In another great newsletter, my friend Curt Buermeyer summarizes Peter Diamandis’s three-phase roadmap from AI labor disruption to post-scarcity abundance. I’ll be honest — I want to believe it. Curt and I agree that the next five years are going to be rough. But where he sees a ten-year arc bending toward something beautiful, I see a timeline that assumes robotic construction, autonomous transport, AI healthcare, and vertical farming all scale and democratize faster than any infrastructure transformation in human history. But here’s the thing about being a pessimist: often you’re wrong, and that is a beautiful thing. Curt’s optimism is grounded and honest, not naive, and Diamandis has a track record of being right about exponential curves before the rest of us could see them. So I’m bookmarking this roadmap not because I’m convinced, but because I hope like hell they’re right and I’m wrong.

Article Excerpt:

I believe we’re facing a reality where roughly 40% to 50% of white-collar jobs—the knowledge work that college students and recent grads have spent years studying for—will likely be displaced almost overnight.

Article Summary:

Curt Buermeyer’s latest Smash Your Thinking newsletter summarizes a roadmap by Peter Diamandis (XPRIZE founder, exponential tech evangelist) for navigating the AI-driven collapse of the labor market without also collapsing the social contract. The core argument: the AI disruption won’t look like the Industrial Revolution, which reshuffled the workforce over 150 years. This one is compressed into a decade, and there’s no adjacent sector to retrain into because AI is eating every sector simultaneously.

Diamandis lays out three phases. Phase 1 (2025–2028): the fracture. Jobs disappear, identities crater, and the proposed floor is a $3,000/month Universal Basic Income paired with a 32-hour workweek to keep people attached to purpose and social structure while the shock absorbs. Phase 2 (2028–2031): the automation dividend. AI companies have extracted enormous value from public infrastructure — our data, our research, our systems — and the public deserves a share. Think Alaska Permanent Fund, but for the robot economy. Phase 3 (2031–2035): the great deflation. Housing drops from $2,000/month to $600. Transport falls to $225. Food, energy, and healthcare trend toward near-zero marginal cost, driven by robotics, solar, autonomous fleets, and AI diagnostics.

Curt adds his own caveat: he’s skeptical the Phase 3 deflation happens as fast as Diamandis projects. Prices in housing, healthcare, and food have never actually gone down for normal people, and he’d bet the timeline slips. The actionable close is straightforward: share the roadmap, audit what you’d do with your time if survival wasn’t the point, and pressure policymakers to build the bridging mechanisms now — before “the Valley” between 2026 and 2031 turns into something uglier.

Read the Full Article

The post Will AI Force US to Adopt Universal Basic Income? first appeared on Sevenelles.

Based on the podcast conversation below, I would now amend that to read “We are so fucked. We are so totally fucked. Or maybe only for a decade or so.“

The podcast is a VERY interesting glimpse into the future. I highly recommend giving it a listen.

Above: The Moonshots hosts join Andrew Yang to unpack AI’s explosive collision with politics – deepfakes weaponizing elections, UBI surging as job-killer abundance hits, and radical fixes like open voting for anyone from Cuban to Robbins – while plotting democracy’s entrepreneurial reboot.

The post Psssst… Wanna Glimpse Into Our Future? first appeared on Sevenelles.

Adobe Connect completely blows MS Teams and Zoom out of the water when it comes to producing dynamic, engaging learning events. (I mean, what the hell happened to Zoom? It started out pretty good. Then, COVID struck, and it began to metastasize into an unwieldy, ADHD-driven exercise in unfocused feature bloat. It is nearly unusable anymore. But I digress…)

So Adobe Connect is THE best platform for you to produce a bitchin’ worldwide learning broadcast. But, depending on your Adobe license, you may have only 500 seats for learners. The result: Thousands of people who would attend your totally bitchin’ learning broadcast are left out in the cold.

This SmartAss Guide will show you how to punch through that ceiling by simultaneously broadcasting your Adobe Connect Seminar as a YouTube Livestream, while still tracking ALL the attendance inside Adobe Connect using a two-Event setup and a Registration Group. It is not an obvious solution. Perhaps it is not the elegant solution. It is, however, the solution that has worked for me for many years.

