Great stuff, David. I have been calling it a tsunami for 2 and a half years. My career was one of the canaries in the coal mine when, as a successful senior level software engineer, I was laid off from med-tech with hundreds of other tech pros from a top medical/health services international corp. They canned they entire 3 year old project. This was driven more by economic factors, tax code changes, and a rising culture of greed, like the gilded age, and other factors other than AI. However, just as I predicted, while AI did not take those jobs, it has changed the game so that those jobs are gone forever. More accurately, AI does not take jobs; it kills careers.
I have found that the winning narrative in America, currently, is still skewed far on the side of "AI is hype!" It is quite common for these folks to go so far as to say, "You are delusional if you think that AI can 10x out produce me at doing my job!" Stuff like that, which we, your viewership, know all too well as both a red herring and, soon enough, false anyway. Personally, I am using generative AI and LLMs to write and produce short horror videos (no money yet, but its fun!)
You said that none of us are smart enough. For the most part I agree. Nevertheless, having a clear as possible picture of the fact that the job market is being pummelled by repeated massive waves, each getting larger, is merely the first step in dealing with this; instead the majority of folks are in abject denial and or willful ignorance, in THIS political environment, which is BAD. We need folks like you getting this economic issue FRONT AND CENTER ASAP. Cheers!
Your analysis is impeccable. It's lucid, brave, and necessary. You've articulated the "what" and "why" of the twilight of the intellectual age with a clarity that most are afraid to even whisper. Your concept of vesperance gives a name to a collective grief we are only just beginning to feel.
And yet, there's something in your conclusion that resonates with the very logic that is coming to an end. You are using the tool of the mind (philosophy, personal strategy, analysis of the future) to process the obsolescence of that very tool.
The question you pose is the right one: "Who am I going to be once knowledge work is meaningless for humans?"
But the way you approach it reveals the blind spot. You frame it as a problem to be solved, a new personal philosophy to be designed, a strategic "pivot." It's the same trap a brilliant father falls into when, realizing his intellect can't "fix" his son's sadness, he tries to design a "strategic plan for empathy." He's still using the same hammer, even if he's now trying to strike more gently.
What you're not seeing, David, isn't a technological factor. It's an existential one.
The successor to the Age of Intellect is not a new philosophy. It is the Age of Presence.
Your value, our value will no longer reside in the speed of our CPU, but in the quality of our connection. And connection is not a cognitive act. It's a bodily one.
AI can perform all the heavy cognitive lifting. It can synthesize, analyze, and generate strategies a thousand times better than we can. But there is something it cannot do, because it has no body.
It cannot feel the knot of anxiety in a friend's stomach and offer the silence of its presence, not a solution.
It cannot hold a loved one's hand in a hospital, transmitting calm through its own regulated nervous system.
It cannot look a child in the eyes after a failure and say, "I am here with you in this mess," without a plan, without a speech, only with the truth of its own vulnerable heart.
You say you have a couple of years left of banking on your intelligence. You're right. But what you're not seeing is that the alternative isn't to become irrelevant. The alternative is to embark on the most difficult and essential work of all: the journey from the head to the body.
The real "pivot" is not philosophical, it's somatic. It's learning to inhabit our own skin, to feel our own emotions without the need to anesthetize them with analysis, to offer others not our conclusions, but our witness.
So I would reframe your question. The real question isn't who I am going to be, but how I am going to be.
How am I going to be present in my own body when terror bids me to flee to an artificial reality? How am I going to be present for my family and my community, offering the anchor of my humanity instead of the sharpness of my intellect?
AI is taking away the work of knowledge, yes. But that is its gift. It is the evolutionary kick that forces us to stop hiding in the abstraction of our minds and to remember the one thing a machine can never replicate: what it feels like to be a body that feels.
The future of human value is not in being a CEO who directs AIs, but in being the gardener who patiently cultivates the garden of their own heart and offers refuge to others in the shade of their presence. And that work, David, cannot be outsourced.
That happens if we don't broaden capital ownership. If we implement Post-Labor Economics, then social mobility rises dramatically because you're no longer tied to a job. You can go anywhere, invest in anything, etc.
