starting to feel like a religion! I was just discussing this with my partner last night.
Remember “Trust the Science” and “I Believe Black Lives Matter”?
The same people who dutifully fell in line behind DEI and COVID masking — treating them like religions — will doubtless fall in line and surrender to whatever and however Tech Overlords decide to integrate AI into our lives. AI will become another cult in a long list of cults we are assembling…
Even crazier, as Dreher mentions in many of his AI-related writings, some of the Silicon Valley tech lords who are developing AI are also heavily into the occult and believe AI will act as a portal to connect with non/post-human beings. Their idea is that these super-intelligences (religious people might call them demons) will guide us into a post-biological (aka transhumanist) future, serve as gods to us. And enslave or destroy us. I'm not sure what to think, exactly, but from what I've read, this nutty-sounding possibility is being pursued by serious people for utopian purposes. Scary.
An AI religion. Ugh — absolutely the last thing we need!
I’ve decided I’m comfortable with AI — to a point. I don’t even think super-intelligent AI (one exceeding the collective thinking capacity of all 8 billion human beings on the planet) is necessarily an existential threat. As long as AI status in the non-physical world, I think humanity can muddle through what’s coming and have a chance of coming out better on the other side.
My biggest concern is with AI is that it might one day acquire the ability to manufacture and replicate non-organic or quasi-organic “super humans” equipped with AI super-intelligence. That’s the biggest threat IMO. That’s when we would enter Terminator territory and mankind would be in serious danger.
Monica, I also love sci fi. I agree with what you are saying about the threat of AI super-intelligence, which is the subject of a lot of sci fi. The trouble is that I don't remember the humans winning.
Yes, we are definitely outmatched in that game.
I am coming to believe more than ever that we need “ethical intervention” asap.
The NYT interview I linked above gets into this topic of Terminator territory and the need for ethical intervention. The interviewee left OpenAI (Sam Altman's company) because he "lost confidence" that leadership was doing what was needed to maintain safety and ethics.
I wonder why we are so into cult creation. Is it an America thing or a human thing? Love to read an article about this.
AI in HR and being deployed willy nilly in companies that already struggle with dysfunction is going to be incredibly interested to watch. In looking at job postings at some of these companies behind AI, I note an alarming absence of posting for people like philosophers and moralists and chaplains. It appears that they are building a tech company that builds tech like other tech companies (I spent 10 years in tech myself) but this ain't "just any tech," not by a mile!
I absolutely can see AI being the "religion" of the masses, and suddenly I'm appreciating his book Live Not By Lies in a whole new light...
I feel similarly: it's coming, and I don't want to be ignorant or thoughtless about it or get swept up in it. And ultimately, having a relationship with God as the source of actual Truth is what prepares me for any storm.
Good article, Monica. And very important! Here is the passage where you hit the nail on the head regarding the most important thing for us to consider as a massive form of change confronts us within just the next few years:
"When the straight, White male CEO still has a job, but 50% of the workforce across ALL demographic categories gets pink slips, the real dividing line won’t be identity; it will be who owns the means of production in an AI economy — and the MAGA-loving guy behind the counter at Enterprise Rent-A-Car isn’t part of the means-of-production-owning class."
Whoop, there it is. As I mention in most of my writings for Lightning Press on Substack and Medium we need to come to grip with the fact that capitalism, i.e., a system where a few own all the industrial technology -- including all automation, which includes AI -- and utilize it primarily for making a profit for a few while forcing the rest of us to accept a paycheck providing us with access to a comparatively tiny portion of it *has got to go.* It is not the "best possible system" in a post-Industrial era now heading into the next phase of a game-changing technological revolution.
The CEOs you mentioned, along with all the tech barons like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and the rest in the capitalist class, are thinking this right now: "How do we maintain class rule in the coming revolution? We have to make sure that the masses of people whose labor is becoming increasingly useless to run our businesses and make our profits own as little as possible, if anything at all. How do we keep them in line? How do we get them to accept a subordinate position in the world now that technology has advanced to the point where we can produce an abundance for all, and we're entering an era where human toil can be all but eliminated?"
