Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 11

Dangerous Assumptions In The AI Debate

We keep asking the wrong question: Will AI take our jobs?

The better question is…
What are we doing before it does? (you know… if the promise of AI is actually true).
Last week, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, put a number on it:

AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years. 

Not evolve them… not augment them…
Eliminate them.

Cue the usual pushback…

“This is just hype.”
“This is just code… and it’s not replacing us.”
“Humans are still in control.”
“Tech companies always hype so their sales and valuations go up.”
“You’re being foolish if you believe that AI could ever replace humans.”
“Why would we ever build something that could destabilize the economy and replace us?” 

All fair… until it isn’t.

Because this time, the hype is the product… and the product isn’t coming… it’s already working. 
The automation of knowledge work is no longer a thought experiment.
And that – not the jobs – is what we’re underestimating most.

CEOs aren’t waiting for AGI. 

They’re quietly testing and/or working with AI now. 
Behind closed doors, they’re asking:
“Why would I pay a human to do this when AI can do it faster, better, and without needing a vacation?”
At places like Shopify and Fiverr, executives are already requiring managers to justify hiring a human over using AI.
At the same time, unemployment among new college grads is climbing – especially in fields like finance and computer science. 

Unemployment for college grads is now higher than the general rate.

This might not be connected (right now), but what happens if those lines do cross?
And this isn’t just about automating “low-value” tasks.
AI is no longer helping you write… it’s writing for you.
AI is no longer helping you code… check out vibe coding and watch it ship code.
Some call this “augmentation.”

But if the AI is doing anything over 60% of the job… what are you doing?

So what’s the plan?

A token tax on model usage to fund retraining?A universal basic income?A hiring freeze until we figure this out?

We’re not having those conversations… are we?

Not in boardrooms.
Not in politics.
And definitely not at scale beyond spaces like this (with those who are already interested in the future of work).

We’re betting that this is just another wave of automation and it will follow the same curve as previous ones… 

That jobs will “shift” (with new kinds of work, titles and businesses that will be created) not “vanish.”
But even optimists (like me) are admitting:
The speed and scale of this disruption is unlike anything we’ve seen.

And here’s the deeper risk:

If you’re training the AI with your own work… and that work becomes the benchmark… what happens when the system no longer needs you?
Or worse… when the new analytics is watching everything that you do at work with artificial intelligence and benchmarking you against everybody else… while at the same time, the better you get at using it, the more you are helping it to actually replace yourself. 
It sounds like an episode of Black Mirror, but stay with the thought… as you work with AI and get better at using it, are you actually training yourself out of work?

Does that sound so far-fetched? 

What if we’re not just competing against the machine… but onboarding our replacement?
This isn’t about fearing AI.
It’s about being honest about what’s already happening.
I’m also getting tired of the trope that “AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will.”
What if that’s outdated too?
We shouldn’t assume AI won’t replace us.

We should prepare for what happens if it does.

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · Dangerous Assumptions In The AI Debate – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Pico Iyer On Silence As A Technology – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #986 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to:

Pico Iyer lives between worlds – geographically, culturally, and spiritually – and that makes him one of the most attuned chroniclers of what it means to be alive right now. Best known for travel writing that often transcends borders and genres (The Global Soul, Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk), Pico is also a deeply reflective thinker about silence, stillness, and solitude. In his latest book, Aflame – Learning from Silence, he returns to a Benedictine monastery in Big Sur – a place he has visited over 100 times – to explore what it means to pause in a world that won’t stop moving. This isn’t a religious retreat or a spiritual how-to. It’s a meditation on fire: what we lose, what remains, and how burning down can be its own kind of beginning. In this conversation, we talk about the power of silence in an always-on culture, why the monastic life holds so much wisdom even for secular people, and how loss (of home, of place, of identity) can be a clarifier rather than just a crisis. There are moments of levity (Leonard Cohen, a fellow monastery-goer, makes an appearance), but mostly what Pico offers is a quiet urgency: that we’re missing too much while looking at everything. His reflections on mindfulness, technology, climate anxiety, writing, and what it means to find meaning when everything feels untethered will resonate with anyone seeking more presence in a distracted world (also check out his other books: The Art of Stillness and The Half Known Life). Pico splits his time between Japan and California, writes with grace and generosity for The New York Times, Time, The New York Review of Books and others. If you’re struggling to make sense of modern life, this one offers something deeper than answers – it offers permission to pause. He is one of my mentors and someone I constantly think about. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose):  #986 – Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast .

