Join us on Now We Consume. Take in the knowledge.
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Why suffer through the existential crisis of
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we consume. This is not meant to be a conspiracy
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that dance that line like a toddler dances on
their mother's last nerve. This podcast is rated
I. For immature audiences only. If you've ever
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existential crisis because you know someone is
making more money than you by selling pictures
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the right show. This is the Now We Consume Podcast.
I'm your host, Pip. Tonight, as always, are my
co -hosts, Gibbles and Gibbs. Hi. Welcome back
to the new year, everybody. It has been a hell
of a rollercoaster ride. We are 11 days in, and
we've already seen more news than we should have
seen in 11 days than 30 days. Well, I will say
I did not have him on bingo card for 2026 as
Maduro getting swiped to the U .S. He got yeeted
out of his bed like a pumpkin out of a pumpkin
launcher. It was amazing. Oh, yeah. And the stories
that are coming out of Venezuela about what we
did. We're going to most likely do a whole episode
on the Maduro thing, but all of that happened
as this episode was getting written, and I didn't
want to derail. So we'll just do an episode on
that. So before we get too far in, I did want
to kind of go over a few things. We're going
to ask for your guys' help. I know I swore in
the beginning I wouldn't do this, but we're going
to do this. We would like you guys to try to
share the show with everybody. People you know,
people you think might enjoy the show. So like,
subscribe, pass it along. That's all I'm going
to say. Don't forget about Dubby. We still have
the partnership with them. It's a great energy
drink mix. The flavors are pretty awesome so
far, and it works great. 10 % off using the code
CONSUME10. Give it a shot. See what you think.
We're still gearing up for the live show at the
end of the summer. There's going to be more information
on that, but everything is still moving forward
with that. So try to keep some time available
if you want to attend. I need to take the time
off for that. Please make sure you have that
available. The last thing is we are still actively
working on the merch. I'm hoping to have that
available probably by spring, if possible. Because
I know once I get into spring, my side business
is going to be gearing up and I will have no
time for the side stuff. So hopefully we'll have
the merch ready to roll by spring. Hopefully
I get my lighter fixed on my 3D printer and we
can get some manly masks printed. Hells yeah.
I never thought about that. Yeah, we're going
to have... I'm working on it. We're going to
have all kinds of cool shit, dude. Some of the
stuff we haven't even had a chance to tell you
about because with everything that you've been
doing, you've just been... I know. You've been
fucking gone. I know. Life's been very hard.
It's been non -consensually lifing. It did not
ask me for anything. So, I don't know. It is
what it is sometimes, but we're getting through
it. That's why I've been doing so well lately.
The universe took its thumb off me for a while
and found Gibbs. It's been my turn. He is the
universal fleshlight right now. Yeah, it's fine.
It's okay. So tonight's episode, we are going
to talk about some things that have been going
on in the workplace. AI has been at the center
of a lot of discussions. on this channel, among
other places. And job replacement has been kind
of at the forefront of all that. This whole thing
kind of boiled down from a discussion that I
had had with an engineer friend at work. And
the gist of it kind of came down to something
that he had said. AI makes the easy things easier
and the hard things harder. And that and some
various Reddit posts, I know Reddit is a hell
hole and a rabbit hole in and of itself, but
kind of got everything turning in my head. And
I did a lot more research and looking into all
this. And a lot of people either are extremely
concerned or actively seeing jobs going away
and being replaced by various forms of AI and
computerized automation. So something that I
felt that it was worth talking about was the
fact that we're weaving together three distinct
but overlapping crises. We have incompetent leadership,
people who are getting put into positions of
power and authority, who are firing people who
are capable of doing work and placing them with
the AI agent, the automation. The death of the
career ladder, you don't see people sticking
around for the 10, 15, 20 years and getting all
the knowledge to know all the things because
it just doesn't happen anymore. It's not worth
it to you. And the physical skill gap. You've
got people who are coming out of college with
all the knowledge on paper to build these wonderful,
amazing things. But if you give them... a box
of parts and a bunch of tools, they're completely
useless and they have no idea what to do with
it. We were making the joke at work that we've
got a lot of theoretical engineers in various
disciplines. They will ask technicians to do
the engineer work that they should rightfully
know how to do. I feel like the title of engineering
technician is something that should be more applied
or pushed for because you've got people who are
jack of all trades kind of people in the workplace
that are like the go -to guys or go -to people
at their place. I'm sure you both have seen those
people. I'm sure you guys might even be those
people. Or are you guys listening? Any input
on that? I always think of, there's a very famous
quote from Fallout New Vegas, which is there's
basically a scientist that's working at a station,
and he says, they asked me if I had a degree
in physics, and I said I had a theoretical degree
in physics, and they said you're hired. Paraphrasing,
but effectively, one of the things that I think
people don't realize is Most knowledge and experience
or really the ability to know how to do certain
tasks is predicated on the knowledge of how to
do things below them. So you can't just start
off immediately knowing how to build computer
processes without understanding like basic electrical
theory, basic wire, basic things. It's the culmination
of all that knowledge, all those layers and different
disciplines. And one of the problems you're having
is we've as a society have had. We've spent probably
the last 60, 80 years of people becoming really
good at one very specific thing. But then what
happens when you introduce something like AI
that can not only be very, very good at researching
one thing, but then not knowing how to actually
apply it, is now we have... almost entire generation
of people that are coming right out of college
that they are very knowledgeable in terms of
how things in a book value or an academic way
can be used but no fucking clue how any of it
is applied or how to have any sort of creativity
because unfortunately in most colleges and universities
creativity is not something that is fostered
or studied or replicated even taught in any way.
It's a lot of it is a plus B equals C, or this
is the answer we're looking for. How do you get
to this? And I'm not saying it's for all things
in every discipline and every everything, but
you can see it by the people that are coming
out of educated systems, whether it be almost
any discipline, I hate to say it in almost any
discipline. Creativity is, is actually forbidden
to almost to the point in a lot of colleges.
It's, it's very frowned upon creativity and free
thought. Yeah. indoctrination though on the other
hand oh yeah well i think it comes from just
basic problem solving where the method isn't
necessarily laid out for you it's how are you
going to fix the problem and justifying your
answer which is not something that's done as
much as it should be in a lot of disciplines
yeah but so i i've got everything kind of broken
down here um We've got the case of the press
button executive. So you've got the shortcut
to power. That's where you've got all these people
coming out of college, and they have these nice,
pretty, shiny, sparkly certificates of paper
that say, I know all of this stuff. I can do
this job. And then they're placed into the position
of manager or project lead. All of a sudden,
you've got this 20 -something with zero real
-world experience who is suddenly in charge of
the lives of a handful of people. They're just
coming out of college. They have exposure and
experience with the newest, latest, and greatest
technology out there. But these people have been
working with technology older than that person
themselves. Their first thought is, let's replace
all of it. Because I know of some stuff that's
way more efficient, and it's going to be cost
-effective, and it's going to do all these people's
jobs by itself. We can replace 25 people with
one AI bot, and it's going to cost $10 ,000 and
save the company millions, and it's going to
be wonderful. Ask Klarna how that turned out.
They fired 700 people. And replaced it with a
chat bot. They had to rehire almost every single
person that they let go. And I bet you everyone
that they hired negotiated for a higher salary
than the people that they let go. Yes, they did.
So it's a net loss. Get fucked! We'll go into
that one a little bit further. But you have to
realize it's not an age attack at that point.