We, the people of the working class, need to look past trying to find ways to preserve a system totally archaic in a post-Industrial, post-Work world simply because we are used to it, and it's never become more crucial to reject the rule of a few or an economic hierarchy. I too am hoping that this threat to all our livelihoods, along with a realization of what a boon this new technology can be to us as a civilization if we all collectively own & control its use, finally spurs us to this realization. It is, as you said, a perfect opportunity for a post-identity world where true equality for everyone can finally become a reality. But this will not happen as long as class rule exists, a concept that is now completely obsolete.
True equality for everyone has never existed, and will never exist, and if it did, it would be horrible. So no thank you to that idea. But I do share your concern that AI will only concentrate wealth and power in the existing techno-capital class to an astonishing degree. I think the access to the best AI models will be (it already is) restricted. What is left over will only be for for second class work, and entertainment, a la the Matrix at worst, and facilitating hobbies at best. Masses of people will end up with no meaningful work to do. This will lead to pandemic levels of psychological and spiritual despair.
That said, I'm still not convinced that AI is ready for prime time, but that's quite possibly because (a) as mentioned above, we (the public) get the second-best models for the masses, or (b) despite having a master's degree in machine learning, I'm already a second class citizen in the AI skills race.
Do you mean a quality of opportunity or equality of outcome?
I assume we're talking about equality of outcome. I'm all for equality of opportunity, but that leads to the kind of disparities that Christopher seems to be advocating should not exist.
But that’s kind of the rub, all a society can do is provide quality of opportunity. The outcomes depend on the skills, the talents and the efforts of individuals.
Even within families where opportunities and backgrounds between siblings are equal you still get different outcomes and varying levels of success.
Some people excel at mathematics , others at artistic expression. Individuals have a wide array of talents gifts and personal preferences therefore the outcomes one sees will vary from person to person even with equal opportunities.
Exactly. Disparity is baked into the human condition. It’s one of the vicissitudes of individuality. It’s acceptable and understandable that disparities will exist, even when equal opportunities are given, because no two human beings are alike. What we don’t want to see are disparities that arise from a lack of equal opportunity.
"True equality for everyone has never existed, and will never exist,"
Prior to the Industrial Revolution in the relatively recent past, it was impossible for economic equality to exist once the class-divided societies had begun between 8 and 10 thousand years ago. This is because only a small surplus could be produced with the primitive level of technology at the time. That situation changed in a big way once we developed sufficient technology to mass produce what we need and therefore provide an abundance for all.
"and if it did, it would be horrible. So no thank you to that idea."
I disagree, James. I see nothing horrible about everyone living a life of material comfort; no one controlling the lives of other people or making all the rules because they have an obscene amount of wealth where millions and millions of others cannot even keep a roof over their heads and are struggling just to survive in a world where we now have the technological capacity to eliminate these inequalities. The world would improve vastly, as well as the way we treat each other as competition that rewards the most ruthless will be replaced with cooperation that rewards amiable co-production. Nothing horrible about that in my estimation.
What is horrible to me is how so many people continue to support inequality in a land of plenty, and do not acknowledge the vast difference between living in a pre-Industrial world and a post-Industrial world where human toil and the mindless pursuit of profit were no longer necessary. We must accept that this change opens possibilities that were not open to people living as recently as the 19th century.
"But I do share your concern that AI will only concentrate wealth and power in the existing techno-capital class to an astonishing degree. I think the access to the best AI models will be (it already is) restricted. What is left over will only be for for second class work, and entertainment, a la the Matrix at worst, and facilitating hobbies at best. Masses of people will end up with no meaningful work to do. This will lead to pandemic levels of psychological and spiritual despair."
I hear what you're saying there, James. The majority of people today, however, also have no meaningful work, but instead toil for 40+ at jobs they hate, and which today could be easily automated. If we were free from that, we could find meaningful things to do, which would be things AI and automation could not readily accomplish. We just need our time and efforts freed up for that purpose.
"That said, I'm still not convinced that AI is ready for prime time, but that's quite possibly because (a) as mentioned above, we (the public) get the second-best models for the masses, or (b) despite having a master's degree in machine learning, I'm already a second class citizen in the AI skills race."
