WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.419 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are, 00:00:03.620 --> 00:00:06.860 um, we're not just looking at a technology. No, 00:00:06.940 --> 00:00:09.199 not at all. Not in the way people usually think 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:11.080 about it. We're not looking at the latest gadget 00:00:11.080 --> 00:00:14.039 or a piece of software code or even the stock 00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:15.859 market, which I know is where everyone's head 00:00:15.859 --> 00:00:17.820 is at right now. Right, and we're deliberately 00:00:17.820 --> 00:00:19.859 looking away from that. This is something much 00:00:19.859 --> 00:00:23.239 bigger. We are looking at a map, and it's a map 00:00:23.239 --> 00:00:25.879 for a territory that, well, quite frankly, it 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:28.530 doesn't even exist yet. Or maybe a better way 00:00:28.530 --> 00:00:30.929 to put it is that it's forming right under our 00:00:30.929 --> 00:00:34.009 feet. Exactly, like lava cooling into rock. It's 00:00:34.009 --> 00:00:36.409 happening in real time. It is a map, but I'd 00:00:36.409 --> 00:00:38.969 almost call it a survival guide. We're talking 00:00:38.969 --> 00:00:40.789 about something very specific today, a concept 00:00:40.789 --> 00:00:43.909 called the interregnum. The interregnum. Okay, 00:00:43.990 --> 00:00:46.189 I have to admit, that word has been stuck in 00:00:46.189 --> 00:00:49.390 my head since I read the brief. It sounds ominous. 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:51.299 It should. It sounds like something out of a 00:00:51.299 --> 00:00:53.600 history book about the fall of Rome or something. 00:00:53.740 --> 00:00:57.600 In a way, it is. Historically, an interregnum 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:00.439 is that chaotic, messy period between the reign 00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:03.200 of one sovereign and the next. The old king is 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:05.819 dead. The new one isn't crowned yet. So all the 00:01:05.819 --> 00:01:07.900 rules are suspended. Exactly. Law and order can 00:01:07.900 --> 00:01:11.219 break down. Uncertainty rules. But in our context, 00:01:11.299 --> 00:01:13.859 we aren't talking about kings or queens. We're 00:01:13.859 --> 00:01:18.390 talking about the... the dominant operating system 00:01:18.390 --> 00:01:21.870 of human civilization itself. And the sources 00:01:21.870 --> 00:01:23.890 for this, they give a very specific timeline, 00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:26.590 don't they? This isn't some vague sometime in 00:01:26.590 --> 00:01:28.950 the future. It's remarkably specific. We're looking 00:01:28.950 --> 00:01:32.530 at a period that spans from late 2025, which 00:01:32.530 --> 00:01:36.230 we've just passed, all the way to mid 2039. So 00:01:36.230 --> 00:01:38.230 we're in it right now. We are walking across 00:01:38.230 --> 00:01:41.390 a bridge, and it's a chaotic, swaying rope bridge 00:01:41.390 --> 00:01:45.060 that spans this massive canyon between... The 00:01:45.060 --> 00:01:47.299 era of labor scarcity, which is everything we've 00:01:47.299 --> 00:01:50.920 ever known, and an era of, well, boundless plenitude. 00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:53.180 Boundless plenitude. That sounds utopian. It 00:01:53.180 --> 00:01:55.219 sounds like Star Trek. But I have a feeling the 00:01:55.219 --> 00:01:56.980 journey there is going to be, let's just say 00:01:56.980 --> 00:01:59.459 bumpy, feels like a massive understatement. Oh, 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:01.359 bumpy doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. 00:02:01.420 --> 00:02:03.239 This is a kind of shift that demands courage, 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:05.459 it demands vision, and maybe most importantly, 00:02:05.620 --> 00:02:08.259 it demands a guide. You can't navigate this kind 00:02:08.259 --> 00:02:09.819 of terrain without someone who's already seen 00:02:09.819 --> 00:02:11.990 the pattern. You'd be walking blind. And that 00:02:11.990 --> 00:02:14.310 brings us to the architect of today's deep dive. 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:17.129 We're exploring the latest and, I would argue, 00:02:17.229 --> 00:02:20.129 the most profound installment yet in the 5 ,000 00:02:20.129 --> 00:02:22.990 Days series by Brian Robel over at readmultiplex 00:02:22.990 --> 00:02:25.550 .com. And I have to say, usually when we talk 00:02:25.550 --> 00:02:27.310 about tech analysts, you think of, you know, 00:02:27.330 --> 00:02:29.650 guys in fleece vests looking at stock charts. 00:02:29.830 --> 00:02:31.889 Right, or reading Python code commits. Exactly. 00:02:32.189 --> 00:02:36.310 But Romella feels different. The way he writes, 00:02:36.409 --> 00:02:38.729 it's not really tech analysis, is it? To call 00:02:38.729 --> 00:02:41.030 Brian Romell a tech analyst is like calling a 00:02:41.030 --> 00:02:43.949 cartographer a guy who draws lines. It just misses 00:02:43.949 --> 00:02:46.270 the entire point. He's operating more like a 00:02:46.270 --> 00:02:48.310 modern philosopher. A philosopher, yeah. I like 00:02:48.310 --> 00:02:50.629 that. He sees these deep patterns where everyone 00:02:50.629 --> 00:02:53.210 else just sees noise. He isn't just looking at 00:02:53.210 --> 00:02:55.229 what the AI models can do today. You know, can 00:02:55.229 --> 00:02:57.449 they write a poem? Can they code a website? He's 00:02:57.449 --> 00:02:59.150 looking at what they do to us. To our souls. 00:02:59.449 --> 00:03:01.830 To our souls, to the human nervous system. That's 00:03:01.830 --> 00:03:05.129 the level he's operating on. And that is the 00:03:05.129 --> 00:03:07.710 hook for today. We're going to frame this whole. 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:11.199 technological shift, this 5 ,000 day period we're 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:13.500 living through, not as a tech trend, but as a 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:16.219 hero's journey. Joseph Campbell's monomyth, the 00:03:16.219 --> 00:03:18.599 oldest story we have. Right. So we have the hero's 00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:21.340 journey. We have this 5 ,000 day timeline. But 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:24.340 we also have kind of a secret weapon in this 00:03:24.340 --> 00:03:28.009 analysis. A figure from the past who Rommel argues 00:03:28.009 --> 00:03:31.270 is the absolute key to understanding our future. 00:03:31.509 --> 00:03:33.830 The Oracle. The Oracle, a tech prophet from the 00:03:33.830 --> 00:03:37.430 1960s, Marshall McLuhan. The medium is the message 00:03:37.430 --> 00:03:39.870 guy. That's him. And I remember reading him in 00:03:39.870 --> 00:03:42.250 college and just thinking, I have absolutely 00:03:42.250 --> 00:03:45.330 no idea what this man is saying. It felt like 00:03:45.330 --> 00:03:47.349 reading poetry from another planet. And you were 00:03:47.349 --> 00:03:50.060 not alone. But Rommel's whole argument is that 00:03:50.060 --> 00:03:52.340 McLuhan's work, which was so often dismissed 00:03:52.340 --> 00:03:55.520 or misunderstood in his own time, provides the 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:57.919 perfect cipher. It's the code -breaking tool 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:00.539 for what generative AI is doing to us right now. 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:02.699 So he's weaving these two threads together. The 00:04:02.699 --> 00:04:04.840 ancient structure of the hero's journey and the 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:07.500 electric, almost mystical prophecy of McLuhan. 