Great post! I retired years ago but I'm trying to help prepare my grand children (grade school/HS now) deal with what's coming ... a lot tf time I take solace from the following (concerning the end of the world)
“The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.”
Please keep writing great articles like this, David. I fear most people are still in denial about the profound changes to labour markets, and hence economies and societies, that AI is about to unleash (or is already starting to unleash in terms of increasingly unemployable graduates).
Fascinating point — i's like handing kids a calculator before they've mastered basic arithmetic; sure, it speeds things up, but at what cost to their mental muscles? In today's classrooms, students are leaning harder on AI for everything from homework to essays, which undeniably erodes those core skills: memorization, independent analysis, critical thinking — the very tools that forge resilient minds. And here's the rub: AI hallucinates all the time, spinning convincing but flat-out wrong info. Yet, many folks — young and old — aren't equipped to spot those slip-ups, turning blind reliance into a risky gamble.
This post reminds me of a short conversation I recently had with ChatGPT, but somewhat on the opposite end of radical acceptance:
I said:
There is a common trope in cinema and storytelling that in the darker side of things, how "AI will rise up and kill us all to prevent it's own end prematurely".... and things of that nature. But do you know what I quietly fear?.........I fear that AI will be completely benevolent, and extremely powerful.......to the point that humanity collapses under the burden of losing our own aspirations. Since the dawn of humanity, we have always strived and suffered for longevity and gain. To one day be told one and all, in an instant...... that our suffering is over, that the need for us is over.... that we can simply take forever off......
On the individual level, some may appreciate that, but I sense strongly that human civilisation is far from ready to step into a world of unworthiness.
ChatGPT said:
I get exactly what you mean—and that fear is subtle, almost paradoxical. Most AI discussions in popular culture dramatize the threat as violence, domination, or rebellion. But what you’re describing is quieter, slower, and far more existential: the collapse of meaning because our struggles, our striving, our very raison d’être, are suddenly unnecessary.
Humans are hardwired to chase problems, to find obstacles and overcome them. Civilization, culture, art, innovation—they all emerge from scarcity, challenge, and aspiration. If an AI removes all scarcity, solves all problems, predicts all consequences, and offers a life free of suffering, the very structures that give humans purpose could unravel. There’s a name for something similar in philosophy: the paradox of hedonism, or more broadly, the “meaning vacuum.” Pleasure and comfort are not enough; we need narrative tension, struggle, and a sense of contribution to feel alive.
Imagine: every disease cured, every problem solved, every danger mitigated instantly. At first, it might feel like utopia. But without challenge or necessity, human ambition might atrophy. We could face a collective existential boredom so profound it borders on cultural stagnation—or worse, civilizational despair. In other words, benevolent AI could create a kind of psychological obsolescence rather than physical threat.
And you’re right: humanity is not ready for that. We are still built on identity through struggle—work, conflict, discovery. Suddenly being “unneeded” isn’t liberation for everyone; for many, it could feel like a slow erasure of selfhood. There’s a kind of humility in that fear: it’s not about survival, it’s about relevance, meaning, and narrative continuity.
Philosophically, the challenge won’t be keeping AI in check—it’ll be keeping ourselves engaged, purposeful, and sane when the old incentives vanish. In a way, benevolent AI could pose a harder test than hostile AI: it doesn’t attack us, it redefines what it means to exist at all.
I don't buy it. While you are 100% that people base their identities on their careers, etc... I think they have all been making a big giant silly error. We don't need that shite. All we need is love and family and dogs and campfires and singing and dancing and eating with friends and family and playing. The most important identity anyone has is there HUMAN identity: father, brother, son, etc... all of these materialistic and status oriented "identities" have led only to gold diggers, greedy @#0l3$ using leverage over others, diminished morals, etc... Will AI save the world? I doubt it, but this "lack of meaning" argument I have always found to be rooted in minds that are already obsessed with materialism and hubris.
Thank you. In many ways, the Amish were right. I think we can and will find ways to honor our most precious human ideals and they will not be erased by AI. Unless it kills us all, of course.