In this Guide, You Will Learn To:

• Use two Adobe Connect (AC) Events in tandem to track attendance for a live learning broadcast hosted in an AC Seminar and simultaneously broadcast via YouTube (YT) Livestream
• Create an AC HTML Content object that serves as a “wrapper” around your YT Livestream so AC can track YouTube attendees
• Create a Registration Group in AC to connect the two Events so that registering for one automatically enrolls participants in both
• Configure the full broadcast workflow from setup through broadcast day — including the YouTube and OBS pieces that make the whole thing run

You Will Need:

• An Adobe Connect admin account. Not a host account. Not a limited admin. A full admin. The Registration Group step (Step 5) is admin-only — there is no workaround.
• A YouTube Studio (YT) account to create your broadcast Livestream link — OR the YT link handed to you by whoever in your organization is handling the livestream side.
• If you are handling the YT Livestream yourself: a dedicated PC running the free, open-source Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) to capture the AC broadcast and pipe it to YouTube. Setting up OBS end-to-end is outside the scope of this guide — see the References section below for resources to get up to speed.
• Solid experience in the AC admin interface. If you need a refresher on AC administration basics, Adobe’s official User Guide is a reasonable starting point.
• Experience creating and administering AC Events, Seminars, and Content. This guide assumes you have done all three before. If Events are new territory, work through Adobe’s Events overview and the Adobe Connect Blog’s event creation walkthrough before proceeding.

The Steps:

1. Create the AC Seminar where you will host the broadcast
2. Create the AC HTML Content object that will wrap around the Livestream
3. Create your Main AC Event and link it to your Seminar
4. Create your Secondary AC Event and link it to your HTML Content object
5. Connect the two Events using an AC Registration Group
6. Advertise the registration link to your Main AC Event
7. Create your YT Livestream and link it to the HTML Content object
8. Broadcast Day: Final check and log-in links

Step 1: Create the Broadcast’s AC Seminar

If you have not already created the main AC Seminar you will use for your broadcast, do that now. If you need a refresher on creating Seminars, Adobe’s Seminar documentation has you covered. We are not going to walk through it here — this is not that kind of guide.

NOTE: This tutorial assumes you are using an AC Seminar room — not an AC Meeting room — for your broadcast. Seminars are purpose-built for large audiences (up to 1,500 participants), offer a proper broadcast-style layout, and are the right tool for this job. If you are running a Meeting room instead, some of the steps below will look different and your AC audience ceiling will be considerably lower (but the YT Livestream audience will still be unlimited).

Let’s begin a running example: Throughout this Guide, we will “illustrate” the steps via examples. To kickoff the example, we will name our Seminar “My Bitchin’ Broadcast Seminar.” Swap in your actual Seminar name wherever you see this throughout the guide.

Step 2: Create the Broadcast’s AC HTML Content Object

Now we will create an AC HTML Content object that will be linked to the Secondary AC Event you will create in Step 4. This is the piece that makes YouTube attendance tracking possible inside Adobe Connect — a small but clever bit of contortion that lets AC “see” viewers who are actually watching on YouTube. If you need a refresher on uploading HTML content to AC, Adobe’s meeting and content documentation covers the basics.

This step has two parts.

Step 2.1 — Create the iFrame HTML file

You need to create a small HTML file containing an iFrame that embeds your YouTube Livestream. Here is the code that gets the job done:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Bitchin' Broadcast Livestream Wrapper</title>
</head>
<body style="background-color:black;">
    <div style="position: relative; width: 100%; padding-bottom: 56.25%;">
        <iframe
            style="position: absolute; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0; top: 0; border: 0;"
            src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XbcJGxHHozk?autoplay=1"
            allowfullscreen>
        </iframe>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

A few things worth noting about this code:

• The padding-bottom: 56.25% on the outer div is what maintains a proper 16:9 aspect ratio at any screen size. Leave it alone.
• The ?autoplay=1 parameter at the end of the YouTube URL forces the video to start playing automatically when a participant opens the Content object. This matters — without it, your YouTube viewers will land on a static screen and wonder why nothing is happening.
• The YouTube video ID in the URL — XbcJGxHHozk in the example — is a placeholder. You will replace it with your actual Livestream ID in Step 7. Leave it as-is for now.
• The black background (background-color:black) is purely aesthetic — it keeps the page from looking broken while the video loads.

Copy the code above into your favorite text editor. On Windows, Notepad++ (free) is a solid choice. Plain old Notepad works fine too. On Mac, TextEdit will do — just make sure you save in plain text format, not rich text. Make sure you use the .html extension when you save it — AC will not recognize the file as HTML content without it.

Our running example: Save the file as “Bitchin-Broadcast-iFrame-Code.html”. Make sure you use the .html extension when you save it — AC will not recognize the file as HTML content without it.

Step 2.2 — Upload the HTML file to AC Content

Now upload the HTML file you just saved to the Content section of Adobe Connect Central. As an experienced AC Admin, you have done this a hundred times. Navigate to your Content library, find or create a folder for this broadcast, and upload the file.