It's an experience attack because they didn't
climb that ladder. They're not... one of those
people that worked their way up those rungs through
the company. They don't know what a solid foundation
looks like for that company. They're building
a corporate skyscraper on the sand because an
AI told you that the sand was statistically stable
at that point. So it's kind of a mirage of efficiency,
more or less. The AI will make things... but
not necessarily better because you've got incompetent
leaders mistaking lowered overhead for increased
value. So I'll let that one sink in. If you have,
if you're listening to this and you've got any
experience with this at your workplace or in
your life, please let us know because I'm only.
Going off of what I've been able to see in my
research. And yes, Gibbles, I know you've. I
want you to chime in here in a second. But let
us know, because just the research that we have
found. We have enough that this episode was at
least worth doing. But Gibbles, go ahead. After
you take your drink. Yes. So. Like in my job
that I'm currently doing. Some days enjoying.
I've been told that turnaround time on just training
somebody to do my job is like two years. And
that's just fixing copy machines. Yeah. And then
the fact that they're. Oh, damn it. I lost my
train of thought. Repeat the question again,
because I got all excited. Yeah, I'm sorry. God,
it's early, man. Oh, no, it's not that. I was
saying that people getting replaced by the younger
people that didn't climb the corporate ladder.
Yeah, we also have that issue, too. The constant
churn of new employees who think they know what's
best. And then find out really fast that no,
that's not going to work. And then they're gone.
Yeah. And then you get the next set in and they
have zero experience. And because everybody's
being told this is how it's done. But let's not
look at what the real world situation is. So
then you get all these geniuses that think they
know what they're doing, don't want to listen
to nobody, and then find out really fast that,
no, you're a moron. You need to listen to the
people with the experience. And next thing you
know, they're not working there anymore. Yeah.
There's a Forrester research that found 55 %
of bosses. who fired people for AI, already regret
it. Like you said, Lerna. Yeah, they fired the
experts that they had on site for a future promise
that didn't yet exist. And then they're suddenly
realizing that an AI agent cannot solve $3 million
an hour manufacturing crisis. So those people
aren't just losing jobs, they're losing the institutional
memory required to fix the world. Right. And
that's the kind of tribal knowledge that you
get with different people climbing the ladder
and sticking around to actually run the place.
Well, yeah, in my job, I mean, I was going to
say real quick, like in my job specifically,
there is quite a bit of information that is out
on the Internet that you could use to do the
job that I do fixing the copy machines. However.
There is still a lot that, you know, just for
me doing research on my own, just seeing, you
know, what's out there to see what kind of, you
know, cheats and tricks and stuff like that.
The people that have knowledge, way more than
I do, that's put it out there. And then still
every once in a while, the AI coming back with,
you know, I actually don't know because the company
did not release that information. So, yeah, it's.
good stuff there but then there's times where
if it's not on the internet and it's not public
yeah it just takes experience you know so then
that kind of brings us into the death of the
ladder and the barbell workforce um we've already
kind of talked about the the death of the climb
but the hollowing of the middle uh since 2022
Entry -level hiring in AI -exposed fields has
dropped from between 13 % and 20%, according
to Stanford and SignalFire data. So we're creating
a barbell structure, which is a few expensive
aging seniors at one end and a mass of AI agents
at the other. A little bit of a side note, since
late 22, Early career workers aged 22 to 25 in
those fields, they've seen a 13 % relative decline
in employment, while senior roles in the exact
same job stayed stable or grew by up to 9%. That
was in that same study. So I'll let that sink.
People who are able to stay at their jobs are
staying longer. Well, it's like once you've reached
a certain point in some companies where you're
upper echelons of management, you're not going
to leave. But it's also the case that's probably
the few jobs that have also grown with inflation
or beat inflation. So that's why they're staying.
There's also cases where they can't afford to
let you go. And they will literally pay you whatever
they can keep you for as long as they can. Because
unfortunately, they didn't train anyone else
below them. I saw that at my job. A gentleman
who was in his 80s just retired last year. I've
spoken about it before on the show. In his 80s.
No man should have to, no person should be working
in their 80s. Now, he did do it because he wanted
to. But still. That's rare. There was a part
of him that was there because he kind of needed
to. Because his level of knowledge, there was
nobody behind him for a while. But this is what
happens when you have companies that no longer
reward people, like the younger generation. They
don't reward you for sticking around with a company,
so what happens is none of us do. One of the
things I've noticed, I don't know. I've actually
asked around because this has been something
I've talked with my friends a few times about.
So I'm 30. 31? 30? God, 32? Anyways, I don't
even know. I thought I was bad. I know I'm past
29, so I don't really care. Numbers don't matter.
It's all a lie. But the point I'm getting at
is like there's a lot of people that just don't
end up staying and that there's no one to replace
them. No one stays long term. There's no upper
management or middle management. That's the problem.
It's like this huge decline in middle management
that's just ceased to exist in a lot of companies.
Or you get management that thinks they know what
the hell they're doing and they run a business
into the ground. Seen that a lot too. And it's
also like if you're constantly changing management,
it's they're always changing their styles or
expectations or what their goals are. So there's
no like good set data to pull from. Like something
I noticed from a previous company I worked at
was they had so many changes in management that
they had like an eight year time span where every
single year that their sales and goals fluctuated
with all their projects. And it was like, how
the hell do you know if anything's working? If
every year you get a new management company come
in. It completely wipes the board. It's like,
how are you this stupid? Yeah, it's, when you're
in those kinds of companies and you look around,
you're like, how do you people not see this?
Some of it is they do, and they just can't get
the solutions in place to fix it in time. And
a lot of the other times it's just money, like
corporate structures above won't fund the solution
because it's not cost effective. And then on
the flip side of that, how is it not cost effective
when that person leaves and takes 30 years of
knowledge with them that nobody else has? There
is no AI that will replace your experience. Not
yet anyways. We're probably 30, 40 years before
that would happen. Okay, you said that phrase.
I was going to save this for after I was through
this section, but I'm just going to go ahead
and read this. I left this as a comment on a
post in Reddit. I wanted to read it because I
thought that it hit a very specific note. We
have spoken about the importance of the trades
on this show many, many times. And I think now
more than ever, it's more important to push that
for our up and coming generations of workers.
And here's what I wrote. Skilled trades, at least
here in America, will most likely be the biggest
growing and hardest to replace or outsource.
over the next 10 years. Beyond that, there might
be robots available that can do some of the work,
but there are a lot of industries where a human
will always be needed. So over 20 years, I think
it will be a mix of human and robotic -assisted
grades. I had mentioned the conversation about
the theoretical engineers, and I kind of went
into that. Customer service technicians get a
bad rap because they are a technician. The use
of technician kind of gets thrown around pretty
loosely. But the customer service technician,
I interface with the customer to handle a complaint.
The oil service technician, I change the oil
in your car. And the geek squad technician, I
hook your computer up to a remote service that
does the work because I don't know how to. So
the technician is getting undervalued in the
main workplace. I think that there's going to
be some sort of a reckoning between the trades
and the colleges, especially in regards to AI
and how it's utilized in the various fields of
our world. Other jobs that require degrees now
may be replaced by people who learn to efficiently
prompt AI and can do so well enough to replace
multiple workers at a fraction of the cost. And
with the singularity rapidly approaching, I don't
think there's one, I don't think it's one that
we're all worried about. This is the one I fear
where the black hole that sucks everyone in is
our own apathy towards other issues and overarching
greed of the corporations that wield the AI.
Yeah. So. It'll be the ones that have so much
money they don't even give a shit anymore. Yeah,
because they can afford to survive it. Yep. So.
But yeah, the. The changing corporate structure,
I mean, we've got entirely too many people dependent
on the wrong people in the wrong place. So how
do you get a senior in 10 years if you fired
all the juniors today? The grunt work was where
all the tribal knowledge gets absorbed. And so
over a set number of years, you have... the biggest
black hole of skills knowledge just developing
and growing, and it will eat the companies from
within. So then you have the whole Klarna situation.