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

SPOS #986 – Pico Iyer On Silence As A Technology

Welcome to episode #986 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast.

Pico Iyer lives between worlds – geographically, culturally, and spiritually – and that makes him one of the most attuned chroniclers of what it means to be alive right now. Best known for travel writing that often transcends borders and genres (The Global Soul, Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk), Pico is also a deeply reflective thinker about silence, stillness, and solitude. In his latest book, Aflame – Learning from Silence, he returns to a Benedictine monastery in Big Sur – a place he has visited over 100 times – to explore what it means to pause in a world that won’t stop moving. This isn’t a religious retreat or a spiritual how-to. It’s a meditation on fire: what we lose, what remains, and how burning down can be its own kind of beginning. In this conversation, we talk about the power of silence in an always-on culture, why the monastic life holds so much wisdom even for secular people, and how loss (of home, of place, of identity) can be a clarifier rather than just a crisis. There are moments of levity (Leonard Cohen, a fellow monastery-goer, makes an appearance), but mostly what Pico offers is a quiet urgency: that we’re missing too much while looking at everything. His reflections on mindfulness, technology, climate anxiety, writing, and what it means to find meaning when everything feels untethered will resonate with anyone seeking more presence in a distracted world (also check out his other books: The Art of Stillness and The Half Known Life). Pico splits his time between Japan and California, writes with grace and generosity for The New York Times, Time, The New York Review of Books and others. If you’re struggling to make sense of modern life, this one offers something deeper than answers – it offers permission to pause. He is one of my mentors and someone I constantly think about. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 1:05:46.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.Check out ThinkersOne.or you can connect on LinkedIn.…or on X.Here is my conversation with Pico Iyer.Aflame – Learning from Silence.The Half Known Life.The Art of Stillness.Video Night in Kathmandu.The Global Soul.The Lady and the Monk.

Chapters:

(00:00) – The Impact of Wildfires and Personal Loss.
(02:55) – Nature’s Call: The Urgency of Change.
(06:07) – Fire as a Metaphor for Renewal.
(08:47) – Mindfulness in a Fast-Paced World.
(12:04) – The Essence of Stillness and Silence.
(14:57) – The Role of Technology in Connection and Disconnection.
(17:58) – Finding Serendipity in Everyday Life.
(21:05) – The Monastic Experience: A Journey Within.
(23:58) – Exploring the Concept of Cells in Monasteries.
(27:00) – The Intersection of Religion and Personal Growth.
(35:25) – The Essence of a Holy Day.
(36:36) – Life in the Monastery: A Unique Perspective.
(39:00) – Leonard Cohen: The Monk and the Artist.
(46:45) – Solitude vs. Community: The Monastic Life.
(48:50) – The Art of Writing: Silence and Reflection.
(55:26) – Facing Silence: The Challenge of Solitude.
(57:35) – Creating in Chaos: The Need for Retreat.
(01:04:28) – Lessons from Japan: A Different Perspective.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast – Episode #986.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Six Links That Make You Think #779