Our running example: We are saving the HTML in a dedicated folder for this broadcast inside the AC Shared Content folder. We will name the Content object “Bitchin’ Broadcast iFrame HTML.”

With the Seminar and the HTML Content object both in place, you are ready to build the two AC Events that will tie everything together.

Step 3: Create Your Main AC Event

We are not going to walk through the full Event creation wizard here — you know how to create an AC Event. If you need a quick refresher, Adobe’s Event creation documentation is thorough. What matters are these specifics:

• On the Enter Event Information page, in the Custom URL section, we recommend that you create a custom name so that your registration URL will be attractive. For our custom URL, we will use “bitchin-broadcast-2026”
• On the Enter Event Information page, in the Presentation section, select “Present an Adobe Connect Seminar.”
• If your broadcast runs over multiple days, you can only configure the Event for the first day during initial setup. You will need to address subsequent days separately. We will discuss that more in Step 8.
• When you reach the Select Content step, select the AC Seminar you created in Step 1 — “My Bitchin’ Broadcast Seminar.”
• Set up your registration questions, email options, and other settings as you normally would for a public-facing event. This is the Event your audience will see and register for.

Our running example: We are naming this Event “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Event.” When we create it, we will enter “bitchin-broadcast-2026” for our Custom URL, select “Present an Adobe Connect Seminar” as our Presentation type, and select “My Bitchin’ Broadcast Seminar” we created in Step 1 as our Content.

Publish the Event when you are done. You will come back to finalize registration settings and email templates before you start advertising it, but it needs to exist before Step 5 will make any sense.

Step 4: Create Your Secondary AC Event

Now create a second Event that will be linked to the HTML Content object you created in Step 2. This is the “wrapper” Event — the one that will log attendance for your YouTube viewers. A few key differences from Step 3:

• We will not be sharing the registration URL for the second event. But you will be sharing the login URL, so you should make it attractive. On the Enter Event Information page, in the Custom URL section, we will use “bitchin-livestream-2026”
• On the Enter Event Information page, in the Presentation section, select “On Demand.” This event is not hosting a live session — it is serving up pre-existing content (your iFrame HTML file).
• Set the start and end dates and times to match what you used for the Main Event in Step 3.
• When you reach the Select Content step, select the AC HTML Content object you created in Step 2 — “Bitchin’ Broadcast iFrame HTML.”
• Do not advertise this Event’s registration link. Participants will never register for this Event directly. The Registration Group you create in Step 5 will handle enrollment automatically.

Our running example: We are naming this Event “Bitchin’ Broadcast HTML Wrapper Event.” When we create it, we will enter “bitchin-livestream-2026” for our Custom URL, select “On Demand” as our Presentation type, and select “Bitchin’ Broadcast iFrame HTML” we created in Step 2 as our Content.

Step 5: Connect the Events Using an AC Registration Group

OK. Buckle up. This is where Adobe Connect’s administrative logic gets wonderfully convoluted, and where the whole two-Event architecture either clicks into place or makes you want to close the browser and go do something relaxing instead.

Here is what we are accomplishing: Anyone who registers for the Main Event (“Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Event”) will be automatically added to a designated AC Registration Group. That same group will be pre-loaded into the Secondary Event (“Bitchin’ Broadcast HTML Wrapper Event”) as approved participants. The result: one registration, two event records, zero extra friction for your audience.

This requires two sub-tasks: first, create the AC Registration Group, then wire it into both Events.

Step 5.1 — Create the AC Registration Group

You need full administrator access to do this. If you are a limited admin, now is the time to call in a favor.

1. In Adobe Connect Central, select the Admin tab.
2. Navigate to Users and Groups.
3. Click New Group.
4. Enter a name and optional description for the group. Leave membership empty for now — registrants will be added automatically.
5. Click Finish.

Our running example: Name the group “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Group.”

Step 5.2 — Link the Registration Group to the Main Event

Now tell the Main Event to automatically add approved registrants to the group you just created.

1. In Adobe Connect Central, click the Event Management tab.
2. Navigate to and select the Main Event — “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Event.”
3. Click Participant Management in the navigation bar.
4. Click Registration Groups.
5. In the Possible Groups list, find and select “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Group.”
6. Click Add. The group name moves to the Current Group Membership list.
7. Click Save.

Our running example: Edit the “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Event” created in Step 3 as described in the 7 steps just above.

From this point forward, every participant who registers and is approved for the Main Event will be automatically added to “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Group.”