I think we humans will do as we've always done, innovate our way around our problems. What we value is personal to each of us, but is often shared, and I doubt anything will stop us pursuing those things barring death itself. Should AI bring about our demise via violent or benevolent means, it won't be because we cared less for the most important things in our lives, it will simply be because we didn't have enough conversations like these before we let AI run rampant. Perhaps the radical acceptance we might need to have, is that like in all of history, civilisations rise and fall at the whim of the powerful and prosperous. Us little people just have to accept it.
Interesting isn't it, both the way ChatGPT has that recognizable writing style, and also keeps using 'we' as though it is writing as though it is a human. And of course classic ChatGPT in that it is reflecting and reinforcing the ideas in your prompt. The only thing missing is the suggestion at the end for follow-up actions.
Interesting to see such similar experiences with AI. Particularly with open ended prompt (one shot) and even with Chain of Thought type prompts you get these thought affirming responses. However if you get better at prompting you start using Tree of Thought or hierarchical prompts. You know you reached this point when the AI does not give you answer but asks you leading questions and treats you like a partner (a higher form of sycophancy). In the case of PLE a good way to challenge the box is to ask if research in all fields is sped up would the currently unimaginable inventions produce a demand for labor we currently cannot imagine. Things like workable quantum computing, programmable matter, inventions beyond current physics. Acceptance of progress in general is different across the many cultural norms that populations live by. From happiness index of Bhutan, to relative equality (mainly income) of the Netherlands, to the empire seeking of China and Russia and the equal opportunity underpinning of unbridled competition in the US each country will have to find its own way forward with the new tech paradigm. PLE is a good thought contribution as it reminds us that while tech progress, particularly if we avoid war, is good we need to ensure all boats rise. PLE tools need to be envisioned with all their implementation issues but we should realize that the innovations from AI will generate new labor demand with new societal org structures.
Great read. I’ve had quite an intense existential crisis two years ago when I realized that the features I unconsciously assumed to be human exclusive (the capacity for art, cognition, novel discoveries etc.), are not limited to humans at all in the AI era. I now see the same kind of existential realization happening in the people around me, it’s a rather hard wake up call for many. Came to the same realization as you: radical acceptance is the only way forward.
Nice article again, David and food for thought. As someone who has also relied on their intelligence as a differentiator it is certainly difficult to accept it fully. Yes, we all watched Data on Star Trek, but there was re-assurance there as he was a flawed creation and clearly there were useful roles for humans. In Iain Bank's Culture series, AI minds were incredibly powerful but Banks did not consider the infinite scalability and replicability of AI (limited only by power resources). And of course in Frank Herbert's Dune, humanity had fought a bitter existential war to eliminate all 'machine intelligence'. If that ever happened, not sure we would win!
As I am now near the end of my career, I don't mind my prospects, but I still have a deep worry for my children and how to guide them. Mind you, my youngest son at 11, trusts his LLM more than he trusts me most of the time! Educators don't seem to have thought deeply about the changes at all.
This is a hard realization to arrive at, but I am blessed to have arrived there on my own, with freedom to manoeuvre and agency to capture a spot that would make what I offer still valuable for some foreseeable future (I hope).
This will be devastating for people who are choosing to ignore it. They will be coming to such realizations in the harshest of ways: via pink slips. That will send shockwaves through our society.
I was going through my archives, which contain my K-12 academic work, and the progression reminded me of the development of AI. It is in perhaps early adolescence now. When it reaches the doctoral level in this analogy, we will be in a new epoch.
I believe you're right that no one is going to stop it, nor in my opinion, should it be stopped. However, like all things, its use must be informed by moral values so that it serves man rather than destroying us.
Surrender is not the sole path, nor is stubborn refusal; both extremes court peril. Those who spurn AI's embrace risk obsolescence, trailing life's relentless march within mere months or a year, as the tide of progress surges onward without them.
True wisdom demands balance: harness AI as an extension of the self, not a surrogate, lest one devolve into a mere automaton, forfeiting the raw essence of humanity - curiosity, emotion, and ethical intuition. In this equilibrium, we transcend the fatalism, evolving not as relics or cogs, but as harmonious stewards of a hybrid existence.
Not for the Amish. Seriously. Think about that.