When you replace a department with an AI agent
like Dukan or Dukan, D -U -K -A -N, or as in
the case of Klarna, you aren't just saving money.
You are performing a lobotomy. What the hell
was that? I don't know if you said duking. I
just thought of duking. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Yeah,
you're performing a lobotomy on the company.
And then you're forced to rehire or just hire
new. And then you're reset and pushed back several
months to even years in your production. There's
a rehiring trend. By later this year, many companies
are quietly rehiring humans after realizing that
AI, in fact, cannot handle the edge cases that
they could. Yeah, I know, right? 55%. I already
read that. Yes. Yeah, 55 % of companies are already
regretting the AI -driven layoffs. something
else because they're all go ahead oh no i was
gonna say because they're all the same you know
if you take the time to like oh let me talk to
it it always is exactly the same doesn't matter
which ai you're using it's always the same bs
it and you can absolutely i'm getting to the
point now when i'm using it i can tell that you
know i'm not talking to a person i'm talking
to an algorithm yeah so i wanted to kind of go
over some things that we found to include for
this. New graduates now account for just 7 %
of new hires at big tech firms. That represents
a 25 % drop from 2023 levels. So if you're coming
out of college, you maybe have a 7 % chance of
getting a job, a degree. Underwater basket weaving
for the wind. Exactly right. Entry -level job
postings in quarter one of 2025 were 45 % below
the five -year average, which is lower than even
the early months of the COVID -19 lockdowns.
That's according to the Stepstone Group. In the
UK, there are crashes. Tech graduate job postings
in the UK dropped by 46 % in 24, with another
53 % drop projected for this year, according
to an ISE report. So couple that with the 55
% regret. They're trying to rehire and people
are going other places. They're going offshore.
They're competing for jobs. I mean, it's coming
back into the employee market, thankfully. Yeah.
Anything else you guys wanted to add on to that
part? The fact that Gibbs is so tired he's yawning
on stream. No, I'm sorry. I'm fighting a war
with my stomach. Don't mind me. You're losing
that war, buddy. No, the toilet lost that war.
You're going to pull an Eric Cartman just to
stay on stream. Bathroom! Boys and girls, do
not eat... Shrimp? Oh, no. Shrimp. Thank you.
I was going to say sushi. I was like, that's
wrong. Don't eat shrimp the second day. He's
been in the bathroom so long, his brains are
gone. I know. I feel like Stan Marsh on the episode
for the largest poo. Oh, yeah. That's where I'm
going to be in like three hours, four hours.
Unless we find out Bono is, you know... He is
a poo. Yes. Such a good episode. So I also have
something I wanted to mention. With all the AI
that's getting used, we're starting to see it
in retail spaces, and it's having an effect on
the consumer as well as the retail giants that
are using it. I don't know if you've heard much
about the digital tags that are getting used
and how they're changing prices for customers.
Yep. I've heard about it. I haven't seen it.
People tend to carry their little black mirrors
around all the time. And these things are laced
with metadata. The stores are buying our data
hand over fist. So if the three of us are in
a store and we're all in the same aisle, this
box of Oreos might cost me $4. It might cost
Gibbles. That might cost Gibbs $6. Is that a
fat joke? Fuck you. According to their metadata,
Gibbs eats more Oreos or uses more Oreos for
something. You're not wrong, though. I do love
Oreos. They're amazing. I still want to try the
other cookies, though. It got replaced by Oreo.
I can't eat Oreos because I watched that video
where they withstand the flamethrower. It's processed
food. What do you expect? I know. I've gotten
away from ultra processed. I wish I could. It's
Walmart and Target and Instacart who are guilty
of doing this. And I think Instacart's already
coming under a class action lawsuit. There's
no way it's legal, though. You can't just alter
a price per... That's such a big discrimination
lawsuit. Absolutely. Because their prices...
are up because companies are charging more because
they can't. Or less. They're literally increasing
the price and just seeing what people are still
willing to pay. When the product stops moving
off the shelf, they will back the price down.
That's what's been driving the cost of living
increase for the past five years. Not all things
changed. Because all the COVID shit's gone. Supply
chains are back in full swing. Everything's getting
made. There's no shortages anywhere. The ports
are open. Yet the prices have not come back to
normal. No, because why would they? Because think
about this. The unfortunate part is during COVID,
where did everybody make their money? The stock
market. So what happened? Every other company
had to grow. What's the only way to continue
your company growing? Making profit or being
able to justify on paper that your company's
growing. So what do you do? You increase your
product. either in supply or in cost and revenue.
But at the same point, you also keep adding up
things like fake job postings or fake expansion,
fake numbers, so that you can justify bigger
investments and bigger investors to come on board.
It's all just kind of this compounding problem.
Yeah, along with shrinkflation. We all know that
one. I despise shrinkflation. I want to kick
people in the ding -dong to do that shit. It's
disgusting. If we could go back to like 1999
and just get sandwiches, get bags of things and
boxes of things and bring them to now, you would
be disgusted at the size difference. Oh, yeah.
The Tropicana orange juice bottles. I just saw
a thing on that the other day showing that they're
not even a full half gallon now. They're not
64 ounces. They're like 58 and a half ounces.
Yeah. Everything has gone down in size just enough
where you don't completely notice it. But if
you really look at it, I mean, cereal is the
same way. If you look at a normal box of cereal
that's not family size, king size, wherever they
come up with these stupid names, and you really
look at the box of cereal, it's so much smaller
than it was just six, seven years ago. It's insane.
But they did it in just a way so that way. The
American populace doesn't notice that it's shrunk
that much unless you're anal retentive enough
to look at the ounces that the product is made
with, you know, supplied with, I should say.
Now, to be fair, I don't buy the boxes. I buy
the oversized bags because my children. Oh, and
those. Yeah, but those gone up in price, too.
Those used to be like two, three dollars a bag.
And now all of a sudden they're more than freaking
what you pay for in a box. Yeah. But you do get
a lot more, so my children can at least make
a bag last a few days versus a box was like two
bowls. Jesus. I can make a family -sized box
of chocolate Chex last at least a week and a
half. I have one child that will eat cereal morning,
noon, and night. Jesus. We've all been there.
Yes. Hey, cereal's good sometimes. So moving
on, you have all of these issues kind of coming
to a head, but that leads us into one of the
biggest issues when it comes to replacing people
with AI, the physical skill gap. Yeah. You have
a lot of CAD jockeys out there. They are the
digital engineers of the modern era. They're
a genius when it comes to simulating something.
But they absolutely lack every physical skill
known to be able to do anything. Talked about
in the opening. They are actually a liability
on the job site. And do you guys have any of
those guys like that in your worksite, Gibbs?
I feel like you would be more apt. So I'm going
to have to keep names very vague because of where
I work. You can use fake names or something.
I have noticed in a couple of previous employers
where you'll get people that say they went to
a school or a trade school or somewhere else.
And sad part is, I hate to say it, I've seen
this happen from even some trade schools where
they'll say they have the knowledge or they've
been taught certain things, but they're completely
missing some basic functions, some basic skill
sets, or Or what I'm seeing now even is that
some are so reliant on AI to answer certain questions
that it can become a nightmare. You know, you're
asking AI to solve basic things that you should
already know. Like, so, for example, with me
currently running an auto shop, that's automotive
is my field of study. One of the problems I see
is like for in diagnostic and testing work, one
of the problems you have with modern vehicles.