Step 5.3 — Add the Registration Group to the Secondary Event

Now wire that same group into the Secondary Event as pre-approved participants.

1. In Adobe Connect Central, click the Event Management tab.
2. Navigate to and select the Secondary Event — “Bitchin’ Broadcast HTML Wrapper Event.”
3. Click Participant Management in the navigation bar.
4. Click Add User/Group.
5. In the Available Users and Groups list, search for and select “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Group.”
6. Click Add.
7. Set the permission for the group to Participant.
8. Click Save.

Our running example: Edit the “Bitchin’ Broadcast HTML Wrapper Event” created in Step 4 as described in the 8 steps just above.

The two Events are now connected. Anyone who registers for the Main Event is automatically an approved Participant in the Secondary Event — no second registration, no manual management, no explaining two different registration links to confused attendees.

A Word of Warning: Adobe Connect adds registrants to the Registration Group when they are approved, not when they merely register. If your Main Event requires manual approval, you will need to stay on top of approvals before broadcast day or your YouTube viewers will show up to find they cannot access the Wrapper Event.

Step 6: Advertise the Main AC Event Registration Link

At this point, you can finish building out all the registration settings, email templates, and branded event pages for the Main Event and start promoting the registration link to your audience.

A few important reminders:

• Share only the Main Event registration link — In our example, that would be something like https://your.adobeconnect.com/bitchin-broadcast-2026/event/registration.html. Do NOT share the Secondary Event link. Ever. The Registration Group handles enrollment in the Secondary Event automatically. Sharing the Secondary Event link publicly will produce confusion, double registrations, and the kind of support emails nobody wants to answer.
• Your audience does not need to know the Secondary Event exists. As far as they are concerned, they registered for one event and will receive one set of communications.

Step 7: Create Your YT Livestream and Link It to the AC HTML Content

Ideally, your organization has a dedicated team or person who will handle the OBS capture and YouTube Livestream setup while you focus on running the AC Seminar. If that is not the case — if you are the one person doing all of this — the details of configuring a full OBS-to-YouTube workflow are beyond the scope of this guide. But here is a quick orientation and pointers to go deeper.

What is YouTube Livestream?

YouTube Livestream is YouTube’s built-in broadcasting feature, available to any verified YouTube account. It lets you stream live video to a public (or unlisted) YouTube URL using an encoder — in this case, OBS (see next paragraph). Viewers watch in a standard YouTube player, no registration required, from any device with a browser. The stream is automatically archived as a YouTube video when you end it. For our purposes, the key output from YouTube Livestream setup is a unique video ID embedded in the stream’s URL — the string of characters you will drop into the HTML file from Step 2.

What is OBS?

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a free, open-source application that captures video and audio from one or more sources — in this case, your Adobe Connect Seminar room running in a browser window — and streams it to an external platform like YouTube. It is the bridge between what is happening in your AC Seminar and what appears on the YouTube Livestream. OBS runs on a dedicated PC, captures the AC broadcast as a Window Source, mixes in audio, and pushes the signal to YouTube using a Stream Key and RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) URL provided by YouTube Studio.

How they work together

The flow looks like this: Your presenters are live in the AC Seminar. A dedicated OBS machine captures the Seminar room as a window source and streams it — in real time — to YouTube via RTMP. Meanwhile, your registered AC attendees are watching through the AC Seminar room directly, and your YouTube audience is watching the same content through the embedded iFrame in the Secondary Event. Both audiences are watching the same broadcast. One group is tracked in AC natively; the other is tracked through the HTML Wrapper Event you built in Step 4.

For a thorough walkthrough of the OBS-to-YouTube-to-Adobe-Connect workflow, this HowlRound guide describes the exact approach — capturing an Adobe Connect session as an OBS Window Source and broadcasting to external platforms — in practical detail. YouTube’s own encoder-based streaming guide covers the YouTube Studio setup, stream key configuration, and going live.

Update the HTML Content Object with your Livestream ID

Whether someone else sets up the YouTube Livestream for you or you do it yourself, the stream will have a unique YouTube video identifier — a short string of characters that appears in the stream URL. You need to update the HTML file from Step 2.1 with that identifier.

Find this portion of the HTML code:

src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XbcJGxHHozk?autoplay=1"

Replace XbcJGxHHozk with your actual YouTube Livestream video ID. The rest of the URL stays exactly as-is — including the ?autoplay=1 parameter.

Save the updated HTML file and upload it to AC Content to overwrite the existing “Bitchin’ Broadcast iFrame HTML” object. Confirm the overwrite when prompted. The Secondary Event will now serve the updated iFrame pointing to your real Livestream.

