I guess one of the reasons I keep harping on how terrifying it’s going to be for young graduates with C.S. degrees to find work is because I’ve got one of ’em in my own family! Hopefully the Knight specialness will kick in, and she won’t have anything to worry about. Still, I think millions of kids with very expensive degrees are going to find themselves in a world of hurt, as A.I. has usurped their opportunities.
After all, some of the hottest companies these days know all too well what I knew as a business owner back in the early 1990s when I was starting Prophet: humans suck! They bitch, they’re expensive, and they’re not totally reliable.
If you want to see what the investing public thinks of companies shit-canning humans in exhange for almost-free AI, look no farther than Duolingo (DUOL) which is doing amazingly well.
As for Klarna, mentioned above, I was curious about them, so I went to their home page. I offer you this image from it:
This speaks VOLUMES. Evidently, Klarna is a company that lets you pay for purchases over time (surely, I strongly suspect, for you to lapse into their non-0%-interest mode, after 30 days, and pay God knows how high of a rate). Look at much is packed into this one image:
- a person of color holding the phone;
- the phone is new and expensive;
- the hand is embellished with expensive and unusual jewelry (a thumb ring? is that a thing?);
- they are wearing what appears to be high-grade clothing, judging from the cuff;
- they are in the midst of purchasing some expensive-ass headphones
In a single image, consumerism, consumerism, consumerism, all possessed by an individual who probably has no business going even deeper into debt, promoted by a company that wants to suck them dry with 29% interest rates.
I remember all too well my parents telling me that in rural Louisiana of the 1930s and 1940s, one of the most prosperous men in town was a dentist who would serve the black community (all of them dirt poor) by allowing them to pay him over time on credit. He made VASTLY more by nickel and diming them to death than if they were able to simply pay him his normal fee.
Nothing has changed, people. Nothing.