Some of the systems are really complex. There's
a lot of stuff involved. There's a lot of overlaying
and integrated systems. Lots of different modules
that all talk to each other. And some people
think they can just go to Gemini or to Grok or
chat GPT and say, you know, I have a 2013 Mercedes
GOK 345 and I have this module, this, this, and
that. What is the problem? You can't sell that
kind of work. You can't do that kind of stuff.
The amount of people that are coming into my
shop that are like, well, this other place said
it was this. And I literally take their concern,
copy and paste it into grok. And it comes up
with that. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding
me? Like they didn't even try. They just sold
a $350 diagnostic and being like, oh, it's this
thing. No, it's not. No, absolutely not. So it's,
I'm seeing it kind of on both ends where you
have some people that know they super relied
on it and it's wrong. but they have the lack
of basic skills to be able to even disprove it.
They wouldn't even know the other end to be like,
well, this is wrong because of blank. So that's
the problem. They're using a tool that now they
don't even know how to properly use, but they
can't even disprove the answers it gives. Yeah.
So. From what I've seen over the years. Just
from before AI became big when I was a police
in D .C., you'd have geniuses walking down the
street. They have this in their hand. Everyone
knows you can use that to find maps. You can
find locations. You can't get lost with it. And
yet I still had people that came up to me and
going, do you know where the Lincoln Memorial
is or the Smithsonian of Air and Space Museum?
And I'm just looking at them, right? And I'm
like, I know where it is. You know, I work in
the city, so I know where all this stuff is.
But I'm just like, the first question I come
out is like, well, do you have a smartphone?
Yes. Did you bother looking at it? Well, you
know, it shows me, but I don't know. So I saw
it coming like 12, 13 years ago that people were...
they're so reliant and expecting something to
think for them or someone else to do it for them
that what's happening now is just, it was just
going to happen. People are idiots out there
that they're so reliant on something that they
just can't think for themselves. Funny enough.
I actually had that set up as a whole topic for
an episode. I don't know if it's enough to generate
a whole episode or not, but that whole fact,
of how reliant people are on AI and search engine
thing. It's dumbing people down. Oh, it is the
critical decline of critical thinking. Yeah.
You ain't going to say it, but it's awful. I
see it all the time. Yeah. The amount of people
that will show up to my shop and. They will try
to research something about their car, but then
also not look at the obvious fucking problem.
Be like, wow, my car is a bunch of make a bunch
of noise. It has a bunch of lights on. It says
low oil. I'm like, did you check the oil? Why
would I do that? It's like the fucking Patrick
meme with the wallet. This is your name. Yes.
This is your face. Yeah, this is your ID. This
is your wallet. No. It's like the old derogatory
jokes where the wife has the car for the afternoon
and she comes back going, I don't know what all
these symbols are, but it all popped up. And
now the husband's having to explain to her, well,
did you do this? Did you do that? It's turning
into that, but with everyone. No, with... Everyone.
That's what I'm saying. Everyone. Unless you're
in the trades and you actually use your brain
for critical thinking, you know, and you can
apply that to other stuff, you know, that's what's
keeping a lot of us in, you know, the hands market,
you know, doing work with our hands is keeping
us in business because you have so many people
out there that just don't know how to do simple
things. Well, it's also because they've never
had to. You have entire groups of people that,
I mean, the most they do with their hands is
prepare their lunch or their food. I wouldn't
be that person, but they put a TV dinner in the
microwave, and that is literally the extent of
their... And I get not everyone has to work a
job that you work with your hands. That's kind
of the goal, is that we can all specialize and
do our own thing. But it's like, if you can't
do basic things, like very basic, I'm talking
things like check your oil. turn off a circuit
breaker, knowing the button to turn on off the
furnace on your house, or like, I don't know,
you see a big flashy light on your car and you
wonder, you know what, it's still running. Or
change the battery in their fire alarm. How many
videos have we heard that joke on? Yeah, that's
pretty out there. That's all. Being able to work
with your hands is such a... critically important
thing and like you said just the basic stuff
even it's my god i mean just this morning i saw
a video on instagram where somebody's like i
have this major life hack this is amazing go
out and buy this large piece of beef and then
you could slice it down and make individual steaks
and you save so much money and it's like Oh,
my God. I feel dumber just watching this. That's
a no shit, Sherlock. Yeah. Why is that considered
a life hack? That's just no duh. You're going
to save money when you buy in bulk. You buy meat
in bulk and you slice it down yourself. Guess
what? You're not paying the butcher to slice
everything up into a steak. Thus, you save money.
You're cutting out the becoming the middleman.
Right. It's like. Duh, how is this a life hack?
Well, but some people have never had the expectation
or even tried to do a lot of things themselves,
so they think they're rediscovering the wheel.
You know, they think, like, oh, my God, look,
I can do this. It's like, yeah, you always could.
Like, you know what I love? There's, like, a
little side note. I love all those people who
rediscovered that you can make your own bread.
Uh -huh. Maybe it's because of where I'm at TikTok.
Look, I'll be real. I love homemade sourdough
out of the bread. But I grew up on a farm. We've
always been able to make bread. I have my own
greenhouse. I've slaughtered chickens and pigs
and all this other stuff. For me, this is not
new. But one of my favorite things is a white
woman on TikTok rediscovering, oh, this is how
they did it. They made their own bread. And you
could do these things. It's become this whole
cult following thing. It's like... You could
have always done this. This is not new. This
is what we used to do. It's like somebody getting
a bread machine, making their own bread with
that, and going, holy shit, I could have just
done this myself. And it comes out even better.
Yeah. Homemade stuff is way better than the store
-bought shit. It's amazing, isn't it? Unless
it's Wonder Bread. You can't beat Wonder Bread.
Well, you can if you just have Wonder Mash. True.
That's a good joke. I'll give you that. That's
good. Can't be bad at that. So getting back on
topic. Sorry. That's what we do here, man. We
have the digital versus the physical. So in software,
the code is the world. In the mechanical, civil,
or electrical engineering, the model is just
a guess. And we all know what happens when the
engineers keep guessing. The techs have to fix
shit and stay over for five hours and just dinner
with their families for the fourth night in a
row and work overtime and get four hours of sleep
and be expected to show back up on their shifts
on time. You know, we won't go down that rabbit
hole tonight. Air Force. The amount of times
I've cursed at an engineer. I wholeheartedly
think, and I'm pretty sure I've said this on
the show before, any person who wants to be an
engineer should be forced to be a technician
first and spend time out in the field. At least
a year or two. It should be part of your degree.
Your degree should take five years, and one of
those years is you're a technician. Or even a
six -year degree, and two of those years you're
a tech. But the amount of times that one job
in particular, when I was in the freezer, we
had this brand new module come in for the machine.
completely engineered, and then deployed to the
field. We set it up in the machine exactly as
specified. The engineer came out on site to do
it. He helped with or he oversaw the installation.
We got it all installed, start the run. All of
a sudden, nothing physically ran through this
piece of equipment because it didn't account
for the stuff in front of it. You would have
thought the engineer was smart enough to think,
oh, there's something going into this, not just
I have to design this for this function, not
what was in front of it. Yeah. Because on paper,
it was supposed to be a straight piece, not a
curved piece. It was a tray intake for stacking
item trays in a warehouse. It was never designed
to take a curved section. So that was like a
half a million dollar bungle right there. I mean,
it was not cheap. And you know what's crazy?
They don't lose their jobs over stuff like that.
You know what's crazy? You could be a regular
worker, like a regular tech, and you could blow
up a $5 ,000, $10 ,000 motor in a car and you
get fired. But yet because you're an engineer
and you make a $500 ,000 mistake, it's like,
oh, well, back to the drawing board. Oh, no.
I've never understood how corporations work.