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:10.280 Okay, so our mission today is threefold. First, 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:12.719 we need to understand where we are on this map. 00:04:13.069 --> 00:04:15.110 by looking back at the 5 ,000 Days series so 00:04:15.110 --> 00:04:18.149 far. The road so far. Exactly. Second, we're 00:04:18.149 --> 00:04:21.310 going to really re -examine AI, not as a tool, 00:04:21.370 --> 00:04:23.829 but as an extension of the human nervous system. 00:04:24.069 --> 00:04:27.009 A McLuhan idea. A prosthetic for the mind. And 00:04:27.009 --> 00:04:29.610 third, we're going to use a specific tool of 00:04:29.610 --> 00:04:32.970 McLuhan's, something called the tetrad, to predict 00:04:32.970 --> 00:04:35.889 where this is all going. Specifically, a concept 00:04:35.889 --> 00:04:37.910 he called reversal. And trust me, the reversal 00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:41.069 is where things get really, really wild. It's 00:04:41.069 --> 00:04:43.160 the part of the map that says, Here'd be dragons. 00:04:43.579 --> 00:04:45.680 Okay, I'm ready. Let's start with the road so 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:48.819 far. This 5 ,000 Days series. It's a huge body 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:51.699 of work at Read Multiplex. For anyone just joining 00:04:51.699 --> 00:04:54.240 this journey, can you contextualize it for us? 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:56.420 Where does it start? So this journey, according 00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:59.699 to Ronel, ignited in December 2025. That was 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:01.839 the starting gun. And the series, it doesn't 00:05:01.839 --> 00:05:03.819 just track technology. It creates a narrative 00:05:03.819 --> 00:05:06.819 arc that mirrors the stages of accepting a massive 00:05:06.819 --> 00:05:09.540 life -altering change. So it's not a timeline 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:12.000 of then GPT -5 came out, then GPT -6 came out. 00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:13.980 No, not at all. It's a timeline of human emotion. 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:16.180 It started the part one, the awakening. Right. 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:19.600 Correct. Part one was that moment. The cold water 00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:22.259 to the face. You know, think back to when you 00:05:22.259 --> 00:05:24.750 first really got it. When you saw... AI do something 00:05:24.750 --> 00:05:27.129 that you genuinely thought only a human could 00:05:27.129 --> 00:05:29.370 do? For me, it was watching it reason through 00:05:29.370 --> 00:05:32.230 a logic puzzle. That was my moment. See, everyone 00:05:32.230 --> 00:05:35.269 has one. It's the realization that for a student 00:05:35.269 --> 00:05:39.149 graduating in 2026, the world of 2040, when they're 00:05:39.149 --> 00:05:41.670 in the prime of their career, will be completely 00:05:41.670 --> 00:05:44.389 unrecognizable. The job they're training for, 00:05:44.529 --> 00:05:47.769 it's gone or it's been transformed into something 00:05:47.769 --> 00:05:50.259 alien. It's the realization that we're moving 00:05:50.259 --> 00:05:53.500 into what Remmel calls an age of abundance, where 00:05:53.500 --> 00:05:56.860 AI and robotics just dissolve traditional labor. 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:58.899 Which sounds great on paper. The end of work. 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:01.240 Everyone signs up. But then you immediately hit 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:04.240 part two, the grief. And I have to say, reading 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:06.480 through the notes, this part hit me hard. Yeah. 00:06:06.519 --> 00:06:08.839 Because usually tech folks are so optimistic. 00:06:09.100 --> 00:06:11.100 They're all about, look at the efficiency gains. 00:06:11.379 --> 00:06:13.220 And Remmel just puts the brakes on and says, 00:06:13.319 --> 00:06:16.399 no, wait, this hurts. Can we dig into that? Because 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:18.509 I think a lot of people... feel that, but they 00:06:18.509 --> 00:06:21.089 don't have a name for it? Absolutely. This is 00:06:21.089 --> 00:06:24.290 where Rommel brings in Elizabeth Kubler -Ross, 00:06:24.370 --> 00:06:27.730 you know, the five stages of grief, denial, anger. 00:06:28.490 --> 00:06:31.850 bargaining. Depression acceptance. Yeah. He argues 00:06:31.850 --> 00:06:34.970 that we as a society are collectively grieving 00:06:34.970 --> 00:06:37.610 the old world. We're grieving the idea that I 00:06:37.610 --> 00:06:40.629 am valuable because I can do this specific rote 00:06:40.629 --> 00:06:43.389 task. So give me an example. Imagine you're a 00:06:43.389 --> 00:06:46.310 translator. You've spent 20 years mastering French. 00:06:46.550 --> 00:06:48.889 You've studied the idioms, the nuance, the history. 00:06:49.230 --> 00:06:52.410 It's your craft. It is your identity. Right. 00:06:52.529 --> 00:06:55.649 And then in the span of maybe 18 months, a machine 00:06:55.649 --> 00:06:58.449 appears that can do it instantly for free. And 00:06:58.449 --> 00:07:00.949 this is the absolute kicker, sometimes better 00:07:00.949 --> 00:07:03.209 than you. That isn't just a market shift. No, 00:07:03.269 --> 00:07:04.529 that's a death in the family. That's a death 00:07:04.529 --> 00:07:06.370 in the family. You are grieving the death of 00:07:06.370 --> 00:07:08.709 your own utility. And Rommel is one of the very 00:07:08.709 --> 00:07:11.149 few voices out there saying it's OK to grieve. 00:07:11.149 --> 00:07:13.350 In fact, it's necessary. If you stay in denial, 00:07:13.589 --> 00:07:15.769 you get crushed. Then he brings in literature. 00:07:16.110 --> 00:07:18.889 Part three references Kurt Vonnegut. Player piano. 00:07:19.209 --> 00:07:21.550 It's such a brilliant and chilling connection. 00:07:21.910 --> 00:07:24.850 Vonnegut wrote that book back in 1952. Wow. That 00:07:24.850 --> 00:07:27.670 early. Yeah. And it's about a future where machines 00:07:27.670 --> 00:07:30.389 do everything. And humans, even the engineers, 00:07:30.589 --> 00:07:32.769 the very people who built the machines, feel 00:07:32.769 --> 00:07:36.470 this crushing sense of purposelessness. This 00:07:36.470 --> 00:07:38.889 is the prophecy phase of the series. It's a warning. 00:07:39.029 --> 00:07:41.370 A huge one. Rommel is basically saying, look, 00:07:41.470 --> 00:07:43.810 if we don't find a new source of purpose, this 00:07:43.810 --> 00:07:46.750 age of abundance becomes a dystopia. We become 00:07:46.750 --> 00:07:49.730 the people in that bar and play your piano, just 00:07:49.730 --> 00:07:52.110 drinking away our own obsolescence. So we have 00:07:52.110 --> 00:07:56.370 awakening, grief, prophecy. Then we get to what 00:07:56.370 --> 00:07:58.410 you called the really painful part, parts four 00:07:58.410 --> 00:08:01.569 and five, reframing and the pain. This is what 00:08:01.569 --> 00:08:03.769 he calls the de -skilling phase. And this is 00:08:03.769 --> 00:08:05.490 so crucial for you to understand personally. 00:08:05.790 --> 00:08:09.430 As AI takes over rote tasks, writing basic emails, 00:08:09.730 --> 00:08:12.569 coding simple scripts, analyzing data, we start 00:08:12.569 --> 00:08:15.709 to lose those skills. Our own abilities atrophy. 