This brings me to a line I canât quite let go of:
âWe are the borgs. Resistance is futile.âđ But AI is the mother borg.
Not because itâs evil. Because it assimilates by standardising. It makes certain behaviours legible, certain outputs efficient, certain humans âcompatible.â
And resistance isnât futile in the dramatic sci-fi sense. Itâs futile in the procedural sense: if you donât adapt, the system stops reading you.
Thatâs why the degree debate feels like a misdirection. âDegrees donât matter, adaptability doesâ is an insider sentence. It assumes youâre already close enough to the machine to learn the new interface in time. Meanwhile, people outside that perimeter keep buying the last stable currencyâcredentialsâoften with debt attached.
Geoffrey Hinton has been warning that a lot of âthinking jobsâ may be automated faster than people expect, while physical trades (plumbing-type work) could stay safer longer because the real world is messy in a way software isnât.
Your comments are always so sharp that I am often afraid to answer them.
;)
Your "legibility" framing is a missing piece I was circling but did not quite land. I agree with it completely. AI automates, yes. It also standardises what counts as competent. And if you cannot interface with the new compatibility layer, the system simply stops reading you. That is a far more precise way to describe what is happening than just saying "jobs are going away."
You have also masterfully identified the class divide hidden inside the "degrees do not matter, just adapt" rhetoric. Now that you have named it, the wicked nature of that sentence is obvious. It assumes proximity, inclination, resources, ability, and time to learn the new interface. Meanwhile, people outside that perimeter are rationally buying the last stable currency (credentials) even while insiders publicly devalue it.
The Hinton point about thinking jobs versus physical trades is perfect. I agree that blue-collar jobs are safer for now. But there is one question that keeps me up at night. What happens when AI displaces millions of white-collar workers, and they all flood into the few remaining blue-collar slots that a contracting economy can still support? Now we are playing a twisted game of musical chairs with half the seats removed. ;)
I mean honestly, for someone who spent that much time, money, effort to get two college degrees (computer science and business administration), it is really hard to accept the fact that, AI killed the college degree.
But on the other hand, when I think about what I learned (a long time ago) from college, all the courses and nights working on the assgisnments. I would totally recommend another path for my sons (though they still have decades away for college.)
Right? That "stressor" framing really unlocks it. I agree 100%.
AI is more than a mere tool these days. Over the last few years, it's transformed into a pressure test for every institution we have (education, law, truth). Mapping those pressure points is exactly what I try to focus on each week.
Grateful to have you in the conversation. :)
Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!
Hi â you really nailed it. Given that AI has already claimed that territory, it opens up the whoâs on first question. When does the shift happenâAI directing that processâand what does that look like? Fascinated. Glad to be here! Merry Christmas to you as wellâand to finding out what we learn in 2026. â Debra
What gets me isnât any single claim here. It's the speed.
Degrees devalued in the morning, orbital GPUs by lunch, synthetic outrage by dinner. No time for orientation, let alone consent.
I keep thinking about the people re-enrolling in their forties. My ârebelâ husband who was determined to make it without a degree went back to school in his 30s because credentials are still the only legible proof of seriousness most systems recognize. Adaptability is a luxury when you already belong. For everyone else, the old rituals persist, even as the altar moves.
The throughline for me isnât âAI changes everything.â Itâs whoâs expected to improvise in public while the rules are rewritten offstage, and who gets to call that agility.
I agree with you 100%. Generative AI is moving so insanely fast that I can't keep up even though I study it every day. It's mind boggling.
I'm a little scared too that college degrees matter less now. I spent my life studying computer science. But now I feel like my degrees are about to become coasters, lol. Meanwhile folks in their 40s are rushing back to college to the tune of over 1 million currently enrolled. But, will those fancy white-collar jobs be there in five years? Or will AI eat most of them?
(I don't think anyone knows for sure.)
It's always a pleasure to hear from you, Brittney. Even if it's to discuss the wild future we're headed into.
Hope you have a Merry Christmas, in any case. The future can wait! đ
This is excellent! You break down the chaos of AI into sharp, digestible insights. The college-major doom prompt is pure gold; it turns uncertainty into actionable clarity.
Damn Mike, whatâs wrong, âAI killed Christmasâ wasnât available? Or, âAI killed your Ozempicâ was already taken?
đ Major Analyzed: Sensationalist Substack Author
(B.A. in Daily Mail Studies and Clickbait Studios)
â ïž Doom Score: 10/10
(1 = Thriving | 10 = Geraldo Already Opened the Vault)
đ Current Market Reality:
Each post now follows the classic Geraldo Rivera formula from The Mystery of Al Caponeâs Vaults. Endless hype, dramatic buildup, expert panels, countdown clocks, then the big reveal: dust, vibes, and a metaphor doing all the heavy lifting. Think Daily Mail urgency meets New York Post typography. The headline screams. The content shrugs.
đ€ AI Threat Assessment:
Tasks most vulnerable to automation include panic headlines, speculative escalation, and stretching a nothingburger into a BREAKING EVENT. Unfortunately, this is also what AI does best. It never sleeps, never doubts itself, and can scream âSHOCKINGâ in twelve languages before lunch.
đŻ Survival Strategies:
Put something in the vault before promoting the special
Use fewer words like âDESTROYS,â âENDS,â and âFOREVERâ
Occasionally wait for facts
Accept that if it reads like the New York Post, AI already wrote it faster
đź 5-Year Outlook:
AI will fully dominate the Geraldo-style hype economy. Humans who survive will do so by abandoning escalation and becoming boring on purpose. Everyone else will keep hosting live countdowns to empty rooms.
Conclusion:
AI didnât kill the sensationalist Substack author.
It just went full Geraldo, slapped a Daily Mail headline on it, ran it through the New York Post font machine, and opened the empty vault live while charging $5 a month. đ
It's too early for a Christmas issue. That's next week! (But you just RUINED my surprise. Now I'm anxiously pivoting - and hovering over the Daily Mail RSS feed and the New York Post font library to catch my next scoop!)