I don't know why. I'll have to go back and try
it again. You just literally wasted the salaries
of like seven or eight employees over your fuck
up because you were too lazy to figure it out.
Or like do a trial run or something like that.
And that's another thing. The engineers that
are coming out now don't have the physical know
-how to set test benches up to do trial runs.
Or they're too afraid to do experiments. If you
can't experiment, you don't know it well enough
to design it. Yeah. It's that simple. If you're
not knowledgeable enough to be able to manipulate
it and test it and to put it in different situations,
you clearly are not smart enough to engineer
it. I've worked on it. I was going to say, I've
worked on equipment where they guaranteed the
life of a part for the life of the machine. And
within six months, that part is dead. I mean,
even in the military, we had an aircraft on the
flight line. The avionics part for the radar
package was guaranteed for the life of the jet.
Yet within a year to two years, they're having
to cut the nose cone off the jet because something
was wrong with the radar and they had to fix
it. But remember. It was guaranteed by the engineers
that it wouldn't break. But it broke. Yes. I
have a good one. So we had a Mercedes GLK come
in the shop for a no start issue. Turns out that
it's going to need a starter, which fine, fair
enough. The labor time, the engineer's labor
time for Mercedes says it takes about three hours
to do the starter in that because it's in the
valley of the motor. Well. One of the bolts that
puts in the starter is way too long. So you have
to get it out, drop the motor, 14 -hour job.
That's why you can't keep technicians because
of the warranty. The hours are not enough for
what needs to be done. So because in their ideal
environment, it will fit out technically. but
in the real world, you have to drop a motor to
do a starter because an engineer was too dumb
to be able to make the bolt a quarter and eighth
inch shorter so you can fit it out. Right. Imagine.
Wow. The idiocy. But I see that stuff all the
time. And unfortunately, I hate to say it, nobody
got fired for that one. No one said like, wow,
wow, this is going to be. Who the hell buys a
car and wants to spend $3 ,000 on a starter replacement
when almost every other vehicle, it's a $500
job, but that's a whole different discussion.
Yeah. But let's see it all the time. That brings
us to the grade eight bolt test, grade eight
bolt test. I'm terrible tonight. Talk about the
engineer who can model a bridge in AI assisted
CAD, but doesn't know why you can't weld certain
metals or how vibration affects a real world
joint over 10 years. And yet you've got guys
out here who can literally weld a dick to a snowman.
Yeah. Are we talking face or midsection? Oh,
okay. He's got a big, floppy donkey nose. So,
you know what, though? Something you did bring
up there, which I didn't realize, AI is not going
to know material science that well. And you're
talking about material science where the idea
is like how these different metals and different
materials interact with each other. It's not
going to have any idea about torsion strength
or compression strength and all these other different
factors. All the new things. Yeah. I never thought
about that until you brought that up with this.
Oh, my God. I mean, I've come across the situations
where from an engineering standpoint, I want
to beat the shit out of the engineer from. you
know, copy machine company where they put something
that's all plastic gears, the gearbox, the, the
rod that comes out of it to drive the waste toner
box. I know a lot of people, I know what I'm
talking about, but it, because it's all plastic
and there's really no lubrication inside the
gearbox portion, it starts to squeak and make
noise because it's plastic on plastic. And after.
six to eight months we had a big company calling
and going you know all these brand new machines
you gave us they're sold to us are now making
a god -awful racket just a high squeal noise
we'll come to find out it's this stupid gearbox
with plastic gears inside that are now all rubbing
against each other making a high high vibration
noise i guess high wine And because it's all
plastic, there's really nothing you can do about
it. Oh, and because you've got to replace it,
you have to take everything out. Everything.
The toner pipes, all this stuff that goes down
the back of the machine away from where the pages
are printed on, all this stuff to go into the
box that's the waste toner. But you've got to
take all that out to get to one stupid little
part because instead of taking the time to engineer
it properly... Because it's a high use item.
They just went cheap on it. And I mean, I get
it. You want to make money off of something that's
already stupid expensive. But the problem is,
is now if it's within a certain time period,
you're talking about a warranty. You're talking
about labor and all that stuff that now you're
going to have to pay whatever company is coming
out to fix it. And, I mean, in my case, I've
learned that, oh, well, because it's making that
noise, it's this plastic rod that comes forward
to engage all the other plastic gears. And if
I bent it ever so slightly, it made the noise
go away. Hmm. So, all because an engineer was
a dangle. Yep, that's how it happens. A few things
to kind of add into everything that we were talking
about. The recruitment paradox, we've got 76
% of engineering employers struggle to recruit
for specialized roles, even as they admit AI
is improving their productivity. That's according
to an IET skills survey in 2025. We have an apprenticeship
void. 34 % of large engineering businesses do
not employ any apprentices, cutting off the on
-the -job learning pipeline required for physical
tuition. That's an IET study from 2025. There's
an innovation gap. The top skill missing in the
current workforce isn't AI knowledge, it's innovative
thinking, roughly 42%, followed by technical
and engineering specialist skills. You would
think those are pretty important at 39%. You
would think so. If they're not ever employing
or bringing on apprentices or people to train,
no wonder why. Yeah. And you got to start somewhere.
Yeah. Because as soon as all those employees
leave that have that experience, your business
ends. Yeah. There's a lot of them that won't
survive. Like, imagine. Because here's the scary
part of what's going to be. There's going to
be a few businesses that are going to be willing
to pay to train people down the road. Once this
whole AI bubble and everything, once everything
bursts and we're back to a more regular, not
regular, but like the old normal kind of lifestyle
thing, what's going to happen when all of a sudden
you got a couple of companies say, you know what?
We're going to be the one company in this area
that we are going to invest in our employees.
We are going to invest in people. And we are
going to take the time to be able to say, hey,
you know, we want you to be knowledgeable and
understanding about your position in this field.
They're just going to take everybody. There's
going to be a couple of companies dominating
certain areas because they're the ones that are
willing to train to take on these apprentices.
Right. It wouldn't surprise me. They'll be able
to survive, whereas other businesses will fail
because they didn't invest in the future. So
many businesses are so caught up in the here
and now. They never look beyond what's going
to happen in the next five to 10 years. They're
just looking at how much money. Yeah. They're
just looking at how much money can I make right
now. Yep. But it doesn't matter because, you
know, in the next five to 10 years, guess what?
You're going to have nobody to do the jobs that
you need them to do to keep the business going.
So not only are you going to lose all your employees
and you're not going to gain anybody knowledgeable,
but your business is going to go under because
you're too stupid to take the time to do the
one thing that you should be doing. Invest in
your employees. Although I will say I feel like
the trades in general, and this is actually a
lot of the older generation. I'm probably now
in their 60s that years ago they weren't very
friendly to people coming in. There are a lot
of trades that are really, really nasty to people
coming into them that never really fostered that
want of people to learn. There was this weird
problem, too, because I don't want to blame everything
as well on just people not wanting to go into
them because they're lazy. It's also because
it's quite a hostile work environment in some
cases. I've heard of many unions kind of really,
really, really being tough on people. And there's
a difference between ragging on people and having
some fun. And, you know, you say some jokes,
you know, you call each other's mother or something,
whatever. You have a little fun. Everyone has
a little laugh. That's different. But I've seen
some places where it's like, you know, they'll
fill your boots up with cement and shit like
that. And they'll lock your tools in someone
else's truck or they'll throw your stuff off
a cliff. Like I've heard numerous stories about
that kind of stuff. And they wonder why some
people don't. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying.