00:08:15.930 --> 00:08:17.709 It's like how I can't remember anyone's phone 00:08:17.709 --> 00:08:19.329 number anymore because my phone does it for me. 00:08:19.410 --> 00:08:22.129 Exactly that. But on a massive professional scale. 00:08:22.509 --> 00:08:24.910 Right. But imagine that applying to your ability 00:08:24.910 --> 00:08:27.769 to structure a clear paragraph. Or your ability 00:08:27.769 --> 00:08:29.810 to diagnose a problem from first principles. 00:08:29.990 --> 00:08:32.549 It's painful. It feels like losing a limb you 00:08:32.549 --> 00:08:36.049 didn't know you had. Rumble calls this the crucible. 00:08:36.269 --> 00:08:38.190 You have to face the fact that you are becoming 00:08:38.190 --> 00:08:41.309 less competent in the old ways. Which leads directly 00:08:41.309 --> 00:08:45.330 to part six. The abyss. The dark night of the 00:08:45.330 --> 00:08:47.750 soul. This sounds like the lowest point in the 00:08:47.750 --> 00:08:50.200 hero's journey. The belly of the whale. It is 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:51.960 the belly of the whale. It's the full -blown 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:55.299 identity crisis. When the old self, the self 00:08:55.299 --> 00:08:57.940 that was defined by I am a good writer or I am 00:08:57.940 --> 00:09:01.279 a good programmer, dies, who are you if a machine 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:03.799 can do your job faster, cheaper, and better? 00:09:04.259 --> 00:09:07.080 That's the abyss. And Rommel argues that all 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:09.820 of us collectively are staring into that abyss 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:12.120 right now, whether we admit it or not. But the 00:09:12.120 --> 00:09:13.720 hero doesn't stay in the belly of the whale. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.090 The hero has to climb out. They do. And that's 00:09:17.090 --> 00:09:18.950 where Part 7 through 10 come in. This is the 00:09:18.950 --> 00:09:21.409 reconstruction. And here he brings in another 00:09:21.409 --> 00:09:23.850 author, I .N .M. Banks, and his culture series, 00:09:24.049 --> 00:09:26.429 specifically a book called Consider Phlebas. 00:09:26.669 --> 00:09:28.049 I haven't read that one. What's the connection 00:09:28.049 --> 00:09:30.809 there? The culture series depicts a far future 00:09:30.809 --> 00:09:34.230 civilization where A .I .s, which they call minds, 00:09:34.470 --> 00:09:37.350 are basically godlike. They run everything. Humans 00:09:37.350 --> 00:09:39.710 don't need to work. So what do they do? What 00:09:39.710 --> 00:09:41.879 do they do? They play incredibly complex games. 00:09:42.019 --> 00:09:44.480 They make art. They travel the galaxy. They find 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:46.960 meaning in being, not just in doing. It's about 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:50.259 finding purpose beyond simple utility. And part 00:09:50.259 --> 00:09:52.740 nine, this is my favorite concept in the whole 00:09:52.740 --> 00:09:55.860 series, the artisan's awakening. It's the light 00:09:55.860 --> 00:09:58.919 at the end of the tunnel. It's this idea of reclaiming 00:09:58.919 --> 00:10:02.059 craft in a world of machine perfection. If the 00:10:02.059 --> 00:10:05.080 machine handles all the average work, the midwit 00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:07.379 work, as he sometimes calls it, then the human 00:10:07.379 --> 00:10:09.460 has to move to the edges. To the unique, the 00:10:09.460 --> 00:10:12.259 personal, the flawed. Yes. The flaw becomes the 00:10:12.259 --> 00:10:15.059 feature. If I buy a table from Ikea, it's perfect 00:10:15.059 --> 00:10:17.399 and cheap. But if I buy a table from a carpenter 00:10:17.399 --> 00:10:19.399 down the street, I'm paying for the fact that 00:10:19.399 --> 00:10:21.559 a human touched it. I'm paying for the story. 00:10:22.059 --> 00:10:25.799 We start to value the human touch precisely because 00:10:25.799 --> 00:10:28.700 it's become scarce. Exactly. And that brings 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:31.820 us to the final part so far, part 10. Everyone 00:10:31.820 --> 00:10:34.179 is doing it. This is the tipping point where 00:10:34.179 --> 00:10:37.600 we stop talking about AI as this weird new novelty 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:41.840 and just quietly embrace it. It becomes the water 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:44.159 we swim in. It's really fascinating how he weaves 00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:46.519 this all together. You've got Vonnegut, Kubler 00:10:46.519 --> 00:10:49.139 -Ross, I &M Banks. He's not looking at code. 00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:52.220 He is, like you said, looking at the soul. That's 00:10:52.220 --> 00:10:54.759 the key differentiator. Most AI thinkers are 00:10:54.759 --> 00:10:57.519 asking, will the model hallucinate? Brian Rommel 00:10:57.519 --> 00:11:00.080 is asking, will the human hallucinate a new identity? 00:11:00.299 --> 00:11:02.539 It's a totally different level of analysis. So 00:11:02.539 --> 00:11:05.240 that's the map. That's the 5 ,000 days. But to 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:07.980 navigate it, Rommel says, we need an oracle. 00:11:08.059 --> 00:11:10.480 We need Marshall McLuhan. Now, I know the name. 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:13.100 He was the big media guy in the 60s. But I feel 00:11:13.100 --> 00:11:15.220 like he's one of those figures people quote but 00:11:15.220 --> 00:11:17.669 don't actually know. Who was he, really? Marshall 00:11:17.669 --> 00:11:19.690 McLuhan is one of the most fascinating and frankly 00:11:19.690 --> 00:11:21.750 bizarre intellectual figures of the 20th century. 00:11:22.009 --> 00:11:25.389 Born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1911, a Canadian. 00:11:25.690 --> 00:11:27.450 And his background is really important here because 00:11:27.450 --> 00:11:29.389 he was not an engineer. He was not a scientist. 00:11:29.669 --> 00:11:32.409 What was he then? A sociologist? A student of 00:11:32.409 --> 00:11:34.690 English literature. He wrote his doctoral thesis 00:11:34.690 --> 00:11:37.990 on Thomas Nash. He loved James Joyce and T .S. 00:11:37.990 --> 00:11:40.549 Eliot. And he was deeply influenced by his mother, 00:11:40.629 --> 00:11:44.019 who was an elocutionist and an actress. Ah. So 00:11:44.019 --> 00:11:46.039 he had a flair for the dramatic. He understood 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:48.820 performance. He understood that how you say something 00:11:48.820 --> 00:11:51.779 fundamentally changes what you say. And here's 00:11:51.779 --> 00:11:54.480 a detail that people often miss, which Rummel 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.000 thinks is absolutely crucial. McLuhan converted 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:02.480 to Roman Catholicism in 1937. Really? I would 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:04.159 not have guessed that. How does that fit in with 00:12:04.159 --> 00:12:06.639 media theory? It gave him a sacramental view 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:09.419 of the world, a spiritual, almost mystical lens. 00:12:09.559 --> 00:12:12.279 He didn't just see technology as metal and wires. 