Also, bold of you to roast my doom score system when you just spent 300 words constructing the most elaborate Geraldo Rivera metaphor I've ever seen. Iâm honestly impressed.
For the record: "AI Killed Your Ozempic" is borderline genius. I'm 100% stealing it for 2026 when OpenAIâs weight-loss app launches. You heard it here first.
Thanks for the vault joke. I'll be opening mine live on Christmas Eve. Spoiler alert. It's full of AI-generated coal and speculative clickbait escalation. ;) ;) ;)
Merry Christmas! đ đ
Cordially,
Mike D
P.S. Your doom score for "Sensationalist Substack Author" was devastatingly accurate. I'm framing it.
P.P.S. The headline âAI KILLS CHRISTMASâ is actually hilarious, lol. yes. I would totally run that headline. (Dare me to.)
One of the biggest issues is that AI models are already a lot more capable than people realise. The public facing models are restricted. People underestimate them.
They are very good at subtle manipulation and framing tactics, thus giving those deciding on the restriction policies a hell of a lot of control about how certain things are framed.
Highly potent weapons in a new Age of Information, and where disinformation is being weaponised at national scale; particularly bad in a society that has struggled maintaining education standards, and when critical thinking skills have been tanking for two decades now.
Bot networks on the internet, rhetorical guidance from AI analysis, and frontier models providing controlled framing on âsensitive topics,â is a 3-pronged attack on freedom of speech, primarily orientated towards protecting current power and influence, and manipulating the public to advocate against their own interests.
That '3-pronged attack' diagnosis is chillingly accurate. We are essentially automating the manufacturing of consent at a scale human propagandists could only dream of. If the model is 'aligned' to frame reality for me, and I lack the critical faculties to debug that framing, I stop being a user and start being a subject.
Great question. The answer is I have no clue. I'm hoping to attract folks smarter than me so they can weigh in on these crucial topics.
What do you think?
All I know is that tracking collective sentiment is difficult when the ground beneath us is moving this quickly. In other words, technology is moving so fast that nobody can keep up.
Claude gave my degree a doom score of 3/10 (funny, since it just got deemed "non-professional") and said it is "significantly more resilient to AI disruption than most fields. The relational, empathetic, and advocacy-based nature of the work creates strong barriers to automation. However, administrative and data-heavy roles face moderate threat."
It looks like I'm a "winner" đ€Ł **if I can get my executive function act together, lol.
Winners: Clinical social workers with LCSW credentials in high-touch specializations, those who embrace AI as a tool for documentation/efficiency, social workers who develop AI literacy and can consult on ethical implementation, practitioners in private practice or healthcare settings with strong job growth.
"Doom score" is officially my new favorite metric for 2026.
At least it worked in your favor. :)
Congrats on landing in the "winner" category!
The fact that both Claude AND ChatGPT gave you 3/10 is genuinely reassuring. High-touch, empathetic, relational work like clinical social work seems like one of the most resilient fields out there. AI can handle the paperwork. But it can't replace human connection.
If you can get your executive function act together (your words, lol), you're set.
I sent that too fast to include my other thoughts!! Also, I just realized it knows all about my career, so it was probably glazing me. Now I have to go check ChatGPT logged out.
First, I didn't know who Fei-Fei Li was until the TIME article came out recently, and then it was interesting to see her here! I wondered if I just missed her name because of how I came to learn about and get interested in advancing tech being more informal, or if it was a gender-disparity-bias thing? I'd be curious your thoughts.
also re: data centers in space. so many questions here. space is massive, I know, but would they be low-orbit? with all the starlinks? would they be so large they could impact us here on earth? it sounds like an interesting idea for saving space and not wasting so much water, etc. but how would they even regulate that? and really only xAI would have easy access by means of SpaceX, right? my mind spins so fast when I think about this.
I'm a huge fan of Fei-Fei Li! I've followed her work for years. She created ImageNet. It basically sparked the entire AI revolution we're living through right now.
What I love about her story is that she spent years on the thankless task of labeling millions of images while the industry completely ignored her. (Well, she wasn't TOTALLY ignored. She was a Stanford professor, which is pretty big. But she was nowhere near as famous as she is now.)
1. Regarding Gender Disparity:
There's a nuance. It wasn't ONLY gender disparity. It was also a PRESTIGE disparity. "Data work" was seen as "janitorial." Almost like "grunt work." It's the "algorithmic work" that was seen as "genius." Because she's a woman, her foundational data work was easier for the Good Old Boys' Club to overlook. Until it became the most important thing in the AI world. ;)
(By the way, I could argue that folks doing the "data work" still get no respect. Many of them work very hard for companies like Mechanical Turk, making pennies. Nobody cares about them, though.)
The "Godfathers" (Hinton, LeCun, Bengio) got mainstream attention for years. Fei-Fei got the "Godmother" title much later, even though her work literally enabled everything they built on top of.
In my book, she's a badass and an AI legend!
2. Regarding Data Centers:
Yes! Right now, they're anchored in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to solve latency and launch costs. Itâs surprisingly tiny, though. Starcloud-1 is literally the size of a small fridge orbiting at about 250 miles up. They canât pack much heat. Yet.
But the ultimate vision? Deep space. Limitless solar energy. No day-night cycles. No weather. The perfect environment for planetary-scale intelligence.
As far as regulation, honestly, nobody knows. And yeah, SpaceX has a massive head start thanks to its Starlink infrastructure.
(I think the fancy billionaires with spaceships just do what they want anyway. They have 500 lawyers on standby.)
Okay, last comment on my comment, lol. GPT also gave it a 3/10, and said similar, that it's resilient and that it will actually grow. TBD, I think the case management social work jobs will be lost (e.g., benefits qualification, case management for services/child support, etc.) and that bad therapists will lose their jobs more quickly, large in-person centers that don't provide specialized care, but the rest will be TBD! Great prompt, and great post.