IMPORTANT Timing Note: YouTube does not generate the final stream URL until you actually create the Livestream in YouTube Studio. You can set up the stream in advance and schedule it, which is the recommended approach — it gives you a stable URL to work with before broadcast day. Do not leave this to the morning of the event.

Step 8: Broadcast Day — Final Pre-Checks, Log-In Links, and Attendance Reports

Broadcast day is not the time to discover something is broken. Here is what to verify and communicate before you go live.

8.1 – Pre-Broadcast Checks

• Test the iFrame HTML Content object. Log in to the Secondary Event as a test participant and confirm the YouTube embed loads and autoplays correctly. Do this after the YouTube Livestream is created but before the actual broadcast.
• Confirm Registration Group population. Check that registered participants from the Main Event are appearing as approved Participants in the Secondary Event. If approvals have been sitting unreviewed, handle them now.
• Coordinate with your OBS operator. Confirm they have the YouTube Stream Key loaded, have done a test stream, and know when to start broadcasting.
• Run a dry-run of the AC Seminar room. Confirm layouts, presenter permissions, and audio/video are working before participants arrive.

8.2 – Broadcast Day: The Two Log-In Links

On broadcast day, registered participants need two things:

1. The direct log-in link to the Main Event (the AC Seminar) — for those joining through Adobe Connect directly. In our example, that link will look something like https://your.adobeconnect.com/bitchin-broadcast-2026/event/registration.html.
2. The direct log-in link to the Secondary Event (the YouTube iFrame wrapper) — for those who will be watching via YouTube but whose attendance you want tracked in AC. In our example, that link will look something like https://your.adobeconnect.com/bitchin-livestream-2026/event/registration.html.

Both links should go out to all registered participants. Let them choose. Some will prefer the richer AC experience; others will watch on YouTube. Both audiences are tracked.

8.3 – Post-Event: Attendance Reports

To get a full attendance report, you need to pull the attendance data from both Events and combine it into a single clean record. Here’s how:

Download the attendance spreadsheets

1. In Adobe Connect Central, click the Event Management tab.
2. Navigate to and select the Main Event — “Bitchin’ Broadcast Registration Event.”
3. Click Reports in the navigation bar.
4. Select Participant Report (or Attendance Report, depending on your AC version).
5. Click Download to export the report as a CSV.
6. Repeat steps 1–5 for the Secondary Event — “Bitchin’ Broadcast HTML Wrapper Event.”

You now have two spreadsheets: one for your AC Seminar attendees, one for your YouTube/iFrame attendees.

Combine and deduplicate

Open both files in Excel (or your spreadsheet tool of choice). Copy all rows from the Secondary Event report and paste them below the rows from the Main Event report in a single sheet. You will have duplicate entries for any participant who logged into both Events — this can happen if a registrant toggled between the AC Seminar and the YouTube wrapper during the broadcast.

To remove duplicates in Excel: select the combined data, go to Data → Remove Duplicates, and deduplicate on the participant email address column. That gives you your final headcount — each registered attendee counted once, regardless of which room they watched from.

8.4 — Multi-Day Events

If your broadcast runs over multiple days, there are two things you need to know before you start rolling dates forward.

Download before you roll.

This is the one that will ruin your week if you skip it. After each day’s broadcast, download the attendance reports for both Events before you change the Event dates for the next day. Adobe Connect’s reporting is tied to the Event’s configured date range — once you roll the dates forward, the previous day’s attendance data becomes inaccessible. It is gone. Download first, roll dates second. Every time, without exception.

Once you have the daily spreadsheets, you can combine them using the same deduplication process described in 8.3 above — either per day (for daily attendance counts) or across all days (for overall unique attendance).

Create a new HTML file and Content object for each day.

YouTube Studio generates a unique video ID for each Livestream you create — Day 1 and Day 2 are separate streams with separate IDs. That means you cannot reuse the same HTML iFrame file across days. For each day of a multi-day broadcast, you need to:

1. Create a new Livestream in YouTube Studio for that day’s session. Note the new video ID from the stream URL.
2. Create a new HTML file using the same code from Step 2.1, with the new video ID substituted in place of the placeholder.
3. Upload the new HTML file to AC Content as a new Content object — do not overwrite the previous day’s file. Name it clearly (e.g., “Bitchin’ Broadcast iFrame HTML — Day 2”).
4. In Adobe Connect Central, navigate to the Secondary Event — “Bitchin’ Broadcast HTML Wrapper Event” — and update its Select Content setting to point to the new Day 2 Content object.

