This Substack is all about making (or perhaps failing to make) the transition to a world where a significant portion of white collar jobs are going to be crushed by the oncoming wave of agentic AI.
There will be periodic Problem/Solution posts that are meant to be read in five minutes, followed by twenty five minutes of experimenting on your own. The only way to get good at this stuff is to spend time DOING it. And that’s hard, given how vast the space is, and how rapidly it is expanding. I hope I can eliminate a little of the uncertainty for you.
There will be Tool Time reviews of whatever catches my eye. I have a healthcare oriented startup, I’m involved in system development, I’ve got a team of “AI immigrants” that I support in their transition, and I ponder whether or not AI has killed Shall We Play A Game?, the puzzle I’ve been working on for Cicada 3301.
AI costs the way a cell phone did at the turn of the century. I’m spending no less than $100/month and you will have to adapt to this expense. If you’re waiting for it to be free, like the various Google tools were, that’s waiting for a less crowded lifeboat so you can get off the Titanic. Where you are might seem comfortable today, but it will not remain comfortable, anyone who survives the 2020s is going to be in some sense a disruptor.
So that’s that. Life on life’s terms; we’re facing the equivalent of the industrial revolution, only we’re going to get the same amount upheaval not over eighty years, but more like repeatedly every eighty days. AI is a never ending college finals week, welcome to the cram session.