But that's why they wonder why people don't stick
around. So there is a little bit of that in that
environment where there are many trades that
are really hostile. And then they wonder why
it's all a bunch of 50, 60 year old guys that
are all sitting there smoking, being like, where
are the younger people? It's like, well, why
would they work for you at the same point? You're
an asshole. Why would anybody work for you? If
I could sit my butt in a comfy office, making
the same amount of money, why the fuck would
I work for you? Yep. So they need, they need
to realize that, Hey, if people want to work
trades, you got to make people actually want
to work there. Yep. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I
mean, when I was in the military, I mean, we
had our jokes like, you know, Hey, Hey airman,
go, go, go find me some canine P you know, cause
there were so many nomenclatures and little,
little shortcuts to names and stuff. And I had
one dude, he was walking around for hours looking
for canine pee until somebody finally explained
to him when he came back pissed. And I was laughing.
I'm like, all right, now I got you. Sorry. Let's
do the job for real now. Oh, the best one I ever
saw was the crew chiefs. They had a brand new
guy stuck up to the intake of an F 15. He had.
goggles, a full bunny suit on. He had the hearing
protection, of course. They had him strapped
up to the intake on the grate that they put on
there to make certain nothing big flies in. He
had a broom in his hand ready for the intake
inspection or whatever it was they were doing
for cleaning and stuff. And, of course, everybody
and their brother comes outside to take pictures
of this poor bastard. I think somebody owed him
some beer after that one, but yeah. But that
was amazing. On the ship, we had guys get the
beds lifted up so you could get to your under
bed storage compartment. Some smaller guys would
get lifted up in their bed and the bed would
lock into position so they would just get locked
into the rack like that because they had an overhead
because the beds were so small. It was like a
phone booth. Uh, so they, they would get locked
into their bed like that. Some people would actually
get duct taped their racks. Uh, we had one guy
get duct taped to the wall, a little small dude.
Yeah. We had one dude agent orange or clockwork
orange into a chair when we were overseas. Yeah.
Felt bad for him, but it was still funny as shit.
We, we had a guy fell asleep in his, in his chair
at, in the shop. So several guys snuck up on
him and just three of them jumped him and duct
taped his arms to the chair, his chest to the
chair, and just kept him there for like two hours.
That's good times. Oh, yeah. Have the first sergeant
yell at you like, hey, why did you tape him to
the chair? You know, you had him watching porn
for hours. It was so terrible. He couldn't even
do anything. It was gay porn, sir. I was teaching
him a lesson. God. We were so bad. Yeah. So before
we move on, there's a little situation that can
happen. What happens when you've got an inexperienced
manager? like we talked about in the first part,
who trusts what they call a paper tiger engineer,
the CAD jockey, because the AI, which has never
actually felt gravity, says that this design
you're working on is optimal because to the AI
in its world, it should work. It's perfect. Like
a helicopter, right? It's never felt gravity.
So how does it know? that this bridge you just
designed is in fact perfect. Right. It doesn't
really get the full concept of load -bearing
structures, load -bearing angles. It can understand
the description, but it doesn't get the actual
application of it. And you would have to know,
was the mathematics put in for gravity itself?
Because we all know, you know, constant force
and all that. But... did you'd have to find out
did they do that for the ai because if you didn't
yeah it absolutely will not understand that right
and then you've got oh go ahead until you develop
an ai that can basically interact with the world
and the consequences of its actions in a somewhat
relativistic relationship with those two there's
no way you can have an ai do certain things like
that because it has no understand of consequence
it has no understand of the tolerances in the
real world that you have to account for. Because,
for example, if you're talking about building
bridges, you also have to be able to account
for things like the ground moving, earthquakes,
things shifting, erosion over time, wind, yeah,
exactly, corrosion. Things that we took time
to learn. And there's no AI that can learn hundreds
and hundreds of years of that information, not
to mention factoring all the building codes and
everything else and regulations and blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, there's a reason
why it takes thousands of people to build a bridge
because you got to have hundreds of people that
know the laws and regulations. It's a pain in
the butt. But there's also, unfortunately, as
much as I am not a big government guy. Sometimes
there's a reason, and that's one of the few times
that there's a good reason. Galloping Gertie.
Yep, because I mean, and then kind of like you
were talking there before, the loss of respect
for the technician. Engineers used to be humbled
quite often, in fact, by the machinists and the
builders. Now they think that the digital twin
is the reality. So everything digital is the,
that's the proof of concept. We have this weird
problem where people think that education is
more important than experience. I know we've
already said it before, but I think we're now
learning that, honestly, education isn't as important
as experience one -to -one. That's not the case.
You know, I'm glad you said that that way because
that's a perfect segue to talk about the Dunning
-Kruger effect and the Dunning -Kruger executives
that are out there. If you don't know what the
Dunning -Kruger effect is, it's when people with
low ability at the task overestimate their ability.
So you have essentially a prompt to power pipeline.
A degree today often focuses on management and
ancillary skills rather than the actual craft.
I mean, if you look at a college course layout,
how many of it are ethics of writing, feelings,
gender studies, versus how much of the course
are you actually learning about the thing? Go
ahead. As somebody that went that route, those
are called gen eds or generic educations. It's
usually anywhere from 50 % to 75 % of what you
take is usually involved with a gen ed or generic
education. And it should be the other way around.
Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, here's the thing.
It's all about making money. And even if you
go for a very simple degree, they want you there
for between 48 years. So they're going to have
you take a bunch of stupid stuff because you
have to pay them. And because you're paying them
more money, they can then employ more teachers.
And those teachers are people that went to that
school to study something. It's all a fucking
pyramid scheme because they had people go there
for stupid -ass degrees so they can hire them
so they can justify more kids to justify more
stupid -ass degrees. Yeah. Just saying. Empowerment
of free thought while in the tub or something,
whatever degree program it is. I don't know.
Or network security degree from college. But,
oh, yeah, after you get the bachelor's, guess
what? You still need certifications. But we didn't
give you any of that. So you can't get the job
you were looking for because, oh, you still got
a few thousand dollars worth of certs to get
to get the job. Because you didn't do that in
the college. It's useless. Yeah, it's absolutely
useless. I got a degree that I can't do anything
with because I don't have certifications. This
is something I wanted to ask you two because
you two are older than me and you two saw this
probably more than I did. But I have heard of
stories back in the – well, no, it's a good –
like seriously, this is a good thing in this
case. Okay. With these stories that I've heard,
I heard back in the 80s and 90s that there were
a lot of tech companies that would hire people
not because they were educated, because they
go to a local computer store or a tech store
or electronic store and say, wow, this person
is knowledgeable. Hey, I work at this company
or run this company. You seem really knowledgeable.
Would you be interested in being hired or working
here? I've heard numerous stories of people that
were just into it getting hired. And in my generation,
that's a foreign concept. I could not imagine
going to a music store or something like that,
as knowledgeable as I am about stuff, and being
like, yo, do you want to work at Gibson Guitar?
That's just not how that works. But I've heard
so many people from back in the day, back 20,
30 years ago, that they're like, clearly you
know a lot, and we do the same thing that you're
into. Do you want to work here? That happened
to me several times. Not only did I go to college,
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I'm jealous of that. And
I'm freaking from that era. You know, the amount
of times that I've been told, oh, well, you don't
have those certifications. And I've been doing
this for God longer than you've been alive. What
does it matter? Yeah. All that is a freaking
racket anyways. Heck in my day, I could get a
job just because I knew shit. It pisses me off
to no end because it doesn't matter what you
know. It matters what the piece of paper says
that you know. When it comes to some fields,
like back when I was actively a technician, an
electromechanical technician, we had these box
tests. You had to do a skills test on, and it
was just a little crank machine with belts, pulleys,
ears, and little things that just, it just rotated
around and it just did things. It completed a
cycle. They would insert faults and you would
have to diagnose it within a certain amount of
time. They would time you. And they, that was
like the standard for a lot of places was this
box test to test your mechanical skill. They
didn't do that anymore. Why? I don't know. It's
probably because nobody has critical thinking
skills anymore. Nobody can pass the box test
anymore. It's probably because the management
that's there can't pass the box test. Well, you're
damn right. I asked that one because our managers
were getting pissed off at us because we had
too many things going wrong. They're like, you
guys passed this damn box test. You're supposed
to be able to do this. I actually piped up one
night and I said, can you pass that box test?