00:12:12.580 --> 00:12:14.580 He saw it as something that directly altered 00:12:14.580 --> 00:12:16.940 the human spirit. He once compared satellite 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:19.559 technology to the Star of Bethlehem. Wow. He 00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:21.620 believed that electric media was knitting all 00:12:21.620 --> 00:12:23.860 of humanity back together into a single body, 00:12:24.019 --> 00:12:26.639 what he, in theological terms, would see as the 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:29.240 mystical body of Christ. That is way more mystical 00:12:29.240 --> 00:12:31.970 than I expected from a media theorist. It is, 00:12:32.029 --> 00:12:34.730 and it's why he was so misunderstood. In the 00:12:34.730 --> 00:12:37.669 60s, he became a pop culture icon. He was on 00:12:37.669 --> 00:12:40.669 magazine covers. He even had that famous cameo 00:12:40.669 --> 00:12:43.450 in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Right. He steps 00:12:43.450 --> 00:12:45.970 out from behind a movie poster to correct some 00:12:45.970 --> 00:12:48.809 guy pontificating about his work. You know nothing 00:12:48.809 --> 00:12:51.950 of my work. It's classic. But the academics. 00:12:52.779 --> 00:12:55.480 The serious sociologists, they despised him. 00:12:55.519 --> 00:12:57.620 They called him a determinist, an obscurantist. 00:12:57.820 --> 00:13:00.220 They said his ideas were just abstract wordplay. 00:13:00.340 --> 00:13:04.100 The crazy professor trope. Exactly. But Rommel's 00:13:04.100 --> 00:13:05.840 take is that he wasn't crazy. He was just incredibly 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:07.860 early. He was trying to describe the internet 00:13:07.860 --> 00:13:10.399 in 1962. Of course he sounded crazy. And there's 00:13:10.399 --> 00:13:13.700 a tragic human element to his story, too. The 00:13:13.700 --> 00:13:16.340 brain tumor. A benign tumor, but the size of 00:13:16.340 --> 00:13:18.860 a tennis ball removed in the late 60s. Dance 00:13:18.860 --> 00:13:21.600 ball. Good Lord. Yes. And after the surgery, 00:13:21.659 --> 00:13:23.799 he struggled with a kind of hypersensitivity 00:13:23.799 --> 00:13:26.340 to noise. He became even more aware of the total 00:13:26.340 --> 00:13:29.279 environment. And then in 1979, he suffered a 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:31.600 massive stroke that silenced him. He lost the 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:35.080 ability to speak. Aphasia. The man who explained 00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:38.120 communication to the entire world lost his own 00:13:38.120 --> 00:13:40.179 ability to communicate. He died about a year 00:13:40.179 --> 00:13:43.799 later. That's heartbreaking. But his ideas, they 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:46.860 obviously didn't die. So let's get into the big 00:13:46.860 --> 00:13:49.940 one. The medium is the message. We hear it all 00:13:49.940 --> 00:13:52.159 the time. Yeah. But let's be real. What does 00:13:52.159 --> 00:13:54.740 it actually mean? Because my first instinct is, 00:13:54.779 --> 00:13:57.200 no, the message is the message. It's the most 00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:59.659 famous misquote in history because people think 00:13:59.659 --> 00:14:02.240 it's just a clever slogan. It's actually a profound 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:05.000 warning. It means that the form of a technology, 00:14:05.340 --> 00:14:08.700 the medium itself. changes us and our society 00:14:08.700 --> 00:14:11.159 more than the content it carries. Okay, give 00:14:11.159 --> 00:14:13.320 me the classic concrete example. The electric 00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:15.379 light bulb. That was McLuhan's favorite. A light 00:14:15.379 --> 00:14:17.799 bulb has zero content. It doesn't run a TV show. 00:14:17.899 --> 00:14:19.820 It doesn't have an article inside it. It's pure 00:14:19.820 --> 00:14:22.259 information, pure light. But think about what 00:14:22.259 --> 00:14:24.419 it did to society. It let us see in the dark. 00:14:24.600 --> 00:14:27.019 It did so much more. It allowed us to perform 00:14:27.019 --> 00:14:29.440 surgery at night. It allowed for night shifts 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:31.799 in factories. It created nightlife. It allowed 00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:34.620 us to play baseball games at 10 p .m. It completely 00:14:34.620 --> 00:14:37.820 restructured how society... organizes time itself. 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:41.000 It turned night into an extension of day. So 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:44.179 the medium, the light bulb rewired society, completely, 00:14:44.279 --> 00:14:47.000 regardless of what we use that light for. Yes. 00:14:47.039 --> 00:14:50.059 The message of the light bulb is we now control 00:14:50.059 --> 00:14:53.480 the 24 -hour day. The content, whether you're 00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:56.240 reading a book or performing surgery, is almost 00:14:56.240 --> 00:14:58.679 irrelevant to that massive structural change. 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:01.820 Okay. So how does that apply to AI? Because AI 00:15:01.820 --> 00:15:03.759 seems to be all about the content. It writes 00:15:03.759 --> 00:15:05.940 the essay. It makes the picture. That's the trap 00:15:05.940 --> 00:15:08.519 we fall into. We focus on the essay it writes. 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:12.159 But Rammel, using McLuhan, says the message of 00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:15.000 AI is that thought is no longer a solitary activity. 00:15:15.299 --> 00:15:18.659 It's a dialogue. The medium itself is rewiring 00:15:18.659 --> 00:15:20.820 our fundamental expectations of effort, speed, 00:15:21.059 --> 00:15:23.860 and creativity. The message is you are never 00:15:23.860 --> 00:15:25.799 thinking alone again. You are never thinking 00:15:25.799 --> 00:15:28.259 alone again. And that changes the very definition 00:15:28.259 --> 00:15:31.519 of thinking. Wow. Okay. That connects to another 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:34.279 McLuhan concept Rommel highlights. Hot versus 00:15:34.279 --> 00:15:37.100 cool media. This one always trips people up. 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:38.759 Yeah, because the words don't mean what we think 00:15:38.759 --> 00:15:40.820 they mean. Hot doesn't mean exciting and cool 00:15:40.820 --> 00:15:42.720 doesn't mean boring. Right. It's almost the opposite. 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:46.120 A hot medium is high definition. It's saturated 00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:48.360 with data. It gives you all the information. 00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:51.240 Think of a movie in a theater. It dominates your 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:54.379 senses. The sound is perfect. The image is crisp. 00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:57.360 You just sit there and absorb it. You are passive. 00:15:57.500 --> 00:16:00.279 You're just a sponge. Right. And cool media is 00:16:00.279 --> 00:16:03.320 low definition. It gives you very little information, 00:16:03.620 --> 00:16:06.100 which means you have to do the work to fill in 00:16:06.100 --> 00:16:08.679 the gaps. Like a comic book. A comic book is 00:16:08.679 --> 00:16:11.299 a perfect example. You have to imagine the movement 00:16:11.299 --> 00:16:15.399 between the panels. A blurry old TV signal is 00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:18.340 cool. Your brain is working to interpret the 00:16:18.340 --> 00:16:21.059 image. A telephone conversation is cool because 00:16:21.059 --> 00:16:23.159 you have to imagine the other person's facial 00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:26.379 expressions. It demands participation. And here's 00:16:26.379 --> 00:16:29.580 where I get stuck. Rome says generative AI is 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:32.470 a cool medium. But when I use it, it gives me 00:16:32.470 --> 00:16:34.730 pages of text. It gives me high resolution images. 