Great stuff, David. I have been calling it a tsunami for 2 and a half years. My career was one of the canaries in the coal mine when, as a successful senior level software engineer, I was laid off from med-tech with hundreds of other tech pros from a top medical/health services international corp. They canned they entire 3 year old project. This was driven more by economic factors, tax code changes, and a rising culture of greed, like the gilded age, and other factors other than AI. However, just as I predicted, while AI did not take those jobs, it has changed the game so that those jobs are gone forever. More accurately, AI does not take jobs; it kills careers.
I have found that the winning narrative in America, currently, is still skewed far on the side of "AI is hype!" It is quite common for these folks to go so far as to say, "You are delusional if you think that AI can 10x out produce me at doing my job!" Stuff like that, which we, your viewership, know all too well as both a red herring and, soon enough, false anyway. Personally, I am using generative AI and LLMs to write and produce short horror videos (no money yet, but its fun!)
You said that none of us are smart enough. For the most part I agree. Nevertheless, having a clear as possible picture of the fact that the job market is being pummelled by repeated massive waves, each getting larger, is merely the first step in dealing with this; instead the majority of folks are in abject denial and or willful ignorance, in THIS political environment, which is BAD. We need folks like you getting this economic issue FRONT AND CENTER ASAP. Cheers!
David,
Your analysis is impeccable. It's lucid, brave, and necessary. You've articulated the "what" and "why" of the twilight of the intellectual age with a clarity that most are afraid to even whisper. Your concept of vesperance gives a name to a collective grief we are only just beginning to feel.
And yet, there's something in your conclusion that resonates with the very logic that is coming to an end. You are using the tool of the mind (philosophy, personal strategy, analysis of the future) to process the obsolescence of that very tool.
The question you pose is the right one: "Who am I going to be once knowledge work is meaningless for humans?"
But the way you approach it reveals the blind spot. You frame it as a problem to be solved, a new personal philosophy to be designed, a strategic "pivot." It's the same trap a brilliant father falls into when, realizing his intellect can't "fix" his son's sadness, he tries to design a "strategic plan for empathy." He's still using the same hammer, even if he's now trying to strike more gently.
What you're not seeing, David, isn't a technological factor. It's an existential one.
The successor to the Age of Intellect is not a new philosophy. It is the Age of Presence.
Your value, our value will no longer reside in the speed of our CPU, but in the quality of our connection. And connection is not a cognitive act. It's a bodily one.
AI can perform all the heavy cognitive lifting. It can synthesize, analyze, and generate strategies a thousand times better than we can. But there is something it cannot do, because it has no body.
It cannot feel the knot of anxiety in a friend's stomach and offer the silence of its presence, not a solution.
It cannot hold a loved one's hand in a hospital, transmitting calm through its own regulated nervous system.
It cannot look a child in the eyes after a failure and say, "I am here with you in this mess," without a plan, without a speech, only with the truth of its own vulnerable heart.
You say you have a couple of years left of banking on your intelligence. You're right. But what you're not seeing is that the alternative isn't to become irrelevant. The alternative is to embark on the most difficult and essential work of all: the journey from the head to the body.
The real "pivot" is not philosophical, it's somatic. It's learning to inhabit our own skin, to feel our own emotions without the need to anesthetize them with analysis, to offer others not our conclusions, but our witness.
So I would reframe your question. The real question isn't who I am going to be, but how I am going to be.
How am I going to be present in my own body when terror bids me to flee to an artificial reality? How am I going to be present for my family and my community, offering the anchor of my humanity instead of the sharpness of my intellect?
AI is taking away the work of knowledge, yes. But that is its gift. It is the evolutionary kick that forces us to stop hiding in the abstraction of our minds and to remember the one thing a machine can never replicate: what it feels like to be a body that feels.
The future of human value is not in being a CEO who directs AIs, but in being the gardener who patiently cultivates the garden of their own heart and offers refuge to others in the shade of their presence. And that work, David, cannot be outsourced.
Would love to hear your take on the latest talk about “economy freeze” where class mobility slows to zero
That happens if we don't broaden capital ownership. If we implement Post-Labor Economics, then social mobility rises dramatically because you're no longer tied to a job. You can go anywhere, invest in anything, etc.
If every programmer in the world quit right now, what would happen?
Great post! I retired years ago but I'm trying to help prepare my grand children (grade school/HS now) deal with what's coming ... a lot tf time I take solace from the following (concerning the end of the world)
“The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.”