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

Portlandia – Birthday Loan – Terrible Television – YouTube. “Portlandia makes me nostalgic. I miss the time when good-natured ribbiing aimed at countercultural idealists didn’t come with a size of existential dread. Someone took the segments of a sketch spread across an episode into a single video and it’s genius. ‘I’m a birthday loan officer. I know what Tapas are.’ Also, please sell me a group bill reconciler with that kind of confidence.” (Alistair for Hugh). Xenotransplantation Of A Porcine Kidney For End-Stage Kidney Disease – The New England Journal Of Medicine . “Yup, I win the ‘most different links’ award by a long mile. Take a pig’s kidney, edit its genes 69 times to remove antigens, inactivate pig retroviruses, and insert human genes, and insert it in a human patient. In this case, a 62-year-old man on hemodialysis. He immediately stopped needing dialysis. He died of unrelated causes soon after, but the message is nevertheless true. We’re so busy talking about AI we often forget the other advances we’re making: gene editing could immediately fix organ donation shortages.” (Alistair for Mitch). W.A.S.T.E. Not – Madeleine Adams – The Baffler . “‘Trash is the hidden foundation of modern civilization.’ Cultural historian, John Scanlan, explores how waste defines us.” (Hugh for Alistair). The Entangled Brain – Luiz Pessoa – Aeon . “The brain, contends neuroscientist Luiz Pessoa, operates not like a machine with various areas controlling specific functions, but rather like a self-organizing (and self-dissembling) network of independent but connected systems and neurons. Much like a murmur of starlings. ‘When thousands of starlings swoop and swirl in the evening sky, creating patterns called murmurations, no single bird is choreographing this aerial ballet. Each bird follows simple rules of interaction with its closest neighbours, yet out of these local interactions emerges a complex, coordinated dance.’” (Hugh for Mitch). Getting Started With Reader – Daniel Doyon – Readwise . “I recently found out that Pocket is shutting down, and it hit me harder than I care to admit. It’s the place where I go to choose what to share here, what to talk about on my weekly radio hits and so much more. Over a decade ago, I wrote a love letter to the app – not for what it did, but for what it enabled: a calm, intentional space to save the ideas I didn’t want to lose. Pocket wasn’t just a read-it-later tool… it was my digital second brain, my private corner of the internet where curiosity could linger (and it was my private space of ’saved digital intelligence’). It changed the way I consumed content, thought about writing and even paused to reflect. So yes, I’m still grieving. But in the rubble of that news, I found something surprisingly hopeful: Reader by Readwise. Not just a replacement – a reinvention. Reader feels like someone took all the best ideas from Pocket and layered in thoughtfulness, sync, notes, and context. It’s not just where I save things.. it’s where I think through them (and it easily sucked in all of saves from Pocket). So thank you, Pocket… you were perfect for the time. And welcome, Reader – let’s see where this new habit takes us. Oh, I should also mention that Reader was brought to my attention (after I posted about it on LinkedIn) by Patrick Tanguay at Sentiers and that he has this code where you can get an extra 30 days free if you want to dive in as well.” (Mitch for Alistair). A Day In The Life Of A Kiosk – Helena Kardova – Monocle . “This beutiful little mini-documentary from Monocle, stopped me in my tracks. It’s a quiet, tribute to something that feels both lost and deeply embedded in who I am – the magazine stand (we had full on magazine stores where I live… but only a few still exist). As a former magazine publisher, journalist, as someone who used to spend hours flipping through local and imported titles at the local shop, as someone who had to go in every time I walked by, this one hit hard. It reminded me that before we ‘subscribed’ to everything with a click, we discovered things – by smell, by feel, by the way a cover called to us. I now read most of my magazines online (shoutout to PressReader, which makes it a joy), but this story transported me back to when every issue felt like a small miracle at just the right moment in time. A dispatch from a very different world. If you love print, storytelling, design or just the idea that a humble kiosk can still be a cultural beacon – take five minutes and watch this. It’s a nostalgic reminder that even in an all-digital world, analog hearts still beat.” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement  and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

If Being Human Isn’t The Edge… What Is?

I keep seeing a certain type of post on LinkedIn…

“AI won’t beat me… because I’m human.”
“While you chase AI outputs, I’ll build teams people actually want to be part of.”
“My money’s on me.”
“AI should be used for [insert a wicked problem here] and not for [insert one of your job tasks here].”