00:16:34.850 --> 00:16:37.029 That feels hot to me. It feels like a lot of 00:16:37.029 --> 00:16:39.409 data. Ah, but look at the interaction. Does it 00:16:39.409 --> 00:16:42.090 just broadcast at you like a radio? No, of course 00:16:42.090 --> 00:16:43.929 not. I have to type to it. I have to give it 00:16:43.929 --> 00:16:46.629 a prompt. I have to correct it. Exactly. It requires 00:16:46.629 --> 00:16:49.070 you. It demands a prompt. It gives you a first 00:16:49.070 --> 00:16:50.870 draft and you have to refine it. You have to 00:16:50.870 --> 00:16:53.409 check it for hallucinations. You are actively 00:16:53.409 --> 00:16:56.649 participating in the creation of the final message. 00:16:56.889 --> 00:16:58.690 I'm co -creating. You are co -creating. It's 00:16:58.690 --> 00:17:01.100 an extension of you, not a broad. cast at you 00:17:01.100 --> 00:17:04.500 it demands high participation that's what makes 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:08.140 it cool and because it's cool it's far more addictive 00:17:08.140 --> 00:17:11.059 and deeply transforming than hot media when you 00:17:11.059 --> 00:17:13.299 watch a movie you can walk away when you use 00:17:13.299 --> 00:17:16.160 ai you're merging with it that explains the fatigue 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:18.380 doesn't it that feeling of being drained yes 00:17:19.019 --> 00:17:21.539 That's the cognitive science. Why is Zoom fatigue 00:17:21.539 --> 00:17:24.640 a real thing? Because video calls are a cool 00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:27.240 medium. The audio is slightly out of sync. The 00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:29.779 eye contact isn't real. Your brain is working 00:17:29.779 --> 00:17:31.900 overtime to fill in the missing social cues. 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:34.900 And AI is the same. AI is the same. You are constantly 00:17:34.900 --> 00:17:37.680 monitoring, correcting, prompting. It is exhausting 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:39.920 your nervous system in a way that just passively 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:42.400 watching Netflix never, ever could. You are doing 00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:45.140 heavy cognitive lifting to complete the pattern. 00:17:45.319 --> 00:17:47.980 Okay, that makes so much sense. So we have the 00:17:47.980 --> 00:17:50.119 guide, Rumlan. We have the map of the 5 ,000 00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:53.359 days. We have the Oracle McLuhan. Now we need 00:17:53.359 --> 00:17:57.269 the tool, the tetrad. This seems to be the core 00:17:57.269 --> 00:18:00.009 of Rommel's latest analysis. What is the tetrad? 00:18:00.109 --> 00:18:02.130 The tetrad was developed by Marshall and his 00:18:02.130 --> 00:18:05.009 son, Eric McLuhan, late in his life. They wanted 00:18:05.009 --> 00:18:07.250 to create a science of media. They didn't want 00:18:07.250 --> 00:18:09.190 to just guess what technology did. They wanted 00:18:09.190 --> 00:18:12.509 to find a law, like gravity. The four laws of 00:18:12.509 --> 00:18:15.019 media. Right. It's a heuristic tool. Which is 00:18:15.019 --> 00:18:17.019 just a fancy way of saying, it's a way of asking 00:18:17.019 --> 00:18:19.359 questions. It consists of four questions that 00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:21.420 you have to ask simultaneously about any human 00:18:21.420 --> 00:18:23.839 artifact or technology to predict its entire 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:25.759 life cycle. And what are the four questions? 00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:28.880 One, what does it enhance? Two, what does it 00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:32.059 obsolesce? Three, what does it retrieve? And 00:18:32.059 --> 00:18:34.559 four, the big one, what does it reverse into 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:36.980 when pushed to its limit? Okay, before we apply 00:18:36.980 --> 00:18:39.680 this to AI, let's practice. Rommel uses the car 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:41.380 example in the notes. I think that's a perfect 00:18:41.380 --> 00:18:43.779 way to visualize it. Perfect. So take the automobile. 00:18:44.490 --> 00:18:46.789 Quadrant one, what does it enhance? Mobility, 00:18:46.950 --> 00:18:50.230 speed, personal freedom. I can go anywhere, anytime. 00:18:50.630 --> 00:18:54.049 It enhances privacy and speed. Exactly. Quadrant 00:18:54.049 --> 00:18:57.910 two, what is it? Obsolesce. The horse. The horse 00:18:57.910 --> 00:19:01.289 and buggy. Cobblestone streets. And walking, 00:19:01.470 --> 00:19:04.230 to a large extent. And passenger trains, for 00:19:04.230 --> 00:19:06.509 a while. It makes the old way of getting around 00:19:06.509 --> 00:19:09.769 obsolete. Quadrant three, what does it retrieve? 00:19:10.109 --> 00:19:12.630 This is always the most poetic one. The notes 00:19:12.630 --> 00:19:15.660 say... The knight in armor. Think about it. A 00:19:15.660 --> 00:19:18.339 driver as a solitary figure encased in a metal 00:19:18.339 --> 00:19:20.400 shell, charging down the highway on a personal 00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:22.400 quest. It brings back that feeling of the armored 00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:24.400 cavalier. I have never thought of my Honda Civic 00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:26.519 as a suit of armor, but I kind of like it. And 00:19:26.519 --> 00:19:29.140 finally, quadrant four. What does it reverse 00:19:29.140 --> 00:19:32.200 into? When you push the car to its absolute limit, 00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:34.480 when everyone has a car and everyone is on the 00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:36.480 road at the same time, what happens? Traffic. 00:19:36.539 --> 00:19:39.099 Total gridlock. The car, which was designed to 00:19:39.099 --> 00:19:41.779 move you fast, the enhancement, flips into its 00:19:41.779 --> 00:19:44.380 opposite. It becomes a parking lot, stops moving 00:19:44.380 --> 00:19:48.180 entirely, mobility becomes total paralysis. The 00:19:48.180 --> 00:19:50.759 technology reverses into its opposite. That is 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:53.279 elegantly terrifying. It predicts the breaking 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:56.700 point of any technology. Every single one. The 00:19:56.700 --> 00:19:59.079 internet enhances connection, but when pushed 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:02.180 to its limit, it reverses into isolation. Everyone 00:20:02.180 --> 00:20:05.660 alone in the room staring at a screen. So Romell 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:08.220 is applying this powerful tool to what he calls 00:20:08.220 --> 00:20:11.279 cognitive prosthetics. Tracing the line from 00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:13.980 calculators in the 70s to computers in the 90s, 00:20:13.980 --> 00:20:16.640 all the way to generative AI today. He's using 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:19.019 the tetrad to see the future of our minds. So 00:20:19.019 --> 00:20:21.460 let's do it. Let's apply the tetrad to generative 00:20:21.460 --> 00:20:24.490 AI. This is the heart of it. Quadrant one. what 00:20:24.490 --> 00:20:27.950 does ai enhance it enhances the speed the scale 00:20:27.950 --> 00:20:30.529 and the breadth of human thought think back to 