That, my friend, is more problems related to the fact that those with the most money in a class-divided system get the best of everything, whereas the masses whose labor power was once essential to the machine but is now becoming increasingly obsolete cannot afford the best.
"
Equality would restrict freedom. Some will always strive for more than others, and under these conditions, equality can only be achieved by theft or enforced confinement of ambition and activity. No thank you.
I agree there's a problem, I just don't think you're fully on the right track with the solution. I think you think the AI future will be a land of milk and honey, with plenty for all, and happiness will follow if only we agree to divide it equally? As I said, I fundamentally didn't believe in equality. I do agree those at the top stand to become even richer, and entrenched in their power, and this is a problem. I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect it is by regulation of the technology and its ownership ... but realistically, I don't think this is going to happen.
Hi, James.
We already have the technological capability to produce an abundance for all. There is already potential for plenty for all. The scarcity we currently experience is artificial scarcity, unlike the real material scarcity that human life revolved around in the pre-Industrial era. That changes a lot. And it enables us to improve humanity in ways previous eras never could.
I fully believe in equality of material comfort, with ownership and therefore economic power fully disbursed evenly among everyone. No one deserves comforts that others do not, especially not in an era when we can produce an abundance for all for the first time in human history. The misery I both see and personally experience due to this inequality has made up my mind about that.
" I do agree those at the top stand to become even richer, and entrenched in their power, and this is a problem. I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect it is by regulation of the technology and its ownership ... but realistically, I don't think this is going to happen."
If we allow material inequality, then it's inevitable that a few will hoard more and more of it until we end up with a few billion people struggling to survive while less than a few hundred own five mansions, a private plane, a yacht, and enough to literally buy the governments' loyalty.
And if we allow ourselves to believe it's not possible, then we succumb to the ruling class propaganda we've been spoon fed all our lives that nothing can ever change. But considering where things are now headed, we need to break through that learned helplessness fast and make the necessary changes. This new forward march of AI technology can result in a far better world or a dystopian nightmare, depending on what the vast majority decide to do... or, rather, not to do.
Nope, your utopian equality is only achieved by force, so, no thanks. I prefer the alternative, despite its messiness and in uncertainties. Not to mention you have no solution for finding meaning in your would be utopia.
No use of force has ever achieved equality. And no attempt at force has ever been *to* achieve equality, but to impose *inequality*, i.e., class rule and imperial dominance on others. The need, let alone the utilization, of force is antithetical to achieving equality.
When people live in material inequality, there is no need to impose order by force. It sustains itself through a world of happy, cooperative, and mentally stable people who are not compelled to compete against each other and struggling just to survive, or attempting to achieve economic dominance over each other. That's when force is utilized, or is seen as necessary.
Considering the struggling I have to do just to survive, and seeing the toll it is taking on so many good, hard-working people I know while a few sociopaths control everything, I prefer the other alternative.
There would be plenty of ways to find meaning. You cannot find meaning very easily in a world where you have to struggle just to survive. Then it's not about finding meaning, but simply endeavoring to survive into the next day. When you have full material needs met and no need to toil for others, then you are very free (at last) to seek out endeavors that are truly meaningful to you.
That is not a "utopia," it's simply a better world that modern technology now makes possible.
I'm a believer that we have to embrace the AI revolution.
A lot of artists fear AI. They believe they'll lose jobs, but it's already a hyper-competitive feild as is. It's considered theft, or inauthetic and inhumane, reasons usually given on grounds of philosophical or moral sensitivities rather than practical ones.
But the tech is here whether we like it or not. We can't stop it by complaining the thumbnail images bloggers are generating for their human-written writing "lack soul." I'm not going to let my own work sink. Rather, I'll stand on the shoulders of giants, as we always have with tech, and get ahead of the game. Welcome AI into my creative process.
I’ve come to the same conclusion. I fought it for a long time, then finally realized that was pointless. The only sensible option is to accept the revolution and figure out how to make it work to our advantage. It might or might not be possible, but resistance is a losing strategy. Embrace it with knowledge and awareness and hope for the best!