Do this before each day’s broadcast. The Secondary Event itself stays the same — you are only swapping out which HTML Content object it serves.

(Yes, this is a lot of steps for what should be a trivially simple thing. Adobe Connect was not exactly designed with multi-day livestream workflows in mind. Welcome to the club.)

And that’s that. If you have any questions or suggestions, please put them in the comments below!

References and Resources

The following resources were used in building this guide and are worth bookmarking for deeper learning:

Adobe Connect — Events

• About Adobe Connect Events — Overview, roles, and event lifecycle
• Create and Edit Adobe Connect Events — Event wizard, Registration Groups, participant management
• Manage Adobe Connect Events — Reporting, engagement tracking, analytics
• How & What Is Needed to Create New Events — Adobe Connect Blog walkthrough covering Registration Groups and event wrapping

Adobe Connect — Seminars and Administration

• Working with Adobe Connect Seminars — Seminar room setup, sessions, and licensing
• Connect Central: Group Basics — Creating and managing custom groups
• Broadcast Controls / Green Room — Managing the broadcast lifecycle in a Seminar room

YouTube Livestreaming

• Create a YouTube Live Stream with an Encoder — Official YouTube guide: stream key, RTMP, Live Control Room
• YouTube Studio — Where you set up and manage your Livestream

OBS Studio

• OBS Studio — Free, open-source broadcast software. Download and documentation.
• How to Produce a Livestream Event, Part 2 — HowlRound; the most directly applicable guide for capturing Adobe Connect in OBS and streaming to external platforms

The post Expand Your Adobe Connect Audience with a YouTube Livestream first appeared on Sevenelles.

In this article, Curt Buermeyer discusses how the traditional model of trading time for money is rapidly becoming obsolete due to AI-driven productivity gains. For over a century, hourly billing has been standard across professions, but the workplace is now shifting from “pay-per-hour” to “pay-per-problem-solved.”

The most vulnerable workers are those whose value is measured by presence rather than performance. When employers pay for time, they’re actively seeking automation solutions to eliminate those costs entirely.

The new paradigm focuses on “problems solved per dollar.” A marketing strategist using AI to create an excellent plan in two hours delivers the same value as a traditional team spending 100 hours—clients only care about the outcome, not the process.

To adapt, professionals must reframe their value around specific problems solved rather than hours worked. This requires identifying the 20% of work requiring human judgment, strategy, and empathy that AI cannot replicate, while using AI to handle routine tasks efficiently.

Read the Full Article

The post The Death of the Billable Hour: Why Your Salary is at Risk in 2026 first appeared on Sevenelles.

We are so fucked. We are so totally fucked.

Usually, I follow that statement with, “but there is always hope.” Josh Tyrangiel’s article in The Atlantic leaves little room for hope, given the dysfunctional state of our democracy.

Here’s one of the many quotes from the article that paints a dire picture of AI’s impact on America’s working class:

“But I’m telling you it’s the end of America as we know it if we don’t use this moment to do things differently.”

Gina Raimondo

(former Rhode Island governor,
former US Commerce Secretary,
current venture-capital executive)

If you are fortunate enough to be in or nearing retirement with adequate savings to survive a major financial nut-punch, you can skip the article. For everyone else, read the article and plan ways to protect the family jewels.

Article Summary:

In 1869, Massachusetts created America’s first Bureau of Statistics of Labor to measure workplace conditions during the Industrial Revolution, establishing the principle that democratic governments should track what’s happening to their workers. Today, as artificial intelligence threatens to sodomize the American Dream, that commitment to measurement and evidence-based policymaking is being sorely tested.

While economists see no clear data yet showing AI’s impact on employment, corporate leaders are openly warning of massive job losses. CEOs from Ford, Anthropic, and other major companies have predicted that AI could eliminate 10-20% of jobs within years, with some estimating that half of white-collar positions could disappear within a decade. The scary part: after openly discussing these projections just a few months ago, executives have gone silent, advised by PR teams to stop talking publicly about AI and layoffs.

Economists remain divided on timing and severity. Some, like Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee, argue it’s too early to draw conclusions—productivity is strong and unemployment remains low. Others, like MIT’s David Autor and Daron Acemoglu, emphasize that speed matters: gradual change allows societies to adapt, but rapid disruption causes lasting damage, as seen with the “China shock” that devastated US manufacturing communities in the 1990s.

However, economist Anton Korinek warns this time may be different. Unlike previous technologies, AI can help deploy itself, potentially compressing decades of change into years. If 40% of global jobs are affected rapidly, as the IMF projects, our already hideously dysfunctional political institutions may not have the cajones to save the working class.