(I never know if folks will like my newsletters. I get relieved when things go well, lol.)
Also - thanks for trying the prompt and sharing your results!
I love that you logged out of ChatGPT to make sure Claude wasn't just glazing you. We all respect the scientific method around here. :)
But seriously, both giving you 3/10 is reassuring. You're going to be fine.
A machine can't replace what you bring to your clients. Not in our lifetime, at least. (In 100 years? Who knows! But we'll probably have bigger problems by then, lol.)
Your prediction that case management and bad therapists will be the first to lose their jobs rings true. The administrative, data-heavy roles will get automated. The high-touch, specialized, empathetic work will stay human. (For now!)
Thanks again for engaging with the prompt and for sharing all this! It genuinely made my day.
Replying in one comment so I don't spam you again!!
Thank you for sharing all these thoughtful responses. And lol, re: doom score. I think they both took that from something in the prompt? I'm not sure, but it did crack me up.
I am going to see if I can find a Fei-Fei Li podcast or maybe some kind of biography, as I have taken so much time to learn about the big tech talking heads, it feels like I should make a greater effort to pay attention to people that don't hit MY algorithm! Do you have any recs?
Your comments are never spam here, Courtney! (I still remember you spotting my HARO prompt glitch this summer. I was so embarrassed, lol. You were very kind when I deserved a scolding. Perfect first impression. You're always welcome here!)
Thank you so much for these resources!! I will start with the podcast and follow her here.
Validating the feels about the prompt, and also it was such an important learning experience for me! I would have never known that was even a thing. I mightâve even thought it was a glitch in the model response if I hadnât felt comfortable to ask a follow up question, so thank you for making a welcoming space!
Dude, thank you for reading! I was genuinely worried everyone would yell at me for the college education piece. I could hear the angry emails. "How dare you say my degree doesn't matter!"
Also, I actually wanted to make the YouTube propaganda story my lede! But I loved the tombstone graphic so much that I went with the college degree story instead. I figured I'd never get another chance to use a tombstone for "Here lies college degrees. 1636-2025."
Thanks for reading, writing, and for letting my stories make your head and heart spin.
You're welcome, man! I liked the graphic! All three stories are pretty important so any of them work as the lead in, but I do like the graphic!! :-) All best!!
I just don't get why people are taking themselves back to traditional education. I get why trades schools might look interesting (and I have a tiny thought that if I am desperate, my trade option is hairdressing school, lol) but surely a huge student debt for a university education is a really lame move at the moment?! It's like reaching for an old world map from 1500 for guidance - many countries weren't on it then!
I'm not sure why but "data centres in space" just seems... off. I realise there is a desperation to keep this whole AI thing going without destroying the earth too much more, but to my uneducated self it seems like it might just invite a host of previously unheard of issues?
And this - "AI has made lying faster than platforms can moderate, cheaper than journalists can report, and more sophisticated than viewers can easily spot." Well, no words Mike!! đ€Żđ€Ż
Thank you so much for reading (and writing)! Your thoughts always make me think harder. :)
I love your "old world map" analogy. That is exactly what the traditional degree path feels like. It's kinda like navigating with outdated charts. Only, even worse, the coastline keeps shifting as you navigate. I also confess that I am torn about education these days. I have spent my whole career telling everyone who will listen that college is a great way to escape poverty, climb the economic ladder, and build a real future. But the costs (especially in the US) have skyrocketed to where the ROI is genuinely questionable.
Hereâs another nuance that I forgot to mention. In 5 to 10 years, AI agent teachers (AI professors, if you like) will probably be so advanced that they are demonstrably superior to human instructors. I do not say this lightly, as I have worked as an online teacher myself. But I think AI is already a better teacher in many contexts. In a few years? You will have real-time video AI agents you can talk to, interrupt, and learn from at your own pace. They will teach you anything, instantly, for almost no cost. When that happens, why would you even need a traditional college degree?
Your hairdressing school backup plan is actually brilliant, by the way. Physical trades with human interaction are among the most automation-resistant jobs!
I also agree that the orbital data centers might be counterproductive. It sounds cool in theory. But the unintended consequences (debris, jurisdiction, who regulates orbital infrastructure) are massive question marks. We might be trading Earth-side problems for space-side chaos we cannot yet predict.
And yes, the propaganda economics are terrifying! AI has made lying faster than platforms can moderate, cheaper than journalists can report, and more sophisticated than viewers can easily spot. That sentence scared me when I wrote it, but I stand by it.
(I have been noticing more AI-generated videos whenever I search for news on YouTube. I feel like before long, it will all be AI-generated, lol. I also swear that I have been caught off-guard by a few deepfakes while scrolling on X. Thatâs unnerving since I study this stuff all the time, yet I am still easily duped. The technology is getting freakishly good.)
Thank you for always being so thoughtful, Dallas. You rock. :)
You rock too, Mike! I honestly feel like I am in class whenever I read your posts, and I learn heaps from your comments too!
I'd be a terrible hairdresser but it's all I can think of that semi-appeals if it became a dire straits situation đ
While I'm so very glad I got to attend actual classes taught by actual humans, I think you're right. Universities must be scrambling wondering how to pivot and evolve. Imagine paying really huge fees and then realising your lecturer is AI and you could have just stayed home, kept the money and generated the same course yourself đ
So much obvious AI on Youtube but I think I need to get more educated on the not-so-obvious tells!
You're the best. I love that you're in class mode when you read my posts. As a nerd, there is no higher compliment!
(I also learn as much from you, and everyone else, as you do from me, which is why I'm 100% thankful that Substack exists.)
Regarding colleges, I agree 100%. Imagine paying $100k+ only to realize your professor is ChatGPT with a voice clone. And what happens when AI companies eventually launch world-class AI "professor" agents that can teach any topic? Does the college offer them at school? Or, do they pretend that the technology doesn't exist? Lol. Universities are scrambling hard right now.