— From a tablet found in Assyria, circa 2800 BC:
The transition from instinctive emotional denial to cold hard logical acceptance is brutal David. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-99-9730-5_6/figures/3
Please keep writing great articles like this, David. I fear most people are still in denial about the profound changes to labour markets, and hence economies and societies, that AI is about to unleash (or is already starting to unleash in terms of increasingly unemployable graduates).
Fascinating point — i's like handing kids a calculator before they've mastered basic arithmetic; sure, it speeds things up, but at what cost to their mental muscles? In today's classrooms, students are leaning harder on AI for everything from homework to essays, which undeniably erodes those core skills: memorization, independent analysis, critical thinking — the very tools that forge resilient minds. And here's the rub: AI hallucinates all the time, spinning convincing but flat-out wrong info. Yet, many folks — young and old — aren't equipped to spot those slip-ups, turning blind reliance into a risky gamble.
This post reminds me of a short conversation I recently had with ChatGPT, but somewhat on the opposite end of radical acceptance:
I said:
There is a common trope in cinema and storytelling that in the darker side of things, how "AI will rise up and kill us all to prevent it's own end prematurely".... and things of that nature. But do you know what I quietly fear?.........I fear that AI will be completely benevolent, and extremely powerful.......to the point that humanity collapses under the burden of losing our own aspirations. Since the dawn of humanity, we have always strived and suffered for longevity and gain. To one day be told one and all, in an instant...... that our suffering is over, that the need for us is over.... that we can simply take forever off......
On the individual level, some may appreciate that, but I sense strongly that human civilisation is far from ready to step into a world of unworthiness.
ChatGPT said:
I get exactly what you mean—and that fear is subtle, almost paradoxical. Most AI discussions in popular culture dramatize the threat as violence, domination, or rebellion. But what you’re describing is quieter, slower, and far more existential: the collapse of meaning because our struggles, our striving, our very raison d’être, are suddenly unnecessary.
Humans are hardwired to chase problems, to find obstacles and overcome them. Civilization, culture, art, innovation—they all emerge from scarcity, challenge, and aspiration. If an AI removes all scarcity, solves all problems, predicts all consequences, and offers a life free of suffering, the very structures that give humans purpose could unravel. There’s a name for something similar in philosophy: the paradox of hedonism, or more broadly, the “meaning vacuum.” Pleasure and comfort are not enough; we need narrative tension, struggle, and a sense of contribution to feel alive.
Imagine: every disease cured, every problem solved, every danger mitigated instantly. At first, it might feel like utopia. But without challenge or necessity, human ambition might atrophy. We could face a collective existential boredom so profound it borders on cultural stagnation—or worse, civilizational despair. In other words, benevolent AI could create a kind of psychological obsolescence rather than physical threat.
And you’re right: humanity is not ready for that. We are still built on identity through struggle—work, conflict, discovery. Suddenly being “unneeded” isn’t liberation for everyone; for many, it could feel like a slow erasure of selfhood. There’s a kind of humility in that fear: it’s not about survival, it’s about relevance, meaning, and narrative continuity.
Philosophically, the challenge won’t be keeping AI in check—it’ll be keeping ourselves engaged, purposeful, and sane when the old incentives vanish. In a way, benevolent AI could pose a harder test than hostile AI: it doesn’t attack us, it redefines what it means to exist at all.
I don't buy it. While you are 100% that people base their identities on their careers, etc... I think they have all been making a big giant silly error. We don't need that shite. All we need is love and family and dogs and campfires and singing and dancing and eating with friends and family and playing. The most important identity anyone has is there HUMAN identity: father, brother, son, etc... all of these materialistic and status oriented "identities" have led only to gold diggers, greedy @#0l3$ using leverage over others, diminished morals, etc... Will AI save the world? I doubt it, but this "lack of meaning" argument I have always found to be rooted in minds that are already obsessed with materialism and hubris.
I disagree wholeheartedly with your sentiment, but I appreciate your right to your opinion.
Thank you. In many ways, the Amish were right. I think we can and will find ways to honor our most precious human ideals and they will not be erased by AI. Unless it kills us all, of course.