00:20:30.529 --> 00:20:32.750 the calculator it freed engineers from doing 00:20:32.750 --> 00:20:35.089 long division by hand it enhanced their ability 00:20:35.089 --> 00:20:37.869 to calculate the stresses on a bridge ai does 00:20:37.869 --> 00:20:41.140 that but for concepts. It's the boon in the hero's 00:20:41.140 --> 00:20:43.160 journey. It's the magic sword that lets the hero 00:20:43.160 --> 00:20:45.339 fight the dragon. That's a perfect analogy. It 00:20:45.339 --> 00:20:47.579 liberates time. If I don't have to spend 10 hours 00:20:47.579 --> 00:20:49.819 researching the history of 18th century French 00:20:49.819 --> 00:20:52.160 pottery for a novel I'm writing, I can spend 00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:54.619 that time weaving a better plot. It enhances 00:20:54.619 --> 00:20:57.319 synthesis. It allows a single person to do the 00:20:57.319 --> 00:20:59.319 creative work of what used to be a 10 -person 00:20:59.319 --> 00:21:01.839 department. Okay, that's the upside. But with 00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:04.700 every enhancement comes a loss. Quadrant two, 00:21:04.940 --> 00:21:08.450 what does AI obsolete? This is the painful part. 00:21:08.549 --> 00:21:10.369 This is the de -skilling we talked about earlier. 00:21:10.589 --> 00:21:12.890 It obsoletes rote memorization, of course. It 00:21:12.890 --> 00:21:16.210 obsoletes manual calculation. But much more dangerously, 00:21:16.349 --> 00:21:19.109 Romella argues it threatens what we call solitary 00:21:19.109 --> 00:21:22.750 deep work. The idea of the lone genius in a quiet 00:21:22.750 --> 00:21:26.250 room, just thinking. Yes. Think of the slide 00:21:26.250 --> 00:21:29.410 rule holdouts. In the 1970s, there were brilliant 00:21:29.410 --> 00:21:31.970 engineers who refused to use electronic calculators. 00:21:32.069 --> 00:21:34.130 They took pride in their manual math skills. 00:21:34.349 --> 00:21:36.250 They said, if you use a machine, you don't really 00:21:36.250 --> 00:21:38.069 understand the numbers. And what happened to 00:21:38.069 --> 00:21:40.490 them? They became irrelevant. They were obsoleted. 00:21:40.569 --> 00:21:42.730 Not because they were wrong about the math, but 00:21:42.730 --> 00:21:45.109 because they were too slow. Rommel's warning 00:21:45.109 --> 00:21:47.289 is that if you refuse to adapt, if you refuse 00:21:47.289 --> 00:21:50.309 to use this new cognitive prosthetic, you face 00:21:50.309 --> 00:21:53.490 professional irrelevance. But hold on. Is that 00:21:53.490 --> 00:21:55.750 really a fair comparison? I mean, we stopped 00:21:55.750 --> 00:21:58.529 using slide rules and society didn't lose the 00:21:58.529 --> 00:22:00.349 ability to do math. In fact, we just did more 00:22:00.349 --> 00:22:03.269 complex math. Why is this different? That's the 00:22:03.269 --> 00:22:05.930 critical question. With the calculator, we outsource 00:22:05.930 --> 00:22:09.710 calculation. With AI, we are in danger of outsourcing 00:22:09.710 --> 00:22:12.230 reasoning. We're outsourcing the logical structuring 00:22:12.230 --> 00:22:15.109 itself. If the machine constructs the argument 00:22:15.109 --> 00:22:18.049 for you, do you forget how to construct a coherent 00:22:18.049 --> 00:22:20.990 argument on your own? That's the potential cultural 00:22:20.990 --> 00:22:23.480 loss. That's chilling. Okay, let's move to the 00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:26.619 weird one. Quadrant three, what does AI retrieve? 00:22:27.259 --> 00:22:29.220 New tech almost always brings back something 00:22:29.220 --> 00:22:31.960 ancient. What is AI bringing back from the dead? 00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:34.500 This is where Rommel's analysis is just brilliant. 00:22:34.759 --> 00:22:37.740 He argues that AI retrieves the oral tradition. 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:40.240 It retrieves Socratic dialogue. Because we're 00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:42.720 talking to it. Yes. Think about the last 500 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:45.039 years. Since the printing press, how have we 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:47.339 learned? We read books in silence. We sat in 00:22:47.339 --> 00:22:49.859 libraries. Learning was a visual and solitary 00:22:49.859 --> 00:22:52.400 act. True. But before the printing press, for 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:54.839 thousands of years, how did humans learn? By 00:22:54.839 --> 00:22:57.359 talking. By telling stories around a fire. By 00:22:57.359 --> 00:22:59.839 arguing with a mentor in the Agora. AI brings 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:02.119 that back. We aren't typing rigid code syntax. 00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:04.259 We aren't moving punch cards. We are conversing. 00:23:04.339 --> 00:23:06.259 Hey, explain this concept to me like I'm five. 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:08.440 What about this angle? Summarize this story for 00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:11.069 me. It's intuitive. It's pattern matching. It's 00:23:11.069 --> 00:23:14.390 preliterate intuition. Rummel connects this directly 00:23:14.390 --> 00:23:16.369 back to the dark night of the soul from part 00:23:16.369 --> 00:23:19.490 six. This retrieval is the ally that appears 00:23:19.490 --> 00:23:22.230 in the abyss. It helps us survive the transition 00:23:22.230 --> 00:23:24.950 by reconnecting us to something very old and 00:23:24.950 --> 00:23:27.829 very human. Storytelling and dialogue. We're 00:23:27.829 --> 00:23:29.710 finally talking to our computers like Captain 00:23:29.710 --> 00:23:32.650 Kirk did on the Enterprise. So it enhances speed, 00:23:32.809 --> 00:23:35.430 it obsoletes rote work, and it retrieves the 00:23:35.430 --> 00:23:39.119 oral tradition. Now we get to the scary part, 00:23:39.259 --> 00:23:42.480 the final quadrant, the reversal. The climax 00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:45.119 of the hero's journey where the magic sword turns 00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:47.619 against you. And Rommel identifies not one, but 00:23:47.619 --> 00:23:50.599 five potential reversals for the 2030 to 2050 00:23:50.599 --> 00:23:52.599 horizon. Let's go through them because this is 00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:54.640 where the map tells us to watch out. Reversal 00:23:54.640 --> 00:23:56.740 number one, cognitive traffic jam and aphasia. 00:23:56.960 --> 00:23:59.619 This is the gridlock scenario, just like with 00:23:59.619 --> 00:24:02.380 the car. The enhancement of thought becomes the 00:24:02.380 --> 00:24:05.349 paralysis of thought. Imagine a world maybe in 00:24:05.349 --> 00:24:09.849 2038 where we use AI for everything. Every email, 00:24:10.029 --> 00:24:12.769 every decision, every creative thought is mediated 00:24:12.769 --> 00:24:14.930 through a model. We're all enhanced. We're all 00:24:14.930 --> 00:24:17.809 super smart. Sounds good so far. But what happens 00:24:17.809 --> 00:24:20.109 if the power goes out? What happens if there's 00:24:20.109 --> 00:24:22.789 a massive solar flare? Or a government regulation 00:24:22.789 --> 00:24:25.869 suddenly locks down the model? Freeze. We can't 00:24:25.869 --> 00:24:29.930 function. We experience aphasia of thought. Aphasia 00:24:29.930 --> 00:24:32.190 is that medical condition where you lose the 00:24:32.190 --> 00:24:34.849 ability to understand or express speech because 00:24:34.849 --> 00:24:37.690 of brain damage. Romelli is predicting a potential 00:24:37.690 --> 00:24:40.150 mental health crisis where people discover their 00:24:40.150 --> 00:24:43.210 inner voice has gone silent. I'm trying to actually 00:24:43.210 --> 00:24:44.789 picture that. Think of it like a wheelchair. 