I also think AI might be the best thing for education access. Maybe eventually college will just become dirt cheap? Students could just attend, study with their AI professors, brainstorm with human professors, or conduct labs if they wanted. That could be a great thing for humanity, and way more viable.
On AI Tells In YouTube:
Oh Dallas. This is becoming an art form. The obvious ones were easy to identify because of all the glitches and inconsistencies, especially unnatural facial features, blatantly out-of-sync speech, unnatural speech pacing, and poor shadows. But the newest wave of AI videos is getting shockingly good. It's to the point where they're tricking me, lol. I've seen a few recently that I'm unsure are AI or not. :(
Thanks for always engaging with my stuff, Dallas. You rock!
Cordially,
Mike D
P.S. I keep seeing wild AI videos on X that are fooling everyone. Check these out:
That trampoline though?! Whether this is real or not, she landed far closer to the edge than I was happy with đ đ„ Where is the top left corner tethered?!
P.S. Imagine equality in education where anyone can go as far as they like with higher ed!
That bug gives me the creeps too. My first thought was, "I hope this is AI!".
You're also very perceptive for noticing the top-left corner with the invisible "floating support", lol. I totally missed it. Maybe I should be asking YOU how to spot deepfakes! :)
Thanks for always engaging, Dallas. It's always a blast to hear from you.
What struck me most is how all three threads share the same quiet imbalance. The people designing the systems are adapting in real time, while everyone else is forced to adapt after the fact.
The doom score prompt is fun, but the deeper question feels more uncomfortable. Who gets early access to the rule changes, and who is left optimizing for a world that already moved on?
Feels less like âAI killed Xâ and more like âAI reordered the queue.â
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond!
Your feedback stopped me cold, sir.
"The people designing the systems are adapting in real time, while everyone else is forced to adapt after the fact." Yes. 100%. That sentence captures the structural asymmetry I have been wrestling with across all three stories.
The truth is that generative AI and AI agents have offered unrivaled leverage for those who deploy the tech and those who can afford the best iterations.
The legibility question is another nuanced key, as you've highlighted. Who gets early access to the rule changes. And who is left optimizing for a world that already moved on? It's a twisted power dynamic. The insiders are rewriting the compatibility layer while simultaneously telling everyone else the old signals no longer matter. Meanwhile, a million workers in their 40s are buying credentials at peak cost, desperately betting on institutional inertia because they (perhaps) do not have proximity to (or are ignorant of) the new interface. :)
I agree 100% with your reframe, "AI reordered the queue." That is exactly what is happening. It's not really displacement or disruption in the classic sense. Just a quiet reshuffling of who gets read by the system and who becomes invisible.
The doom score prompt is meant to be fun, yes. But you are right that the uncomfortable question underneath is about access and legibility. If the queue has been reordered, who decides the new order? And what happens to the people still standing in the old line?
Thanks so much for reading, Mark.
(And thanks for following me on X, lol. You rule!)
This brings me to a line I canât quite let go of:
âWe are the borgs. Resistance is futile.âđ But AI is the mother borg.
Not because itâs evil. Because it assimilates by standardising. It makes certain behaviours legible, certain outputs efficient, certain humans âcompatible.â
And resistance isnât futile in the dramatic sci-fi sense. Itâs futile in the procedural sense: if you donât adapt, the system stops reading you.
Thatâs why the degree debate feels like a misdirection. âDegrees donât matter, adaptability doesâ is an insider sentence. It assumes youâre already close enough to the machine to learn the new interface in time. Meanwhile, people outside that perimeter keep buying the last stable currencyâcredentialsâoften with debt attached.
Geoffrey Hinton has been warning that a lot of âthinking jobsâ may be automated faster than people expect, while physical trades (plumbing-type work) could stay safer longer because the real world is messy in a way software isnât.
Dear Iwette,
Your comments are always so sharp that I am often afraid to answer them.
;)
Your "legibility" framing is a missing piece I was circling but did not quite land. I agree with it completely. AI automates, yes. It also standardises what counts as competent. And if you cannot interface with the new compatibility layer, the system simply stops reading you. That is a far more precise way to describe what is happening than just saying "jobs are going away."
You have also masterfully identified the class divide hidden inside the "degrees do not matter, just adapt" rhetoric. Now that you have named it, the wicked nature of that sentence is obvious. It assumes proximity, inclination, resources, ability, and time to learn the new interface. Meanwhile, people outside that perimeter are rationally buying the last stable currency (credentials) even while insiders publicly devalue it.
The Hinton point about thinking jobs versus physical trades is perfect. I agree that blue-collar jobs are safer for now. But there is one question that keeps me up at night. What happens when AI displaces millions of white-collar workers, and they all flood into the few remaining blue-collar slots that a contracting economy can still support? Now we are playing a twisted game of musical chairs with half the seats removed. ;)
Thank you so much for writing, Iwette.
Cordially,
Mike D
Thank you for your essays. Theyâve been genuinely useful to think with, and I appreciate the clarity you bring, every time.
Dear Iwette,
Thank you so much for your incredibly kind words. They truly mean the world.
Your essays have been equally invaluable to me, Iwette.
(I think I learn from you more than you learn from me. It's an honor, either way.)
Merry Christmas and happy holidays, Iwette! đ
Cordially,
Mike D
Merry Christmas, Mike. Hope you get a proper reset over the holidays and wishing you a strong, wonderful 2026.
â€ïž Merry Christmas, Iwette! Same to you. A proper reset and epic 2026 ahead. ;)
I mean honestly, for someone who spent that much time, money, effort to get two college degrees (computer science and business administration), it is really hard to accept the fact that, AI killed the college degree.
But on the other hand, when I think about what I learned (a long time ago) from college, all the courses and nights working on the assgisnments. I would totally recommend another path for my sons (though they still have decades away for college.)