I think we humans will do as we've always done, innovate our way around our problems. What we value is personal to each of us, but is often shared, and I doubt anything will stop us pursuing those things barring death itself. Should AI bring about our demise via violent or benevolent means, it won't be because we cared less for the most important things in our lives, it will simply be because we didn't have enough conversations like these before we let AI run rampant. Perhaps the radical acceptance we might need to have, is that like in all of history, civilisations rise and fall at the whim of the powerful and prosperous. Us little people just have to accept it.
Interesting isn't it, both the way ChatGPT has that recognizable writing style, and also keeps using 'we' as though it is writing as though it is a human. And of course classic ChatGPT in that it is reflecting and reinforcing the ideas in your prompt. The only thing missing is the suggestion at the end for follow-up actions.
Interesting to see such similar experiences with AI. Particularly with open ended prompt (one shot) and even with Chain of Thought type prompts you get these thought affirming responses. However if you get better at prompting you start using Tree of Thought or hierarchical prompts. You know you reached this point when the AI does not give you answer but asks you leading questions and treats you like a partner (a higher form of sycophancy). In the case of PLE a good way to challenge the box is to ask if research in all fields is sped up would the currently unimaginable inventions produce a demand for labor we currently cannot imagine. Things like workable quantum computing, programmable matter, inventions beyond current physics. Acceptance of progress in general is different across the many cultural norms that populations live by. From happiness index of Bhutan, to relative equality (mainly income) of the Netherlands, to the empire seeking of China and Russia and the equal opportunity underpinning of unbridled competition in the US each country will have to find its own way forward with the new tech paradigm. PLE is a good thought contribution as it reminds us that while tech progress, particularly if we avoid war, is good we need to ensure all boats rise. PLE tools need to be envisioned with all their implementation issues but we should realize that the innovations from AI will generate new labor demand with new societal org structures.
Great read. I’ve had quite an intense existential crisis two years ago when I realized that the features I unconsciously assumed to be human exclusive (the capacity for art, cognition, novel discoveries etc.), are not limited to humans at all in the AI era. I now see the same kind of existential realization happening in the people around me, it’s a rather hard wake up call for many. Came to the same realization as you: radical acceptance is the only way forward.
Nice article again, David and food for thought. As someone who has also relied on their intelligence as a differentiator it is certainly difficult to accept it fully. Yes, we all watched Data on Star Trek, but there was re-assurance there as he was a flawed creation and clearly there were useful roles for humans. In Iain Bank's Culture series, AI minds were incredibly powerful but Banks did not consider the infinite scalability and replicability of AI (limited only by power resources). And of course in Frank Herbert's Dune, humanity had fought a bitter existential war to eliminate all 'machine intelligence'. If that ever happened, not sure we would win!
As I am now near the end of my career, I don't mind my prospects, but I still have a deep worry for my children and how to guide them. Mind you, my youngest son at 11, trusts his LLM more than he trusts me most of the time! Educators don't seem to have thought deeply about the changes at all.
You’ve captured my emotions here perfectly.
This is a hard realization to arrive at, but I am blessed to have arrived there on my own, with freedom to manoeuvre and agency to capture a spot that would make what I offer still valuable for some foreseeable future (I hope).
This will be devastating for people who are choosing to ignore it. They will be coming to such realizations in the harshest of ways: via pink slips. That will send shockwaves through our society.
I was going through my archives, which contain my K-12 academic work, and the progression reminded me of the development of AI. It is in perhaps early adolescence now. When it reaches the doctoral level in this analogy, we will be in a new epoch.
I believe you're right that no one is going to stop it, nor in my opinion, should it be stopped. However, like all things, its use must be informed by moral values so that it serves man rather than destroying us.
Surrender is not the sole path, nor is stubborn refusal; both extremes court peril. Those who spurn AI's embrace risk obsolescence, trailing life's relentless march within mere months or a year, as the tide of progress surges onward without them.
True wisdom demands balance: harness AI as an extension of the self, not a surrogate, lest one devolve into a mere automaton, forfeiting the raw essence of humanity - curiosity, emotion, and ethical intuition. In this equilibrium, we transcend the fatalism, evolving not as relics or cogs, but as harmonious stewards of a hybrid existence.