We should resist, at least in as much as we should demand 1) restrictions on AI to ensure their safety and control their capabilities, 2) transparency over what is and isn't generated by AI (and what is and isn't a robot, when the day comes that we grow them in labs), and 3) social agreement over how people's lives will have meaning (which, outside of spirituality and love, mostly comes from struggle and achievement), and 4) a slew of other issues I probably haven't thought of.
This ends in Brave New World in too many of the scenarios in my head.
Thanks for the thought provoking article. I fear that discussion of us 'all coming together' is wishful thinking. The only time that we all come together is when the threat is exogenous, like a war. We come together for protection as there is safety in numbers, but once the threat gets sorted out, there are inevitably those who will want to climb to the top. I can't imagine a war of man vs machine, as people will ally with machine vs other men. Look at Ukraine/Russia drone warfare. Sure hope something miraculous happens.
I love this article. I feel smarter for having read it. Not that it will save me being replaced by a toaster, but that was already a risk.
🤣
“Nobel Laureate Robert Solow once said that “you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity figures,” and today we see AI everywhere but in the productivity (and revenue figures). Those revenue figures should appear long before evidence of productivity improvements emerge, and they did before the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, but it still burst.
Nonetheless, AI hypesters cling to their fanciful forecasts. Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates recently predicted that “within 10 years, AI will replace many doctors and teachers — humans won’t be needed ‘for most things.’” Other tech bros are saying similar things but let’s instead talk about what’s really happening.
Where are the profits or even the revenues? OpenAI had losses of about $5.5 billion on revenues of $3.5 billion in 2024, and the finances for other startups are even worse.
The big companies aren’t very transparent about their profits or revenues for AI.
Microsoft provides the best information, but even its figures are unclear. Analysts have estimated its AI cloud revenues were about $10 billion in 2024 and about $13 billion annually based on fourth-quarter 2024 revenues.
Google parent Alphabet reported a 28% increase in cloud revenues over the past year, reaching $12.3 billion for the first quarter of 2025. But Alphabet has offered a cloud service since 2008 and most of those services have nothing to do with AI. Analysts estimate that AI cloud services have revenues on the order of billions each quarter, so the annualized total is probably about $10 billion.”
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dr-jeffrey-funk-a979435_ai-technology-innovation-activity-7329820571179929600-QDg1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAB5yr4BMHfns09w9ge_lOnjC2jhD7Z1mkg
This is a fantastic essay! Thanks for the shoutout!
You raise really good points particularly this one: How viable will any DEI model be when the great majority of jobs lost will be among “privileged” white collar workers?
I like the idea of this transitional period being an identity equalizer. For far too long we've self-segregated ourselves based on status: type of job you have, where you went to school, and thus the neighborhood you live in and the social activities you engage in.
Now we're all about to be equal. The investment bankers on Wall Street and media personalities we see in the news are going to be at the same level as the rest of us. It's going to hurt a lot of people, especially those who have enveloped their sense of self within their career and the external validation it provides them. But it's also going to be an opportunity for many people as well.
It's scary and exciting, but one thing continues to emerge from these conversations -- community matters. To your point, we can't segment ourselves into identities and compete for dwindling resources. We MUST work together. All of us.
We're in a profound period and it'll be very disruptive. But the other side of this could be remarkable. That gives me hope.
Thanks so much for your kind feedback, @Amanda Claypool. It’s a challenge to be hopeful in a time of such uncertainty, but the more I study this issue and wrap my hear around what’s at stake, the more firmly I believe that we can make this transformation one that works for mankind, not against us. We are truly at a fork in the road, and we have the power to choose wisely. I am so thankful of the efforts of you, @Shawn K and everyone else who is bringing much-needed attention to this issue!
As a former college instructor, I can see a role for educators in this transition. It would be challenging and exciting for teachers to show the connection of the subject matter to AI. As a writing instructor, I would love to show students how they could alter their skill in a creative partnership with AI. This would be daunting, but I think do-able. Yes, AI will make many white collar jobs go away, but many jobs might also "morph" into new categories, making the people who can adapt to this change the winners.
Brilliant insight, Chico. We need to move into collaboration mode, and as soon as possible.