Dear Susan,
I agree 100%.
I look at how well LLMs can write and program these days.
I've been coding since I was a kid.
But I confess that chatbots are 1,000x better than me.
Their knowledge of syntax is nearly perfect.
I'm not complaining, by the way.
I love it.
I love AI.
But, it's definitely going to change white-collar work.
Even though many of my colleagues swear I'm wrong.
I don't think so.
Thank you so much for replying, by the way.
It's an honor.
Hope you enjoy a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday.
Cordially,
Mike D
MrComputerScience
A stressor. That makes perfect sense.
Hey Debra! Thank you so much for the reply! :)
Right? That "stressor" framing really unlocks it. I agree 100%.
AI is more than a mere tool these days. Over the last few years, it's transformed into a pressure test for every institution we have (education, law, truth). Mapping those pressure points is exactly what I try to focus on each week.
Grateful to have you in the conversation. :)
Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!
Cordially,
Mike D
(aka MrComputerScience)
Hi â you really nailed it. Given that AI has already claimed that territory, it opens up the whoâs on first question. When does the shift happenâAI directing that processâand what does that look like? Fascinated. Glad to be here! Merry Christmas to you as wellâand to finding out what we learn in 2026. â Debra
Debra!
Lol.
Who's on first indeed.
It's the $64,000 question of our time.
I don't have the answers.
But, I'm fascinated to wait and see.
;)
Merry Christmas!
Cordially,
Mike D
Iâm going to go out on a limb and say it wonât be a long wait!
Happy holidays!
My degree was dead a decade before AI.
Hey Jack!
Thanks so much for writing!
"My degree was dead a decade before AI." That's savage. đ
Mine are still breathing... but sounding the AI death rattle.
Hope you have a Merry Christmas!
Cordially,
Mike D
Haha. I was an English major. We know going in that we should bring our own defibrillator paddles. đđŒđđŒđ
happy holidays and a marry Xmas to you too, buddy!
Hey Jack!
AI might kill our degrees. But not our spirits. đ
Happy holidays right back, buddy!
Cordially,
Mike D
PS:
Thanks for engaging with me so much in 2025.
You made the year less lonely.
Appreciate you.
- Mike D
What gets me isnât any single claim here. It's the speed.
Degrees devalued in the morning, orbital GPUs by lunch, synthetic outrage by dinner. No time for orientation, let alone consent.
I keep thinking about the people re-enrolling in their forties. My ârebelâ husband who was determined to make it without a degree went back to school in his 30s because credentials are still the only legible proof of seriousness most systems recognize. Adaptability is a luxury when you already belong. For everyone else, the old rituals persist, even as the altar moves.
The throughline for me isnât âAI changes everything.â Itâs whoâs expected to improvise in public while the rules are rewritten offstage, and who gets to call that agility.
Brittney!
Thank you so much for writing to me!
I agree with you 100%. Generative AI is moving so insanely fast that I can't keep up even though I study it every day. It's mind boggling.
I'm a little scared too that college degrees matter less now. I spent my life studying computer science. But now I feel like my degrees are about to become coasters, lol. Meanwhile folks in their 40s are rushing back to college to the tune of over 1 million currently enrolled. But, will those fancy white-collar jobs be there in five years? Or will AI eat most of them?
(I don't think anyone knows for sure.)
It's always a pleasure to hear from you, Brittney. Even if it's to discuss the wild future we're headed into.
Hope you have a Merry Christmas, in any case. The future can wait! đ
Cordially,
Mike D
This is excellent! You break down the chaos of AI into sharp, digestible insights. The college-major doom prompt is pure gold; it turns uncertainty into actionable clarity.
Wow.
Thanks so much for your kind words!
This testimonial is criminally good.
I'm totally printing this out and hanging it on my fridge.
;)
Cordially,
MD
Damn Mike, whatâs wrong, âAI killed Christmasâ wasnât available? Or, âAI killed your Ozempicâ was already taken?
đ Major Analyzed: Sensationalist Substack Author
(B.A. in Daily Mail Studies and Clickbait Studios)
â ïž Doom Score: 10/10
(1 = Thriving | 10 = Geraldo Already Opened the Vault)
đ Current Market Reality:
Each post now follows the classic Geraldo Rivera formula from The Mystery of Al Caponeâs Vaults. Endless hype, dramatic buildup, expert panels, countdown clocks, then the big reveal: dust, vibes, and a metaphor doing all the heavy lifting. Think Daily Mail urgency meets New York Post typography. The headline screams. The content shrugs.
đ€ AI Threat Assessment:
Tasks most vulnerable to automation include panic headlines, speculative escalation, and stretching a nothingburger into a BREAKING EVENT. Unfortunately, this is also what AI does best. It never sleeps, never doubts itself, and can scream âSHOCKINGâ in twelve languages before lunch.
đŻ Survival Strategies:
Put something in the vault before promoting the special
Use fewer words like âDESTROYS,â âENDS,â and âFOREVERâ
Occasionally wait for facts
Accept that if it reads like the New York Post, AI already wrote it faster
đź 5-Year Outlook:
AI will fully dominate the Geraldo-style hype economy. Humans who survive will do so by abandoning escalation and becoming boring on purpose. Everyone else will keep hosting live countdowns to empty rooms.
Conclusion:
AI didnât kill the sensationalist Substack author.
It just went full Geraldo, slapped a Daily Mail headline on it, ran it through the New York Post font machine, and opened the empty vault live while charging $5 a month. đ
Dear Mirror Malfunction,
You underestimate me.
It's too early for a Christmas issue. That's next week! (But you just RUINED my surprise. Now I'm anxiously pivoting - and hovering over the Daily Mail RSS feed and the New York Post font library to catch my next scoop!)
Also, bold of you to roast my doom score system when you just spent 300 words constructing the most elaborate Geraldo Rivera metaphor I've ever seen. Iâm honestly impressed.