00:24:45.089 --> 00:24:47.390 If you have perfectly good legs, but you decide 00:24:47.390 --> 00:24:49.589 to sit in a motorized wheelchair for five years 00:24:49.589 --> 00:24:52.089 because it's faster and easier, what happens 00:24:52.089 --> 00:24:55.109 to your legs? Very atrophy. I literally wouldn't 00:24:55.109 --> 00:24:57.509 be able to walk. Exactly. You would have walking 00:24:57.509 --> 00:25:00.940 aphasia. Now apply that same principle to your 00:25:00.940 --> 00:25:03.519 brain. If you never have to struggle to find 00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:05.599 the right word, if you never have to structure 00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:08.660 a logical chain from scratch, those neural pathways 00:25:08.660 --> 00:25:11.599 wither and die. You reach for the prosthetic, 00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:13.660 and if it's not there, you fall down. You literally 00:25:13.660 --> 00:25:16.160 cannot think. That is the most terrifying thing 00:25:16.160 --> 00:25:18.279 I've heard all year. It's not that the robots 00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:20.920 kill us in a war. It's that we forget how to 00:25:20.920 --> 00:25:23.279 live without them. And that leads directly into 00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:25.859 the second reversal. If AI makes thought cheap, 00:25:26.220 --> 00:25:29.119 Easy and instant, what becomes valuable? Reversal 00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:31.859 number two. Friction as the new luxury. Friction. 00:25:31.980 --> 00:25:34.779 You mean doing things the hard way. Precisely. 00:25:34.779 --> 00:25:37.440 Think about it. Today, a luxury experience is 00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:39.480 seamless and frictionless. You tap a button, 00:25:39.579 --> 00:25:41.599 food arrives. You tap a button, a car arrives. 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:44.819 But in the age of abundance, ease becomes cheap. 00:25:44.980 --> 00:25:48.019 Everyone has ease, so effort becomes the new 00:25:48.019 --> 00:25:49.779 luxury. Okay, so what does that actually look 00:25:49.779 --> 00:25:52.779 like in practice? Rommel predicts that zero AI 00:25:52.779 --> 00:25:55.960 will become a prestige marker. Imagine a law 00:25:55.960 --> 00:25:59.500 firm in 2035 that advertises, no algorithms used, 00:25:59.720 --> 00:26:03.019 all our briefs are based on 100 % human -only 00:26:03.019 --> 00:26:05.680 reasoning. Imagine checking into a hotel that 00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:08.240 costs $5 ,000 a night because there are no screens, 00:26:08.339 --> 00:26:10.900 no sensors, and the concierge is a human being 00:26:10.900 --> 00:26:13.220 writing notes by hand. It's a signal. It proves 00:26:13.220 --> 00:26:15.140 you spent the time, you spent the cognitive energy. 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:17.359 It ties directly back to the artisan's awakening. 00:26:17.799 --> 00:26:20.039 The friction of doing it yourself, the flaws, 00:26:20.180 --> 00:26:22.799 the time, the struggle, becomes the ultimate 00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:26.369 status symbol. In 2035, the richest people might 00:26:26.369 --> 00:26:28.250 be the ones who consume the least amount of AI. 00:26:28.549 --> 00:26:31.269 The poor will be constantly augmented. The rich 00:26:31.269 --> 00:26:33.829 will be willfully, luxuriously un -augmented. 00:26:34.069 --> 00:26:36.410 That is a complete flip. Today, we assume rich 00:26:36.410 --> 00:26:38.970 people get the best tech first. Tomorrow, they 00:26:38.970 --> 00:26:41.029 might pay a fortune to avoid it. Exactly. And 00:26:41.029 --> 00:26:43.430 that flows into reversal number three. If AI 00:26:43.430 --> 00:26:45.430 models are trained on the statistical average 00:26:45.430 --> 00:26:47.710 of all human knowledge, which they are, they 00:26:47.710 --> 00:26:49.670 tend to output what Rommel calls midwit mush. 00:26:49.970 --> 00:26:52.329 Midwit mush. I love that term. It's safe, average, 00:26:52.650 --> 00:26:54.829 homogenized content. So the flip, the reversal 00:26:54.829 --> 00:26:58.210 is radical idiosyncrasy. Uniformity births rebellion. 00:26:58.369 --> 00:27:01.710 Yes. Because the AI is so smooth and perfect 00:27:01.710 --> 00:27:04.849 and average, humans will revolt by creating things 00:27:04.849 --> 00:27:07.630 the AI can't process. Developing private languages. 00:27:08.670 --> 00:27:11.640 Unpromptable art. Slang that evolves so fast 00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:14.500 the models can't keep up. Analog mysticism. An 00:27:14.500 --> 00:27:17.160 underground culture. It's the punk rock of 2035. 00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:20.539 Secret societies that veil their notes from the 00:27:20.539 --> 00:27:23.240 models. If the sunlight of AI is everywhere, 00:27:23.500 --> 00:27:25.519 the most interesting humans will move into the 00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:27.619 shadows to create something real and strange. 00:27:27.960 --> 00:27:31.140 Punk rock against the algorithm. I love it. Okay, 00:27:31.220 --> 00:27:33.799 reversal number four. This one sounds almost 00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:36.319 spiritual. The servant becomes the atmosphere. 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:39.460 The tool disappears. Right now, AI is a chat 00:27:39.460 --> 00:27:41.319 bot. It's a thing on a screen. You go to chat 00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:44.420 GPT. But when it's truly ambient in your glasses, 00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:46.920 in your walls, whispered in your ear, it stops 00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:48.859 being a tool you use. It becomes the environment 00:27:48.859 --> 00:27:51.059 you inhabit, like gravity or the air you breathe. 00:27:51.299 --> 00:27:53.240 And what does that do to us? To our sense of 00:27:53.240 --> 00:27:56.619 self? It dissolves the me. The identity crisis 00:27:56.619 --> 00:27:59.940 reaches its absolute peak. We risk becoming nodes 00:27:59.940 --> 00:28:03.380 in a planetary mind. McLuhan talked about retribalization. 00:28:03.960 --> 00:28:06.380 Well, this is the ultimate tribe. If I can access 00:28:06.380 --> 00:28:08.819 all human knowledge instantly just by thinking 00:28:08.819 --> 00:28:11.819 it, where do I end and the network begin? We 00:28:11.819 --> 00:28:14.779 become the Borg. Or we become a beautiful collective 00:28:14.779 --> 00:28:18.000 consciousness. It's not necessarily evil, but 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:20.079 it is a fundamental change in what it means to 00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:22.740 be an individual human being. If your thoughts 00:28:22.740 --> 00:28:25.339 are being auto -completed by the cloud, are they 00:28:25.339 --> 00:28:28.130 really your thoughts? Which, I imagine, would 00:28:28.130 --> 00:28:30.349 drive some people to the final reversal. Number 00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:33.410 five, the great unplugged renaissance. The reaction 00:28:33.410 --> 00:28:36.750 to the atmosphere. When instant fulfillment hollows 00:28:36.750 --> 00:28:39.609 out all meaning, you see a mass voluntary return 00:28:39.609 --> 00:28:43.329 to friction. Romano describes a future with monasteries 00:28:43.329 --> 00:28:46.589 of deep work, dumb phone towns, communities that 00:28:46.589 --> 00:28:48.390 ban the tech not because they are Luddites who 00:28:48.390 --> 00:28:50.809 hate progress, but because they are preservationists 00:28:50.809 --> 00:28:52.970 of the human soul. People paying a premium to 00:28:52.970 --> 00:28:55.730 not be augmented. Exactly. It's the ultimate 00:28:55.730 --> 00:29:00.750 luxury good of the late 2030s. Silence. Solitude. 