American University is on it already.
https://kogod.american.edu/news/ai-what-they-are-saying
I ate all this up, as my interest/alarm/excitement about AI and its likely/possible/potential impacts grows by the day. A friend thought I was kidding when I told her that I probably spend 8 hours a day reading or actively or at least passively thinking about AI and just how many people are oblivious to all of it.
For example: I visited Gallup Polls careers page, since I recently read their 2025 report on employee engagement (tl;dr: global employee engagement is abysmal) and wanted to see how/if they are trying to ready themselves for AI changing everything, and there wasn't a single job posting that mentioned AI. Maybe they have internal, existing teams already on it, but I've heard of at least one tech CEO who thinks AI is just a flash in the pan, that in a year no one will care about it.
A couple things I find myself thinking about is: who will be able to afford to pay for blue-collar work, if white-collar work is disrupted so much, and how this could shift things politically. I have friends/family who avoid using it at all because a) they dismiss its capabilities but more pertinently b) know that it's energy consumptive and bad for the environment. Could this lead to an interesting flip in political influence if the early adopters of it are more conservative, assuming we'll find ways (like we have with most other advancements) to make it less energy consumptive, and use it to actually do good things for our planet?
Omg, I didn't even consider the political implications. You're so right. If white collar jobs lose influence in the short term we are likely to see progressive states lose political power as the wealth of their base contracts. I would expect the savvy among them to see the writing on the wall and pivot accordingly, but it feels to me like one of the biggest handicaps of the Left is a cult-like embrace of certain perspectives and mindsets. In other words, if you were raised to believe that being college educated in the humanities, getting a JD, MD or MBA is the "correct" path, then it will take a lot to get you to deviate from it.
I saw this play out with COVID. Very early on, it became clear to me that the vaccine wasn't very effective, yet when I mentioned this to my friends in CA they would dismiss me and head to CVS for their next booster. It took nearly three years before most realized the vaccine was a relatively low value proposition. So it could take some time for progressives to assess what's really happening -- technologically, economically and politically -- and respond in a way that advances their interests.
And the Gallup info is stunning. Do you have a link to the careers page and the 2025 report? I've had the same experience in my circle. When I mention the rapid acceleration of AI and what is likely coming in the next few years, 99% of the people I speak with have no clue. They've either heard nothing about this and most continue to believe it's 10 years down the pike. I suppose that's because many take their cues from "breaking news" headlines in the NYT or on CNN, and as far as I can tell this isn't an issue that's on the MSM's radar. It reminds me a lot of how crypto grew quietly for more than a decade before most people even noticed that it existed. The difference here is that AI will be FAR more impactful and it's happening at lightning speed.
I think you mentioned that you spent 10 years in tech? Are you in that space now?
The people spending 8 hours a day reading or thinking about AI are going to be the winners in the coming job situation. The other 99% are going to be far behind the curve.
This made me laugh, but also bet you're right. If we're all on a Titanic of sorts, I hope to be one of the more informed and prepared passengers, help others, potentially shape it and how people find/create meaning when everything is more uncertain than we've ever known...
Such good points and comparisons, to COVID and crypto. Blindly following what the experts on MSM say (or in this case, DON'T say) is going to be incredibly detrimental to white-collar, traditionally credentialed and often Left-leaning people, as will a lack of intellectual curiosity and wrestling with ideas and a tendency to outsource well-being to HR or the government.
Another huge problem I see is that so many of the white-collar workers are so busy in the dysfunctions of corporate systems, and living with very little financial buffer between them and the next paycheck, so they have to maintain status quo vs questioning things or advocating for thoughtful implementation of AI or taking time to study, much less think about it and its implications for their job, or the world as we know it.
Here's the link to the Gallup report: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
(the US is faring better than a lot of the world with something like 50% of employees reported as "engaged")
And here's the link to the Gallup careers page. I just checked and see that they do have 3 jobs that have "AI" in the posting which is not to say it really is looking for artificial intelligence experience. (And no postings for "What the Heck is Coming for Companies and Employment as We Know It Philosophers")
I actually left tech 2.5 years ago (web dev/people manager/ops + marketing technologist) and am finishing my second book—a wakeup call to dreamers in corporate to prioritize their personal autonomy and creativity--so still somewhat adjacent to tech/corporate. Given my interest in all this AI stuff I'm considering looking for at least PT work in AI ethics or the like. On a totally human note, I think I read somewhere that you and your family live in Montana? That's my home state--you picked a good one.