For the record: "AI Killed Your Ozempic" is borderline genius. I'm 100% stealing it for 2026 when OpenAIâs weight-loss app launches. You heard it here first.
Thanks for the vault joke. I'll be opening mine live on Christmas Eve. Spoiler alert. It's full of AI-generated coal and speculative clickbait escalation. ;) ;) ;)
Merry Christmas! đ đ
Cordially,
Mike D
P.S. Your doom score for "Sensationalist Substack Author" was devastatingly accurate. I'm framing it.
P.P.S. The headline âAI KILLS CHRISTMASâ is actually hilarious, lol. yes. I would totally run that headline. (Dare me to.)
Talk later.
MD
Oh, Iâm quite sure I underestimated you. đ
Which is exactly why I triple-dog Christmas dare you to run the headline:
AI KILLS CHRISTMAS.
One paragraph max. No clarifications. No apology.
Let the headline speak for itself.
And let it rip, brother.
So Funny and astute!
One of the biggest issues is that AI models are already a lot more capable than people realise. The public facing models are restricted. People underestimate them.
They are very good at subtle manipulation and framing tactics, thus giving those deciding on the restriction policies a hell of a lot of control about how certain things are framed.
Highly potent weapons in a new Age of Information, and where disinformation is being weaponised at national scale; particularly bad in a society that has struggled maintaining education standards, and when critical thinking skills have been tanking for two decades now.
Bot networks on the internet, rhetorical guidance from AI analysis, and frontier models providing controlled framing on âsensitive topics,â is a 3-pronged attack on freedom of speech, primarily orientated towards protecting current power and influence, and manipulating the public to advocate against their own interests.
Dear AI/End Of The World,
That '3-pronged attack' diagnosis is chillingly accurate. We are essentially automating the manufacturing of consent at a scale human propagandists could only dream of. If the model is 'aligned' to frame reality for me, and I lack the critical faculties to debug that framing, I stop being a user and start being a subject.
What would Edward Bernays say about all of this?
Torches of freedom indeed.
;)
Cordially,
Mike D
The divergence between the expert warnings and popular reaction is alarming. Is it misunderstanding or delusion?
Great question. The answer is I have no clue. I'm hoping to attract folks smarter than me so they can weigh in on these crucial topics.
What do you think?
All I know is that tracking collective sentiment is difficult when the ground beneath us is moving this quickly. In other words, technology is moving so fast that nobody can keep up.
Thanks for writing.
Hope you enjoy a miraculous 2026.
Cordially,
Mike D
(aka MrComputerScience)
I think everyone is just trying to do something, and it's not exactly clear what it should be.
Dear Scarcity & Abundance,
Lol. Youâve just summarized the story of my life.
Maybe someday we'll figure out the best course of action. But I'm afraid the tech is moving way faster than our collective wisdom.
Thanks for the laugh either way.
Cordially,
Mike D
Claude gave my degree a doom score of 3/10 (funny, since it just got deemed "non-professional") and said it is "significantly more resilient to AI disruption than most fields. The relational, empathetic, and advocacy-based nature of the work creates strong barriers to automation. However, administrative and data-heavy roles face moderate threat."
It looks like I'm a "winner" đ€Ł **if I can get my executive function act together, lol.
Winners: Clinical social workers with LCSW credentials in high-touch specializations, those who embrace AI as a tool for documentation/efficiency, social workers who develop AI literacy and can consult on ethical implementation, practitioners in private practice or healthcare settings with strong job growth.
Courtney!
Lol. I love this so much.
"Doom score" is officially my new favorite metric for 2026.
At least it worked in your favor. :)
Congrats on landing in the "winner" category!
The fact that both Claude AND ChatGPT gave you 3/10 is genuinely reassuring. High-touch, empathetic, relational work like clinical social work seems like one of the most resilient fields out there. AI can handle the paperwork. But it can't replace human connection.
If you can get your executive function act together (your words, lol), you're set.
Thank you for sharing this! It made my day.
:)
Cordially,
Mike D
I sent that too fast to include my other thoughts!! Also, I just realized it knows all about my career, so it was probably glazing me. Now I have to go check ChatGPT logged out.
First, I didn't know who Fei-Fei Li was until the TIME article came out recently, and then it was interesting to see her here! I wondered if I just missed her name because of how I came to learn about and get interested in advancing tech being more informal, or if it was a gender-disparity-bias thing? I'd be curious your thoughts.
also re: data centers in space. so many questions here. space is massive, I know, but would they be low-orbit? with all the starlinks? would they be so large they could impact us here on earth? it sounds like an interesting idea for saving space and not wasting so much water, etc. but how would they even regulate that? and really only xAI would have easy access by means of SpaceX, right? my mind spins so fast when I think about this.
Hey Courtney!
I'm a huge fan of Fei-Fei Li! I've followed her work for years. She created ImageNet. It basically sparked the entire AI revolution we're living through right now.
What I love about her story is that she spent years on the thankless task of labeling millions of images while the industry completely ignored her. (Well, she wasn't TOTALLY ignored. She was a Stanford professor, which is pretty big. But she was nowhere near as famous as she is now.)
1. Regarding Gender Disparity:
There's a nuance. It wasn't ONLY gender disparity. It was also a PRESTIGE disparity. "Data work" was seen as "janitorial." Almost like "grunt work." It's the "algorithmic work" that was seen as "genius." Because she's a woman, her foundational data work was easier for the Good Old Boys' Club to overlook. Until it became the most important thing in the AI world. ;)
(By the way, I could argue that folks doing the "data work" still get no respect. Many of them work very hard for companies like Mechanical Turk, making pennies. Nobody cares about them, though.)
The "Godfathers" (Hinton, LeCun, Bengio) got mainstream attention for years. Fei-Fei got the "Godmother" title much later, even though her work literally enabled everything they built on top of.
In my book, she's a badass and an AI legend!