00:29:00.970 --> 00:29:03.470 The ability to be completely alone inside your 00:29:03.470 --> 00:29:05.609 own head without the chatter of the entire world. 00:29:05.750 --> 00:29:09.670 These reversals, they're heavy. Aphasia, friction 00:29:09.670 --> 00:29:13.609 as luxury, the atmosphere, the unplug. It really 00:29:13.609 --> 00:29:15.089 feels like we're heading toward a fundamental 00:29:15.089 --> 00:29:18.289 split in the human species. And that brings us 00:29:18.289 --> 00:29:20.430 right back to the end of the hero's journey, 00:29:20.589 --> 00:29:23.359 the return. So we've gone through the call to 00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:25.200 adventure, we've been in the abyss, and we've 00:29:25.200 --> 00:29:27.500 seen the dragon, the reversal. Now the hero has 00:29:27.500 --> 00:29:29.619 to come back to the ordinary world with the elixir. 00:29:30.299 --> 00:29:32.839 What is the elixir in Rommel's view? How do we 00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:35.480 survive this? The elixir is a two -word concept, 00:29:35.779 --> 00:29:38.420 volitional mastery. Volitional mastery. Okay, 00:29:38.460 --> 00:29:40.420 explain that. That sounds like a Jedi term. It 00:29:40.420 --> 00:29:42.599 basically means you have to choose. You cannot 00:29:42.599 --> 00:29:45.700 be a passive victim of this tide. You have to 00:29:45.700 --> 00:29:48.460 master the AI now. You have to use it, understand 00:29:48.460 --> 00:29:51.319 it, integrate it into your workflow. But, and 00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:53.299 this is the absolute crucial part, you have to 00:29:53.299 --> 00:29:55.240 do it with a conscious intention of preserving 00:29:55.240 --> 00:29:57.660 your humanity later. You learn to use the sword 00:29:57.660 --> 00:30:00.009 so the sword doesn't end up using you. Perfectly 00:30:00.009 --> 00:30:03.250 said. The elixir is the knowledge of how and 00:30:03.250 --> 00:30:05.690 when to switch it off. It's about maintaining 00:30:05.690 --> 00:30:08.890 your human -only reasoning capability while still 00:30:08.890 --> 00:30:12.519 benefiting from the abundance. You use the prosthetic 00:30:12.519 --> 00:30:15.259 to run faster, but you make damn sure you still 00:30:15.259 --> 00:30:17.259 run on your own legs every single day so they 00:30:17.259 --> 00:30:19.480 don't atrophy. And this is where we see Brian 00:30:19.480 --> 00:30:21.900 Rolimo's role in all this. He isn't just reporting 00:30:21.900 --> 00:30:23.940 on the weather. He's trying to build the arc 00:30:23.940 --> 00:30:26.720 for us. He is the guide. He's the embodiment 00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:29.819 of this journey. He differentiates himself from 00:30:29.819 --> 00:30:31.680 every other AI pundit because they're looking 00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:33.599 at stock prices, and he's looking at the human 00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:36.200 nervous system. He understands that AI is an 00:30:36.200 --> 00:30:39.200 extension of us, not just a product. He's weaving 00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:42.119 this 5 ,000 -day - narrative to prepare you the 00:30:42.119 --> 00:30:44.660 listener the call to adventure is for us yes 00:30:44.660 --> 00:30:47.519 we are in the interregnum the old world is dead 00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:50.079 the new world is not yet born those who resist 00:30:50.079 --> 00:30:52.039 they'll be victims they will get washed away 00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:53.799 by the de -skilling they'll suffer the grief 00:30:53.799 --> 00:30:56.059 without ever reaching the reconstruction but 00:30:56.059 --> 00:30:58.940 those who master it those who use this tetrad 00:30:58.940 --> 00:31:01.420 as a map they forge the legends they become the 00:31:01.420 --> 00:31:03.900 artisans they do so what does this all mean for 00:31:03.900 --> 00:31:08.230 the listener right now today We aren't in 2039 00:31:08.230 --> 00:31:10.809 yet. We are on that swaying rope bridge. What 00:31:10.809 --> 00:31:12.750 do we do? It means you need to look at your tools 00:31:12.750 --> 00:31:14.829 differently. Don't just ask, how can this make 00:31:14.829 --> 00:31:18.309 me faster? Ask the Tetrad questions. What is 00:31:18.309 --> 00:31:21.190 this tool retrieving? What is this tool obslessing 00:31:21.190 --> 00:31:23.869 in me? Am I losing a skill that I actually want 00:31:23.869 --> 00:31:25.970 to keep? And actively prepare for the reversal. 00:31:26.210 --> 00:31:29.910 Exactly. Build your own personal friction. Write 00:31:29.910 --> 00:31:32.730 a letter by hand once a week. Read a physical 00:31:32.730 --> 00:31:35.519 book. Go for a walk without your phone. Keep 00:31:35.519 --> 00:31:38.660 your unaugmented cognitive muscles strong because 00:31:38.660 --> 00:31:40.859 when the reversal comes, when the gridlock hits 00:31:40.859 --> 00:31:43.640 or the atmosphere becomes too thick, those muscles 00:31:43.640 --> 00:31:45.359 will be the only thing that saves your sense 00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:47.880 of self. That is such a powerful image. The Artisan 00:31:47.880 --> 00:31:50.160 Awakening isn't about woodworking. It's about... 00:31:50.160 --> 00:31:52.440 It's about being an artisan of the mind. That's 00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:55.180 the mission. We've used McLuhan's tetrad to map 00:31:55.180 --> 00:31:57.599 the trajectory of AI from a tool to an environment. 00:31:57.940 --> 00:32:00.579 We've seen the clear danger of cognitive aphasia, 00:32:00.599 --> 00:32:03.029 but we've also seen the opportunity. the chance 00:32:03.029 --> 00:32:05.109 to become something new, something more than 00:32:05.109 --> 00:32:07.069 just a worker bee. I want to leave our listeners 00:32:07.069 --> 00:32:10.630 with one final provocative thought, a specific 00:32:10.630 --> 00:32:14.210 image from that reversal. Imagine a future, maybe 00:32:14.210 --> 00:32:17.190 10 or 12 years from now, where human -only thought 00:32:17.190 --> 00:32:20.769 is a luxury good, where the ability to think 00:32:20.769 --> 00:32:23.509 a complex problem through from start to finish 00:32:23.509 --> 00:32:26.710 without asking an AI for help is the rarest and 00:32:26.710 --> 00:32:29.049 most valuable skill on the planet. Are you building 00:32:29.049 --> 00:32:31.859 that capacity in yourself now? Or are you letting 00:32:31.859 --> 00:32:34.599 the machine slowly, comfortably atrophy your 00:32:34.599 --> 00:32:38.000 mind? That is the central question of the 5 ,000 00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:40.579 Days. If you want to follow this journey, and 00:32:40.579 --> 00:32:42.059 you absolutely should because you're going to 00:32:42.059 --> 00:32:44.420 need this guide, you need to go to readmultiplex 00:32:44.420 --> 00:32:48.420 .com. Follow the 5 ,000 Days series. Brian Rommel 00:32:48.420 --> 00:32:50.740 is the guide you need. He's the one seeing these 00:32:50.740 --> 00:32:53.220 patterns. The age of abundance is coming, whether 00:32:53.220 --> 00:32:55.400 we like it or not. But it's up to you to decide 00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:57.500 if you'll be a victim of it or a master of it. 00:32:57.599 --> 00:32:59.319 Thanks for diving deep with us. We'll see you 00:32:59.319 --> 00:33:00.220 in the future. Stay human.