>> Another huge problem I see is that so many of the white-collar workers are so busy in the dysfunctions of corporate systems, and living with very little financial buffer between them and the next paycheck, so they have to maintain status quo vs questioning things or advocating for thoughtful implementation of AI or taking time to study, much less think about it and its implications for their job, or the world as we know it.
So true!! The white collar path is a treadmill that keeps you running with blinders on. It’s a lifestyle that also keeps you ignorant of corporate dysfunction and societal dysfunctions.
I remember this so vividly when I worked at Viacom. That was about 15 years ago, and I remember driving through parts of L.A. on my commute that were descending into homelessness — not anything like it is now, but if you were paying attention you could see the changes. Anyway, when I’d mention my observations to my co-workers they would just stare at me like I’d grown horns. Life was fine west of the 405 freeway, so as far as they were concerned there wasn’t a problem. White collar myopia is real. Blue collar workers, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of ignoring reality. I bet if you did a survey blue collar workers would be more aware/concerned about AI because they are used to paying attention.
Thanks for sharing the Gallop link! Can’t wait to check it out.
What’s the name of your first book, btw?
Oh, and yes — we are in Montana, in the Flathead Valley. It is absolutely fabulous. Wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else. Where are you from?
This: "White collar myopia is real." It really is, even when the companies I worked for did try to volunteer in the community and talked a lot about "our values" which looked nice vinyl-ed on the walls. The pretending is next-level and concerning!
I'm intrigued by what you're suggesting about blue-collar workers, and would love to dig into that/have conversations with them about it. Please let me know if you come across anything on this front, and I'll do the same!
I'll also share if I come across other companies in the HR consulting space that really should be raising awareness about AI and aren't/those who are.
My first book is Dear Fellow Spender https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Fellow-Spender-Savings-Create/dp/B0C9SP2ZF2, and will pair well with this next book about waking up to life and taking risks etc. It's kind of a money book, but even back then, I was more interested in connecting money management with intentional living. Who knows what money will even look like in the coming 2-3 years and beyond, but it still makes sense to me that smart people will use this time to get out of debt and prioritize exploring work and what it means to be human.
And you picked such a pretty spot. Is the Seattle-like "grey" real there? I'm born and raised Gallatin Valley, lucky to still have family there.
The Gallatin Valley is GORGEOUS. That’s Yellowstone country. You’re very lucky to have family there :-)
>> I'm intrigued by what you're suggesting about blue-collar workers, and would love to dig into that/have conversations with them about it. Please let me know if you come across anything on this front, and I'll do the same!
I actually don't have any hard data on this. It's just my "thin slicing" based on what I've learned about how "educated" vs "non-educated" minds work in the modern era. Since moving to Montana I've seen first hand how the latter group actually seems to exercise more critical thinking these days in their ability to identify inconsistent arguments, compare the reality they're fed by media and government vs the reality they touch and feel, and a skepticism toward people with bad track records for truth telling (if you get my drift).
Given this and how vulnerable they've felt for the past few decades, I suspect blue collar workers are more likely to perceive AI as a threat to their livelihood -- because they've been living under constant threat. The white collar crowd, on the other hand, has never experienced vulnerability, and certainly not anything approaching this level.
Bottom line, I think it all comes down to the extent to which we're connected to reality. And in my experience, white collar myopia often leads to a disconnect from reality.
Fascinating thoughts, thanks for sparking the conversation and thinking. Those connected with reality they can touch and feel, and I would add some of those (even in the white-collar world) who recognize a higher power vs relying on the government and pushed ideologies. "Bad track records for truth telling" made me laugh, and yes, I get your drift.
After the election, someone asked me to summarize each party in one word. I came up with "intervention" vs "independence." Obviously, a generalization, but the more I see, the more it proves true and proving to be pertinent to this conversation about AI, who sees it coming, who doesn't and WHY.