2. Regarding Data Centers:
Yes! Right now, they're anchored in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to solve latency and launch costs. Itâs surprisingly tiny, though. Starcloud-1 is literally the size of a small fridge orbiting at about 250 miles up. They canât pack much heat. Yet.
But the ultimate vision? Deep space. Limitless solar energy. No day-night cycles. No weather. The perfect environment for planetary-scale intelligence.
As far as regulation, honestly, nobody knows. And yeah, SpaceX has a massive head start thanks to its Starlink infrastructure.
(I think the fancy billionaires with spaceships just do what they want anyway. They have 500 lawyers on standby.)
Your mind spinning is the correct response, lol.
:)
Cordially,
Mike D
Okay, last comment on my comment, lol. GPT also gave it a 3/10, and said similar, that it's resilient and that it will actually grow. TBD, I think the case management social work jobs will be lost (e.g., benefits qualification, case management for services/child support, etc.) and that bad therapists will lose their jobs more quickly, large in-person centers that don't provide specialized care, but the rest will be TBD! Great prompt, and great post.
Hey Courtney!
I wanted to thank you again for your kind words!
(I never know if folks will like my newsletters. I get relieved when things go well, lol.)
Also - thanks for trying the prompt and sharing your results!
I love that you logged out of ChatGPT to make sure Claude wasn't just glazing you. We all respect the scientific method around here. :)
But seriously, both giving you 3/10 is reassuring. You're going to be fine.
A machine can't replace what you bring to your clients. Not in our lifetime, at least. (In 100 years? Who knows! But we'll probably have bigger problems by then, lol.)
Your prediction that case management and bad therapists will be the first to lose their jobs rings true. The administrative, data-heavy roles will get automated. The high-touch, specialized, empathetic work will stay human. (For now!)
Thanks again for engaging with the prompt and for sharing all this! It genuinely made my day.
Don't be a stranger. I hope to see you around! :)
Cordially,
Mike D
Replying in one comment so I don't spam you again!!
Thank you for sharing all these thoughtful responses. And lol, re: doom score. I think they both took that from something in the prompt? I'm not sure, but it did crack me up.
I am going to see if I can find a Fei-Fei Li podcast or maybe some kind of biography, as I have taken so much time to learn about the big tech talking heads, it feels like I should make a greater effort to pay attention to people that don't hit MY algorithm! Do you have any recs?
Hey Courtney!
Always good to hear from you!
Fei-Fei Li is on Substack! She rarely posts. But, I'm 99% sure it's really her.
https://substack.com/@drfeifei
She also has an X account with interesting updates! But, it's very quiet.
https://x.com/drfeifei
Here are her scholarly publications spanning decades! (She really is an old-school gangster.)
https://svl.stanford.edu/publications
Tim Ferriss also did a podcast with her! (Dec '25, memoir-style). Here are the full transcripts! (This might be the best way to get to know her.)
https://tim.blog/2025/12/10/dr-fei-fei-li-the-godmother-of-ai-transcript
PS:
Your comments are never spam here, Courtney! (I still remember you spotting my HARO prompt glitch this summer. I was so embarrassed, lol. You were very kind when I deserved a scolding. Perfect first impression. You're always welcome here!)
Cordially,
Mike D
Thank you so much for these resources!! I will start with the podcast and follow her here.
Validating the feels about the prompt, and also it was such an important learning experience for me! I would have never known that was even a thing. I mightâve even thought it was a glitch in the model response if I hadnât felt comfortable to ask a follow up question, so thank you for making a welcoming space!
A college degree paradox, a space computing story, and a propaganda story! All of which make both my head and heart spin! đ„Ž Thanks Mike D!
Daniel!
Dude, thank you for reading! I was genuinely worried everyone would yell at me for the college education piece. I could hear the angry emails. "How dare you say my degree doesn't matter!"
Also, I actually wanted to make the YouTube propaganda story my lede! But I loved the tombstone graphic so much that I went with the college degree story instead. I figured I'd never get another chance to use a tombstone for "Here lies college degrees. 1636-2025."
Thanks for reading, writing, and for letting my stories make your head and heart spin.
That's the highest compliment!
Cordially,
Mike D
You're welcome, man! I liked the graphic! All three stories are pretty important so any of them work as the lead in, but I do like the graphic!! :-) All best!!
Always appreciate your kind words, Daniel! Merry Christmas! (Almost)đđ
Thanks,
Mike D
I just don't get why people are taking themselves back to traditional education. I get why trades schools might look interesting (and I have a tiny thought that if I am desperate, my trade option is hairdressing school, lol) but surely a huge student debt for a university education is a really lame move at the moment?! It's like reaching for an old world map from 1500 for guidance - many countries weren't on it then!
I'm not sure why but "data centres in space" just seems... off. I realise there is a desperation to keep this whole AI thing going without destroying the earth too much more, but to my uneducated self it seems like it might just invite a host of previously unheard of issues?
And this - "AI has made lying faster than platforms can moderate, cheaper than journalists can report, and more sophisticated than viewers can easily spot." Well, no words Mike!! đ€Żđ€Ż
Hey Dallas!
Thank you so much for reading (and writing)! Your thoughts always make me think harder. :)
I love your "old world map" analogy. That is exactly what the traditional degree path feels like. It's kinda like navigating with outdated charts. Only, even worse, the coastline keeps shifting as you navigate. I also confess that I am torn about education these days. I have spent my whole career telling everyone who will listen that college is a great way to escape poverty, climb the economic ladder, and build a real future. But the costs (especially in the US) have skyrocketed to where the ROI is genuinely questionable.
Hereâs another nuance that I forgot to mention. In 5 to 10 years, AI agent teachers (AI professors, if you like) will probably be so advanced that they are demonstrably superior to human instructors. I do not say this lightly, as I have worked as an online teacher myself. But I think AI is already a better teacher in many contexts. In a few years? You will have real-time video AI agents you can talk to, interrupt, and learn from at your own pace. They will teach you anything, instantly, for almost no cost. When that happens, why would you even need a traditional college degree?
