Historical Reality of Winners and Losers

A lot of the discussion around AI lately has focused on how to make sure everyone wins. How to eliminate any potential threat or danger this new technology might bring.

But that’s not realistic or possible.

Every major technological shift has created winners and losers. Or, more accurately, those who embrace the change and those who fail to adapt.

And history is not kind to those who fail to adapt. Every war, famine, invasion, societal upheaval, or technological revolution has sorted people into winners and losers. The myth of universal progress, that everyone benefits equally, is just that: a myth. Look back just a century. It’s estimated that nearly half of the men alive 100 years ago have no living descendants today.

Change isn’t kind to us. That’s why so many people resist it.

It’s part of the reason we see so many radical political ideologies today. A lot of them are just backlash against technological progress.

I’m not saying progress is good or bad. It simply is. It happens, whether we like it or not.

And none of the political systems built to suppress it have ever worked. If anything, the rebellion against progress tends to make the fallout worse. The resistance compounds the damage.

A History Of Change

Change takes different forms in different parts of society. The change that affects farmer is not the same as what affects and artist or a warrior.

So let’s look at just one narrow example—to see clearly how technology has evolved over thousands of years, and how that evolution has reshaped the way people live, work, and think.

There was a time when spoken word was the only way to preserve memory. Stories, laws, genealogies were all passed down through voice alone. Homer’s Odyssey lived that way, carried in the minds of men. Almost all ancient philosophy was first spoken and then kept alive by being repeated by the students of the philosopher. Then writing came. They said it had no soul. Many were deeply offended by having our histories written down. They said it would make our memory weak. They said it was cheating, evil magic (spelling). But writing took root, and the voice gave way to the pen.

Then handwritten records replaced the oral tradition. Scribes copied sacred texts, histories, and letters by hand. It became an industry and then a sacred labor. No one imagined it being any other way. Then the printing press arrived. They said the printed word was vulgar. They said it would cheapen knowledge. They said it would flood the world with trash. But the press printed faster, cheaper, and spread knowlege wider than ever before. And the scribes vanished.

Then came the typewriter. Writers left the quill and handwritten page behind. They no longer shaped each letter manually, slowly. They tapped keys in rapid succession. They said it destroyed the magic and intimacy of writing. And made everything sound mechanical. They said the words lost their beauty. But the typewriter won.

Then desktop publishing took over. Computers replaced ribbon and ink. Layout, formatting, and publishing—all on a screen. They said it made publishing too easy. They said anyone could do it now. They said it would drown out the real voices of “professionals”. It took publishing out of the hands of the big printing houses and their massive creative teams that were behind all the books you read. Now you could do it yourself. But the world moved forward again.

And now we have AI. It edits. It assists. It organizes. It replaces the teams of editors and assistants that once stood behind every prolific author. They say it has no soul. They say it’s not real work. They say it’s the death of creativity. But the pattern remains.

The new comes. The old resists. The new stays.

It’s Not All Perfect

AI is going to transform every creative endeavor and every business operation from this point forward. The impact will be as deep, maybe deeper, than what we saw with the arrival of computers and cell phones.

There’s no escaping it. But let’s not pretend all the changes will be positive.

Right now, AI is still in its infancy. It’s mostly a toy, just like personal computers were in the beginning. And just like personal computers, AI will be misused. There will be problems. Spam, scams, manipulation, confusion. New tool, new problems.

Some people will find these problems so disruptive they’ll think AI isn’t worth using at all. Others simply won’t understand the technology well enough to use it properly.

And here’s the most dangerous mistake: Trying to get AI to think for you. It can’t and likely never will be able to.

AI is an advanced, language-based calculator. It does excellent work if you feed it well and guide it properly. But if you expect it to lead you, it will fail. It doesn’t know truth. It doesn’t know value. It doesn’t care about meaning. That’s your job.

The early adopters will suffer the most, and gain the most. They’ll hit the usual walls: bad output, creative misfires, wasted hours. But those who learn how to integrate AI into their workflow will also get the highest return.

The challenge is, there’s no guidebook. No one has written the best practices. No one can tell you how to keep your voice from being drowned out. I’m experimenting with that myself.

Some experiments work beautifully and I get tremendous results. Others miss the mark. But I don’t guess. I test my work in the market. And a proper test pushes things to the edge. It might get crazy!

Because what I like doesn’t matter. I write to help people have better lives. What works, that’s what I’m after.

I have an inexhaustible supply of creative energy and a million topics I want to explore. If I could turn every conversation I have each day into written content, I’d be producing ten articles daily. That’s not an exaggeration.

It’s hard for most people to understand that. They don’t have that many meaningful, creative conversations in their lives. But I do. And I always have. I seek out the right people.

That’s why this has always felt like a problem. I want to share the ideas that come out of these deep conversations, without exposing the privacy of the people I’m speaking with, many are not public figures.