Everybody looked at me like, no, he did not.
Then again, I was the only person that got laid
off from that position too. I would have talked
to a lawyer, but that's just me. Oh, they had
just cause. The overarching company didn't want
me working there anymore. Not the company I worked
for. I was a sassy boy. No way. Me? Sassy? No.
No. But we've got the degree just doesn't cut
it anymore. And managers who are put in positions
with those degrees, they don't understand the
craft. They don't understand the difference between
good AI output, good digital output, and actually
having the confidence to discern correct AI output
or correct digital output versus real -world
numbers, real -world performance. There was a
case study from CNET, AI scandal of 23 and 24.
Management decided to use AI to turn out financial
articles. Because the people at the top didn't
have the deep editorial gut check of the writers
that they were replacing, the AI published massive
factual errors that destroyed the site's SEO
and reputation. What if, like, the media places
started doing that? Now, this is happening in
the medical field. The medical field are using
AI. And it's actually generating false medical
data that people are using and relying on for
procedures, medications, and such. That's a really
bad thing. Yeah, well, remember Deep Blue? Remember
Deep Blue? Yeah, they actually had to take that
offline because they found that that's what was
happening. And they were going to make that like
a big thing with medical, but then realized real
fast, like, whoa, it's just making shit up. Yep.
On a side note, there needs to be a law about
no AI medical. I'm sorry, but until that's like...
Until it's the AGI, yeah. Yeah, there's no way
that should ever be allowed. Yeah. Because then
the problem is you can't sue anybody because,
like, imagine who's responsible for your healthcare
at that point. Right. You can't sue a computer.
Well... And I'm not saying everything should
be based around who you sue, but, like... I'd
like to see somebody try because... They're trying
to make it so you can claim dogs or your pets
with the IRS, so why not be able to sue a computer?
Time out. What? Did you hear about that? Someone
is suing the IRS to be able to claim pets as
dependents. Oh, my God. I might keep my chickens.
Oh, my God. Dude, I have like 18 animals outside
just for farming purposes. I'm instead. Oh, my
God. I can't even talk right now. I'm so excited.
It's just pets, not like consumption animals.
But they are pets. I can carry my chickens like
these. How dare you, sir? No, no. I can lift
mine up and hang out with them. No, no, no. They're
dependent. No, no, no. I'm fighting the IRS on
this one. Fuck you, fed boys. No, no, no. No,
no, I get to claim chickens are now. Yes. Well,
if you get that, you know, I'm going to have
to pull my weapons out because each one has a
name. They're all near and dear to my heart.
They are family. I don't care. Oh, my God. There's
Cinnamon. There's Grinch. There's Jane. You named
your food? Come on. No. They all have special
names. Am I allowed to say my AR identifies as
a chicken then? Just start going through the
safe, you know? Oh, shit. This one's Angela.
She identifies as a polka -dotted dragon. So
let me ask you guys this. If the person in charge
doesn't know how to do the job manually, Can
they or should they be able to supervise the
machine that's doing it? No. No. If you're directly
responsible for that action, it's one thing if
you oversee a whole plant like general operations,
but if your job specifically is to supervise
the operation of one thing in particular, you
should be able to take over that position if
something happens. So if you don't know how to
do it, why the hell are you a manager? Right.
How the hell did you get there? That shiny piece
of paper that says, I can be a manager. I check
all the boxes. It's like that Ron Swanson thing
that's like, I'm Ron Swanson, I do what I want.
That's what I think of every fucking time. I
have a permit for that. I have seen that in so
many areas, though. Oh, yeah. It's scary. Oh,
absolutely. Or have you guys seen the case of
a lot of the older generation that's handing
businesses down to their kids or grandkids, and
then similar kind of situations happening? Yep.
There's several businesses around here. There's
one of them that's in a lawsuit with my local
city because they handed it down to the granddaughter,
and she hired a bunch of people that knew nothing,
and they burned someone's house down. Wow. So,
yeah, it's been fun. Yeah. Oh, they don't have
any experience and I could hire them cheaper.
Well, yeah, that's usually how it goes. What
is it? Skilled labor is never cheap and cheap
labor is never skilled, right? Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Tribal knowledge and black swan events. That's
a fun thing. You've got the Steve factor. Every
company has a Steve. The guy who knows the legacy
server crashes if the AC is set to 72. You also
have a nobody that works at every company as
well. Keep that in mind. AI doesn't know who
Steve is, doesn't care who Steve is. AI doesn't
know the unwritten rules of a client's ego or
the machine's quirks. So there's a hidden cost
of relearning. When the system breaks and the
humans who knew it or knew why it would break
are gone, savings from that AI transition vanish
in a single afternoon of downtime. Industrial
downtime costs in the U .S. or industrial downtime
costs U .S. manufacturers $92 billion with a
B annually, often due to human knowledge errors.
Now, multiply that by AI not knowing what the
hell to do. It's going to increase by a factor
of probably four. Or better yet, what if AI thinks
it knows what to do and says, wow, wow, the server's
running really hot. I'm going to set the AC degree
to like 45 and then it absolutely burns the fuck
out of the air conditioning. I bet you there
are ways. There's going to eventually be AI integration
for a ton of things and it's going to try to
see, oh, here's a simple solution and it burns
the fucking place down. I tell you. Honestly,
I hate to say it. It's going to be comical at
first, but then it's going to get really serious.
Then it'll be bad. Oh, yeah. And there's also
an education failure, and we've kind of touched
on this already. Universities are teaching students
to pass the AI test rather than solve the physical
problem. Oh, my God. Yeah. We're starting to
graduate out more editors of AI content rather
than creators of original thought. Dude, AI should
be fucking banned from schools. I agree. Now,
to the extent of integrating it into the programs.
I feel like coming out of school... You should
learn how to use it as a tool. Yes, exactly.
Because it's becoming a fact of life and a facet
of existence at this point. I mean, they will
be our overlords one day. So we need to know
how to interface. I remember growing up in computer
class, they taught us how to use Google. And
they taught us all the cool little shortcuts
and weird things. My computer science teacher
is actually an older guy, but he was one of those
older guys that was like, he had a bit of the
touch of the tism, and he knew everything about
computers and stuff like that. He was a wicked
smart guy. But he was like, hey, don't rely on
it, but here's how to properly use it. But I
still expect you guys to look up things the old
-fashioned way and do stuff this way. The same
approach needs to be taken with AI, where it's
like, it's a tool. It's a shovel. It's a hammer.
It's nothing else. But, you know, here's how
to use it appropriately. By the way, did you
know on Google, if you do a search thing and
you click at the end of it, minus AI, it gets
rid of any AI search results? Awesome. That's
a useful thing to have. I'll have to keep that
in mind. I've been doing that. You know what
I learned in computer class? I swear to God.
How to play Oregon Trail. Oh, I figured we were
going to see you learn boobs. I figured that
was going to be huge. That was a math class.
Yes. 8 -0 -0 -8 -5 -3 -1. Boobless. Yes, sir.
Yeah, I remember going through high school and
they were like, yeah, no calculators allowed.
You are not allowed to have a calculator in math
class. Now it's like, I don't even understand.