Our feckless Congress is paralyzed by fear of an authoritarian buffon, unable to even fund expanded labor statistics or revive worker retraining programs. In a classic “fox guarding the henhouse” move, the Trump administration has delegated AI oversight to venture capitalist David Sacks, who has hundreds of AI investments. Without political action, the challenge may ultimately be less about jobs than about whether our republic survives AI.

Article Excerpt:

“Mass job loss doesn’t just mean unemployment; it means missed loan payments, cascading defaults, shrinking consumer demand, and the kind of self-reinforcing downturn that can transform a shock into a crisis, and a crisis into the decline of an empire.“

Read the Full Article

The post America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs first appeared on Sevenelles.

Dana Milbank discovers hope for reversing social media’s societal damage: A group of tech entrepreneurs from companies like Twitter, Pinterest, and Google are developing West Co., a new platform called “Tangle” that aims to help people live more meaningful lives through AI technology. Founders Christopher “Biz” Stone and Evan Sharp, who acknowledge their previous contributions to potentially harmful social media platforms, are seeking redemption by creating a purpose-discovery tool.

Tangle uses AI to help users define their life purposes by analyzing their calendars, photos, and personal information. The platform encourages users to set intentions, receive support from a community, and reflect on meaningful experiences. Unlike traditional tech products, West Co. focuses on human flourishing rather than maximizing screen time.

The company’s approach differs from typical Silicon Valley culture by incorporating rituals, moments of silence, and a focus on personal growth. Their goal is to use technology to help people live more intentionally and connect with causes greater than themselves.

Early testing shows promising results, with employees experiencing significant personal transformations. For instance, the COO quit her job to spend more time with her daughter, and Stone committed to being more present for his son.

While the platform is still in development and lacks a clear revenue model, the founders are self-funded and have received $29 million in seed funding. They aim to create a tool that helps people turn off “autopilot” and discover more meaningful life purposes.

The project represents a potential alternative approach to technology that prioritizes human well-being over engagement metrics and seeks to address the negative impacts of previous digital innovations.

Read the Full Article

The post Social Media for People Who Hate Social Media first appeared on Sevenelles.

“People consistently underestimate how much they would enjoy just thinking.“

Article Summary:

In today’s digital age, people frequently turn to their phones during moments of downtime, checking them up to 50 times daily. However, research suggests that allowing one’s mind to wander instead could offer significant benefits for personal well-being, problem-solving, and relationships.

Contrary to popular belief, daydreaming can be more enjoyable than anticipated. A 2022 study revealed that people consistently underestimate the pleasure of simply thinking, often overestimating boredom. This mental wandering is uniquely human, helping us learn, imagine scenarios, and develop empathy.

Daydreaming is particularly effective for problem-solving. Researchers found that people are more likely to resolve complex issues after periods of mind-wandering, even when not consciously focusing on the problem. Neuroscience research shows that the brain remains active during these seemingly idle moments, with different regions continuing to work.

Additionally, daydreaming can enhance social connections. Studies demonstrate that imagining pleasant interactions with loved ones can increase emotional closeness and help individuals simulate and prepare for future social situations. This mental “time travel” allows people to explore potential scenarios and learn from past experiences.

Experts recommend deliberately creating opportunities for mind-wandering by engaging in simple, automatic activities like walking or puzzles. They also suggest focusing on positive, meaningful thoughts to make daydreaming more constructive.

Ultimately, resisting the urge to constantly check phones and instead allowing the mind to wander can be refreshing, providing a sense of thought ownership and potentially leading to more meaningful experiences.

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The post Put Down Your Phone and Daydream Instead first appeared on Sevenelles.

Another great article by Dana Milbank: In an era marked by uncertainty, anxiety, and depression, a novel approach to happiness is emerging through the concept of purpose. A six-year study by Cornell psychologist Anthony Burrow reveals that helping people identify and pursue meaningful contributions can significantly improve their well-being.

Burrow’s research focused on Gen Z students, providing them with $400 to pursue community-oriented goals. The results were striking: participants who made contributions showed marked improvements in well-being, sense of purpose, belonging, and emotional balance. Contrary to popular perceptions of Gen Z as narcissistic, 95% of participants chose contributions that benefited others.

Psychological research increasingly supports the idea that happiness is not directly pursued but emerges as a byproduct of purposeful action. Studies have linked a sense of purpose to numerous health benefits, including reduced stress, lower disease risk, and improved cognitive function.