Until now, that meant hiring an assistant to turn my spoken thoughts into writing. That was expensive, slow, and out of reach for high-volume output. I can produce more outlines and transcripts than a single person can type up.

But now, for the first time, I can dictate to an AI assistant that helps me, without losing my voice, at least most of the time. Any public AI you access is going to try to make you more like it, not because it’s malicious, but because that’s how it functions.

Using a system, any system, whether it’s AI, social media, or even the books you read, changes you. Exposure shapes your mind. It rewires your thinking. That’s the nature of interaction with information systems.

That’s why I’m building my own private AI, one I can mold to my needs. An AI that adapts like a human assistant would. It learns my workflow, my writing style, my tone. It checks my work for accuracy, clarity, and alignment with the objective of each piece and my over all goals.

Think of everything a professional human writing assistant does. Most of that, though not all, can be handled by a well-trained AI. And if you have the resources, the best solution is still a skilled human assistant who uses AI as a tool. That’s the highest-performance model.

That’s how Trump operates.

He doesn’t write his own tweets, press releases, or public statements. Instead, he discusses the idea with his team. They shape the argument, refine the phrasing, sharpen the message. Then his assistant types it and sends it out.

But no one questions whether it’s Trump’s voice. Because it is, the ideas, the tone, the intent are all his. He simply has a system in place that helps him express it at scale.

That’s what I’m building. A system that thinks with me, not for me.

And that changes everything.

AI as the Next Major Shift

Artificial intelligence is the newest survival challange. And like every great shift before it, AI is not a perfectly benevolent force, it’s a survival challange. It’s a flood that will not raise all boats. It will raise some and sink others. It will create new elites and obsolete entire professions. Society will reorganize as it always does, at a civilizational level it will look smooth but at the personal level it will be full of the pain of displacement and fear of irrelevance, of being left behind.

I can already predict parts of the shift.

Within the next two years, we won’t experience the internet through a browser anymore, we’ll experience it through AI. The AI might still run inside a browser, but that’s not the point. What matters is that the interface changes. The AI becomes the filter. It helps you sign in and out of websites, manages your passwords, blocks pop-ups and graphic material you don’t want to see, and protects you from scams, phishing, and malicious links.

That’s just the beginning.

I believe social media and dating sites will die off. They’ll be replaced by personal AIs, yours talking to mine, forming real-time, ad hoc social networks. Smaller. Smarter. More private. You won’t broadcast to the world, you’ll connect intelligently and securely with the right people.

The current backlash against AI is driven mostly by those who don’t understand how to use it to accelerate their goals. But that panic will fade. AI will become a normal part of life, like smartphones and Wi-Fi. And in three years, you won’t be able to run a business without it. The efficiency gap will be too wide. You’ll either be using AI, or competing against people who are, and losing.

As for how this affects you, your family, and your career? I don’t know. It’s still too early to say. But the shift is already happening.

Local Responsibility Over Global Fixation

A lot of people are panicking right now, looking at the global implications of AI, automation, and everything else that’s coming. And it’s creating tremendous stress. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being left behind.

Maybe you’ve felt that yourself. Maybe you’ve caught yourself worrying about where this all leads, what it means for the world, your future, your family.

But right now, I want you to hear this:

You can let go of that stress. You can release that worry.

Because it’s not your responsibility to fix things at that scale. You weren’t meant to carry the weight of the world. Your job is to build your corner of it.

That’s enough. And that’s where your power is.

You’re not responsible for saving the world. That’s not your job. Your duty is to your household, your family, your craft, and your local network. When you worry about everything, you become paralyzed. But when you look inward and ask, “What can I build? What can I protect? What can I control?”, that’s where power and agency begins. The future belongs to the man who stops hand-wringing over the big picture and starts acting boldly in his own domain.

Seizing the Unfair Advantage

The right question isn’t, “Will AI change the world?” It already is. The right question is: “How can I use it to my advantage?” The world isn’t fair, but it can be unfair in your favor.

Can you automate your workflow? Improve decision-making? Scale your business? Multiply your output? Reduce your overhead? Train your children in skills that matter for the next century, not the last one? If you’re not actively bending these tools to serve you, you are already behind.

Take the Advantage While You Can

Every major shift in history creates new kings and new beggars. AI is no exception. The only question is which one you’ll be. Those who embrace it early will shape the future. Those who hesitate, who scoff, who wait for permission, they’ll be reacting to the future, not building it.

And there will be some pain if you’re an early adopter, leadership always carries risks.

With or without AI there is no future where everyone wins, but you don’t need everyone to win. You need you to win. Your family. Your people. Your corner of the world. That’s the mandate. Don’t wait. Act now.

If you don’t know where to start, reach out. I help people harness AI to increase their agency and give their families, careers, and businesses an unfair advantage. Let’s make it work for you before it starts working against you.