It's like mandatory now. You know, I will forever
forgive Mrs. Pratt. She was the sixth grade math
teacher. Sorry, seventh grade math teacher. Really
nice lady. But she said back then, you know,
guys, you guys rely on your calculators so much,
you'll never be walking around all day around
having a calculator with you everywhere you go.
And all I remember is my junior year when the
first iPhone came out. Sorry, sophomore year
when the first iPhone came out. All of us had
them, and we all bullied the hell out of her
for it. And I still feel bad because my entire
grade was like, nah. fuck you you're wrong so
i apologize we're all kind of dicks but that
was that was the argument if you think about
it uh sorry i'm having like 20 thoughts uh i
saw an article it's it's been a couple years
now but they had a list of all the 80s and 90s
tech advertised from like radio shack uh advertisements
that had been condensed down into a single cell
phone now. Oh, there's so much stuff. All the
individual costs of those single pieces of tech.
And it was like back in those days, it was literally
tens of thousands of dollars worth of tech condensed
into a single cell phone. Yeah. And it was just
mind blowing to kind of sit there and think like,
I grew up watching all that happen. I watched
all this tech become. thing i i learned it i
learned about it i sold a lot of it working in
retail stores you know uh kmart sears you know
i i worked there i i sold learned and explained
this stuff to people that was my job and then
seeing i remember growing up and seeing mp3s
become big yeah oh yeah wave files were the thing
and then mp3 comes around it's like oh my god
it's a third the size and it sounds amazing right
yeah then you had the mp3 players came out in
the late 90s and i'm sitting there like oh this
is the way it's gonna happen this is what's happening
so neek was my favorite mp3 player because you
could download little mods to put the visuals
on screen and these little stick figures would
dance to the music and i loved i loved that one
as sad as it is i loved the zoom i never had
microsoft Those were actually really cool. If
they had advertised them better and made them,
I don't know. The interface on it I thought was
amazing. It's just, unfortunately, Apple had
better optics, I think. The Zune was cool. The
problem is the physical product didn't feel as
nice as the first -generation iPod. Yeah, I think
that's what the issue was. But the Zune software,
I agree with you, interfaced with the computer
way better. So I had both. Yeah. I was one of
those guys, because again, music guy, when the
iPod came out, I got, I appreciate, this is one
of the few Christmas presents I ever asked for,
is I got, I believe it was the first iPod, I
thought it was like a 40 gig, back in like 2006,
2004, whatever. Huge. I could have any song I
ever wanted on that thing. And I had it stolen
from me in 2016. It was still working. It was
stolen out of my fucking van. And whoever stole
it, I can't say what I hope happens to you on
stream because we'll get banned. But just so
you know, you're the only reason I pray. Just
so you know. Oh, man. I can only imagine. You
are the only reason I pray. Oh, wow. Because
I had all of it. It was awesome. It still worked.
But a buddy of mine had a Zune because when I
got the iPod, I did have a Zune. It was like,
oh, that's cool. And he got one. He still had
it working up until college. Like that was back
when things were pretty quality made, but they
were really cool. And the funny part is, is things
were quality made even better before that. So
that says something. Because even back in the
late 90s, early 2000s, we thought stuff then
was made like shit. So I can only imagine. Oh,
yeah. Dude, I had a CD player that my mom gave
me when I was like fucking four that it still
worked up until a few years ago. I threw it in
the trash because it was worth nothing to me
because I don't even have any CDs. But I found
it. I put new batteries in it. It still worked.
I was like, are you kidding me? Nice. That stuff
was the stuff that was made to last. It was an
old Sony. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, Sony stuff? Absolutely
back then. Yep. You couldn't break some of that
stuff. Nope. Sony and Panasonic, those were the
ones that you just couldn't break them. It was
just like Nintendo Game Boy. You could slam that
thing around and it continued working. Those
were the Nokia phones of Vice's back. Yes. You
know what? I always wanted to know, as I joke
with you guys, that when I die, I hope I see
a death statistic, like you do in a video game
with all this stuff. I want to know how many
people in this world were killed with a Game
Boy as a deadly weapon. Because it's not zero.
I know it's not zero. It's definitely not zero.
It's the same with Cowbell. Not zero. So before
we wrap the show up, some things to kind of consider.
How to become un -AI -able. focus on the physical
and the tactile and the relational. If your job
can be done in a dark room with a screen, you
are at risk. If your job requires a wrench, a
site visit, or a nuanced negotiation, you're
pretty safe. For those in leadership positions,
a plea for institutional memory, don't cut the
rungs of the ladder that you climbed. So if you're
somebody who is getting advanced through the
ranks, Remember where you came from. For the
people that take those positions under you, they
have to learn. And in front of and behind, people
will need to be put in place. So something to
think about, AI is a mirror of the person using
it. If an outright idiot uses AI, they just become
a high -speed idiot. And we're currently living
through a high -speed ADC bubble. We are, in
fact, on the idiocracy timeline. I am convinced
of this. All I get pictures giving an idiot.
I was like, yes, I'm stupid, but faster. I never
thought about it like that, though. So some things
I wanted to leave everybody with. And again,
chime in in the comments if you guys want to
or get a hold of us otherwise. Is it possible
that we've reached a point where our digital
models are so perfect that we've forgotten the
physical world is messy, rusted, and breaks in
ways that a computer cannot predict? If we stop
hiring 22 -year -olds to do the boring engineering
work, who's going to have the 20 years of experience
needed to fix the power grids and whatnot in
2045? Why are we letting people who have never
built anything make the decision to fire the
people who build everything? That's valid. And
with that, I have nothing else to add of value.
We have literally touched on the tips of everything
that I wanted to cover in the notes. We I do
really like your phrase by the way for job requires
a wrench a site visit or a nuanced negotiation
You are the future. Yes a hundred percent bit
of advice You're really good at dealing with
people and are nice and courteous and you have
manners for some reason you stick out even more
Than before people don't know how to be kind
and nice to each other and have manners and be
approachable and pleasant Do that and you're
gonna nail everything It's weird. It's weird
the amount of customers that come in. It's like
wow, you're just really nice. I'm like, I'm just
being me like this is not me just trying to be
like oh look how good I am but it's like apparently
people are really fucking rude everywhere you
go and then I go to other shops and realize Jesus
Christ you people are miserable and rude so just
or you come to other states and realize how nice
some people are in some areas I know not me though
I'm an asshole so he's a dick no one around Boston's
happy we all hate it here But at the end of the
day, all the AI in the world can't explain the
sound of a bearing it makes right before it seizes.
It can't tell you why the crew on Site B always
ignores the manual. It can't tell you... Nerd
shift. Yeah. It definitely will never tell you
that it's going to take the heat. when a perfect
simulation meets a very expensive real -world
disaster. So these are things that, while AI
is great, there are people who are making the
decision to replace people with it and not take
these things into consideration. So from the
bottom of my heart, I hope anybody who hears
my voice is not affected by that. Here's a really
good real -world example. You always see those
videos about the guys that are taking super hot
metal down the lane and then bring it around.
And then for whatever reason, something goes
tits up and the metal goes flying everywhere,
but it keeps coming out. You could almost look
at AI like that, where it knows it's supposed
to be shooting it out, but it has no idea what's
happening on the other end and not realizing
I should stop. Because now there is molten metal
going everywhere and there's nothing to tell
it to stop. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, unless you
guys have anything else to add in, like I said,
if you guys have stories that you want to share
with us, hit us up on the socials, send us an
email. Now we consume a gmail .com. Tell us any
stories that you've got. If we get some good
ones, we'll read them out on the next episode.
Why not? Until then, keep your hands on your
tools, make your eyes off the prompts. We'll
see you all next time.