For the first time ever, white-collar knowledge workers like scientists, engineers, designers, and lawyers, mostly college graduates, now account for a greater share of the unemployed than workers from manual jobs. A 2026 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York clearly points to worsening prospects for recent college graduates aged 22 to 27. Many of these graduates would have been taking employment in law firms, research organizations, tech companies, and public service agencies. The same types of organizations adopting AI to perform the cognitive tasks that basic college training prepares young people for.

I don’t know if you saw it, but there were some recent videos of college graduates booing the speakers who were talking about AI. It’s good to see, but I don’t see, like I said earlier, without some type of strong grassroots actual unity, I do not see this changing. On a large, like I said, on a small area in your community, sure. The people who thrive in this transition will be those doing what only a human can do. The people displaced will be those who are performing tasks that were mechanical. Biometric surveillance accelerating.

Public surveillance cameras are quickly incorporating face recognition and other biometric markers to scan individuals for identification. Biometric data, facial recognition, fingerprints, voice recognition, is getting collected, stored, and analyzed with AI with no meaningful regulatory framework, governing how it will be used. Now, I’m expecting Hedera to come out with, they have some type of compute program that is supposed to keep AI trustworthy, but it’s going to be controlled by these multinational corporations, governed by them, decided by them. Non-human identities including agentic AI systems are exploding across networks with roughly 44% year-on-year growth.

In 2026, autonomous and agentic systems will be treated as full participants in the identity life cycle. Registered, authenticated, authorized, observed, and contained just like human users. The same AI agents autonomously moving money across crypto rails also have digital identities, are being registered and tracked and operate within a surveillance architecture that monitors machine behavior the same way it monitors human behavior. The financial system and the identity system are merging into one infrastructure. This is to further dehumanize all of us in the system. The psychological effect is the actual goal, one could argue.

A population that assumes it is always being watched, self-censors, self-limits, and self-policies, self-policies. Protecting yourself. Nine of the 10 most respected privacy tools in 2026 are open source. When code is public, anyone can audit it. You have to choose for yourself. I am in no position to recommend what you should do in this nor should I. This is something deeply personal you’re going to figure out for yourself. The one thing I would say is open source. If you’re going to choose any of these systems to protect yourself, look into the open source options because these are transparent, these are publicly available, which makes it more genuine and authentic.

Data minimization is the strongest guardrail against AI-enabled threats. Obviously, limit what you feed into AI systems. The less you reveal, the smaller the attack surface. Every permission you grant an app is a window into your life. Real life living is sure to make a comeback. It is the wisest choice for those looking for an actual life here on Earth. AI as empowerment. The large institutions are now replacing armies of people with AI, but the independent, authentic creator is not replaceable and now has access to the same production capacity as the institution.

I know this is a touchy subject for many people. I love a tool. Some of my favorite things in life are tools. I would say my favorite tool today is the electric bass guitar. I love all instruments as tools, but currently it’s the electric bass guitar. I love the computer as a tool. The computer, because I love musical instruments, the tool made it possible to record music in a professional way, in a very quality way, in a very creative way that did not require the need to be rich, which is how it used to be with analog.

I am not terribly superstitious with AI, maybe a little bit. I have explored AI, and I’m just speaking for myself here. Like I said, this really is a personal thing. Everyone has to decide for themselves. I’ve explored just about everything that I could potentially use with AI, and I found most of it useless to me personally. For one main reason, what I love about creativity is being creative, so I don’t want AI to be creative for me. If it can make my creative process any better or any easier, then I’m all for it.

What I have found is as a research tool, I’ve been using the library when I was a kid, and then when the internet came out, I very much appreciate the internet as a research tool. It saves a lot of time. AI is even better. Now, a lot of people say AI makes mistakes. Of course, I make mistakes. That’s why I have to double check all my research work as if I’m a dummy, because I am a dummy. I’m okay if AI is a dummy sometimes, so I have to check AI too. It still makes it a lot quicker.

I find that to be very valuable for me. You may have a small business of your own. You may find that AI is very empowering to your small business. You may find, for example, you might not enjoy the creative process of making videos or music, as I do, and you might appreciate that AI does that. I don’t see that as much of a value. For example, the adverts I see a lot on YouTube lately that are made with AI are ridiculous to me, and I can’t imagine them working on anyone, but to each his own.

We’re not here to preach. We’re here to give the forecast, and there is no doubt about it. In many ways, you could find AI to be very empowering. This is, like I said, a personal basis for everyone, and I don’t think it’s going away. The deeper question, AI and human consciousness, what happens to human consciousness when the cognitive tasks that defined our sense of purpose and identity for centuries, millennia, are performed by machines? The answer is provided by the same ancient wisdom traditions that have always addressed the meaning of life.

The understanding that human value is not economic, that consciousness is not computation, that the soul having a human experience is not a resource to be optimized. It’s not chattel. It’s not livestock. Genuine love, embodied presence, authentic community, the direct experience of nature and the divine, these are all more valuable and more necessary than they have ever been before. We’re going to get to this a lot more in the final segment. AI will displace millions of jobs. The educated professional class is now the most exposed. If you have children planning careers, they need to understand that the credential economy is breaking.

AI will enable the most comprehensive surveillance architecture in history, and it is also the great equalizer for anyone with genuine talent, authentic voice, and the wisdom to use it as a tool rather than surrender to it as an authority. You can use the tools if they help you, if they don’t leave them behind. Personally, I would argue the most valuable thing a human could do today is to find skills that only a human can do. These are going to become more and more clear as the years move on. [tr:trw].