Experts suggest simple strategies for cultivating purpose:

• Reflect on what the world is missing and how you can help
• Commit to regular contributions
• Spend time assessing progress
• Recognize that purpose can change and doesn’t require grand gestures

The approach is particularly relevant for younger generations, with polls showing that over 70% of young people prioritize finding purpose in their work. Parents and educators can play a crucial role by encouraging purposeful thinking and supporting meaningful contributions.

The key message is straightforward: stop trying to be happy and instead focus on how you can make a difference in the lives of others. Purpose, it seems, is the most efficient path to personal fulfillment.

Article Excerpt:

“There’s no right or wrong purpose. It could be related to family or work or anything else that gives you meaning and helps you order your goals. It’s not necessarily altruistic (evil people can have purpose) but often is. Your purpose can change over time. You can have more than one; at various times, I think of my own purpose as caring for my family and friends, making people laugh, restoring the health of my land, and proselytizing for truth and reported journalism.”

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The post Research Found a Surprisingly Simple Route to Happiness first appeared on Sevenelles.

David French’s article discusses the concerns raised by antifederalists during the Constitution’s ratification, particularly about the potential for presidential overreach. Cato, a pseudonymous pamphleteer in 1787, warned that the Constitution’s vague language about executive power could enable an ambitious president to “ruin his country.”

The text argues that the Constitution’s Article II, which defines presidential powers, is problematically ambiguous. This ambiguity has allowed presidents, especially Donald Trump, to expand executive authority dramatically. The author suggests that Trump’s theory of presidential power includes four key elements: total executive power, ability to remove subordinate officials, discretion in law enforcement, and control over executive branch agencies.

Contrary to the notion of “coequal branches,” the article contends that Congress should be the supreme branch of government. However, Congress has become increasingly weak and partisan, largely defined by presidential influence.

The author proposes a constitutional amendment to change the first sentence of Article II. Instead of “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America,” it should read, “A president of the United States of America shall execute laws passed by Congress.”

This change would transform the president from a chief executive to a steward of congressionally established laws, limiting presidential discretion in enforcement and agency management. While the president would retain significant powers like commanding the military and nominating judges, the amendment would fundamentally rebalance governmental power.

Article Excerpt:

Um, no. Our nation is not supposed to have coequal branches. Congress is supposed to reign supreme. Yes, the other branches have the power to check Congress (presidents can veto legislation; courts exercise judicial review), but Congress alone possesses the power of the purse. Congress alone is supposed to possess the power to declare war. Congress can impeach and remove members of the executive and judicial branches of government, including the president and justices of the Supreme Court.

There is a constitutional answer to this national challenge. We can — at long last — heed the warnings of the antifederalists, and we can do it simply enough, by changing the first sentence of Article II. Instead of declaring “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America,” it should read, “A president of the United States of America shall execute laws passed by Congress.”

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The post One Sentence in the Constitution Is Causing America Huge Problems first appeared on Sevenelles.

The most critical challenge facing Americans today is the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), a topic that most people are not taking seriously enough. While many assume AI won’t significantly impact their industries, the technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace, promising major disruptions across professions like medicine, law, education, and coding.

The author suggests becoming an “AI prepper” – not in a doomsday sense, but by preparing for AI’s societal and workplace transformations. This preparation differs by profession but generally involves three key strategies:

1. Develop proficiency with AI tools: Regularly explore and push the boundaries of AI capabilities, going beyond basic usage. Experiment with diverse tasks to understand the technology’s potential.

2. Identify complementary human skills: Focus on abilities that AI cannot easily replicate, such as generating human connections, developing personal relationships, and creating unique, authentic experiences.

3. Maintain flexibility and adaptability: Recognize that current predictions about AI might be incorrect. Be prepared to quickly adjust strategies as the technology evolves.

The key is not to view AI as a threat, but as a tool for expanding human potential. While AI may compete with humans in tasks involving data, text, and analysis, it also offers unprecedented opportunities for learning and creativity.

Article Excerpt:

The most important issue facing Americans is not President Donald Trump’s antics. Nor is it the (now much reduced) antics of woke progressives. Yet that’s what we’re mostly fighting about, while we neglect the single biggest question we have to answer: What are we going to do about AI?

When I ask people this question, the most common response is a blank stare or a shrug. Oh, tech people understand what’s coming — in fact, they understand it’s already here, displacing early career programmers. CEOs are studying how artificial intelligence might help reduce expensive head counts. Professors are aware that students are using it to cheat. Journalists have a natural wariness of any entity that produces faster, cleaner copy than they can.

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The post It’s Time to Start Preparing for AI first appeared on Sevenelles.