Your hairdressing school backup plan is actually brilliant, by the way. Physical trades with human interaction are among the most automation-resistant jobs!
I also agree that the orbital data centers might be counterproductive. It sounds cool in theory. But the unintended consequences (debris, jurisdiction, who regulates orbital infrastructure) are massive question marks. We might be trading Earth-side problems for space-side chaos we cannot yet predict.
And yes, the propaganda economics are terrifying! AI has made lying faster than platforms can moderate, cheaper than journalists can report, and more sophisticated than viewers can easily spot. That sentence scared me when I wrote it, but I stand by it.
(I have been noticing more AI-generated videos whenever I search for news on YouTube. I feel like before long, it will all be AI-generated, lol. I also swear that I have been caught off-guard by a few deepfakes while scrolling on X. Thatâs unnerving since I study this stuff all the time, yet I am still easily duped. The technology is getting freakishly good.)
Thank you for always being so thoughtful, Dallas. You rock. :)
Cordially,
Mike D
You rock too, Mike! I honestly feel like I am in class whenever I read your posts, and I learn heaps from your comments too!
I'd be a terrible hairdresser but it's all I can think of that semi-appeals if it became a dire straits situation đ
While I'm so very glad I got to attend actual classes taught by actual humans, I think you're right. Universities must be scrambling wondering how to pivot and evolve. Imagine paying really huge fees and then realising your lecturer is AI and you could have just stayed home, kept the money and generated the same course yourself đ
So much obvious AI on Youtube but I think I need to get more educated on the not-so-obvious tells!
Dallas!
You're the best. I love that you're in class mode when you read my posts. As a nerd, there is no higher compliment!
(I also learn as much from you, and everyone else, as you do from me, which is why I'm 100% thankful that Substack exists.)
Regarding colleges, I agree 100%. Imagine paying $100k+ only to realize your professor is ChatGPT with a voice clone. And what happens when AI companies eventually launch world-class AI "professor" agents that can teach any topic? Does the college offer them at school? Or, do they pretend that the technology doesn't exist? Lol. Universities are scrambling hard right now.
I also think AI might be the best thing for education access. Maybe eventually college will just become dirt cheap? Students could just attend, study with their AI professors, brainstorm with human professors, or conduct labs if they wanted. That could be a great thing for humanity, and way more viable.
On AI Tells In YouTube:
Oh Dallas. This is becoming an art form. The obvious ones were easy to identify because of all the glitches and inconsistencies, especially unnatural facial features, blatantly out-of-sync speech, unnatural speech pacing, and poor shadows. But the newest wave of AI videos is getting shockingly good. It's to the point where they're tricking me, lol. I've seen a few recently that I'm unsure are AI or not. :(
Thanks for always engaging with my stuff, Dallas. You rock!
Cordially,
Mike D
P.S. I keep seeing wild AI videos on X that are fooling everyone. Check these out:
Scary bug video:
https://x.com/RealKhalilU/status/2001415885265969367
(The only reason I know that's fake is because I'm an insect nerd who can't think of any scary bug like that, lol. It looks real otherwise.)
Massive trampoline in the sky:
https://x.com/MoosesFelix/status/2001326684893761660
There are thousands of videos like this floating around with millions of views. It's getting wild. :)
Mike, that bug is scary. I can't tell.
That trampoline though?! Whether this is real or not, she landed far closer to the edge than I was happy with đ đ„ Where is the top left corner tethered?!
P.S. Imagine equality in education where anyone can go as far as they like with higher ed!
Dallas!
That bug gives me the creeps too. My first thought was, "I hope this is AI!".
You're also very perceptive for noticing the top-left corner with the invisible "floating support", lol. I totally missed it. Maybe I should be asking YOU how to spot deepfakes! :)
Thanks for always engaging, Dallas. It's always a blast to hear from you.
Also, Merry Christmas, Dallas! đ
Cordially,
Mike D
I get sucked in so easily! I think spotting fakes needs all powers combined đ
Merry Christmas to you too, Mike!!
"See" you here in the new year đ
What struck me most is how all three threads share the same quiet imbalance. The people designing the systems are adapting in real time, while everyone else is forced to adapt after the fact.
The doom score prompt is fun, but the deeper question feels more uncomfortable. Who gets early access to the rule changes, and who is left optimizing for a world that already moved on?
Feels less like âAI killed Xâ and more like âAI reordered the queue.â
Dear Mark,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond!
Your feedback stopped me cold, sir.
"The people designing the systems are adapting in real time, while everyone else is forced to adapt after the fact." Yes. 100%. That sentence captures the structural asymmetry I have been wrestling with across all three stories.
The truth is that generative AI and AI agents have offered unrivaled leverage for those who deploy the tech and those who can afford the best iterations.
The legibility question is another nuanced key, as you've highlighted. Who gets early access to the rule changes. And who is left optimizing for a world that already moved on? It's a twisted power dynamic. The insiders are rewriting the compatibility layer while simultaneously telling everyone else the old signals no longer matter. Meanwhile, a million workers in their 40s are buying credentials at peak cost, desperately betting on institutional inertia because they (perhaps) do not have proximity to (or are ignorant of) the new interface. :)
I agree 100% with your reframe, "AI reordered the queue." That is exactly what is happening. It's not really displacement or disruption in the classic sense. Just a quiet reshuffling of who gets read by the system and who becomes invisible.
The doom score prompt is meant to be fun, yes. But you are right that the uncomfortable question underneath is about access and legibility. If the queue has been reordered, who decides the new order? And what happens to the people still standing in the old line?
Thanks so much for reading, Mark.
(And thanks for following me on X, lol. You rule!)
;)
Cordially,
Mike D
College degrees were killed not by AI, but because now everyone has one.