And look… I want that to be true (I really, really do).

I want to believe that empathy, connection, culture and trust will always be “us”… the human stuff.
That the stuff we can’t quite quantify… let’s call it the “analog magic”… is the moat.

But what if that belief is blinding us?

What if we’re seriously underestimating what AI already is… and what it’s rapidly becoming?
This isn’t just about replacing spreadsheets or writing marketing copy.
This is about a technology that’s being trained (constantly) on everything we’ve ever collectively created:
Every leadership book, negotiation strategy, therapy model, military tactic, hiring framework, brand campaign, scientific theory, pricing strategy, sales email, cultural study, academic paper, operations manual and product roadmap… and on… and on…

All of it.

Fed into a system that can simulate decisions (and do this based on different strategists on demand), adapt to feedback, generate context and optimize outcomes at a level no single human (or team) could ever match.
So no… I don’t think AI is “coming for us.”

I think AI is already here (and, as the saying goes, it’s just not evenly distributed… yet).

And it’s doing the work… now.
Sure, it’s not perfect (yet)… it drifts… it hallucinates… it makes mistakes… actually… that sounds very human to me.
The problem isn’t that humans can’t keep up.

The problem is that we keep pretending this is a race we’re still clearly winning.

So yes, build great teams.
Yes, prioritize culture, belonging and all the analog magic that makes organizations great.

But also… be honest…

What happens when AI doesn’t just support your work…
It starts doing it… not emotionally, but objectively better.
Not just faster… but with more precision… with more recall… and original outputs.
With every insight from every leader who’s come before you… synthesized in milliseconds.

That’s not a co-pilot… that’s a new species of competition.

And the answer isn’t to throw up our hands or retreat into feel-good slogans about how great humans are.
It’s to integrate… strategically… proactively… intelligently.

This is not dystopia.
This is design.

We need leaders who can hold two ideas at once:

That empathy, creativity and trust do matter…
And that AI might soon be better than us at deploying those very qualities… at scale, without burnout, ego or bias (until we – hopefully – code it back in?).

So here’s what I’m wrestling with:

If “being human” is no longer our competitive edge… then what is?
Not a slogan… not a tweet… a real answer.

Let’s hear it…

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

The Next Big Thing Isn’t A Device… It’s The Disappearance Of Devices

We keep calling it a device.

But that’s not what this is.
When OpenAI announced it was merging with io – the hush-hush hardware startup founded by Jony Ive (yes, Apple’s Jony Ive) – the headlines immediately jumped to iPhone comparisons.

“Is this the iPhone of AI?”

Wrong question.

This isn’t about phones or screens or even interfaces.
This is about presence.
We’ve spent decades adapting to technology – learning to type, to swipe, to click, to code, to communicate (words, texts, emojis… memes).
Now, for the first time, the ambition may reverse: tech that adapts to us.
Not through screens, but through ambient intelligence.
Something that senses, listens, assists… without being summoned.
As Jony puts it: “This can’t be a tool for just the people who figured out how to use bad tools.”

That’s a design philosophy.

But the strategy? It feels bigger (the question may be, is it deliverable?).
This isn’t a hardware play… it’s a philosophical pivot.
Sam Altman and Jony Ive aren’t building a gadget.
They’re building the first AI-native object… a product born in the era of large language models, not retrofitted to them.

And that changes everything (maybe).

It’s the difference between bolting AI onto your phone… versus designing from the ground up around human-AI interaction.
Less device…. more dialogue… less screen… more signal.
We’re not there yet.
The announcement video was definitely vibes over specs.
More love letter than product launch.

But that’s the point.

This wasn’t a product drop.
It was a brand repositioning of Open AI… a public declaration that OpenAI no longer wants to be the Intel inside (and, hopefully, not become another Facebook/Meta type of thing).
It looks like they want to be the Apple outside.
That means design as infrastructure… trust as feature set… emotion as differentiator.

And here’s the clever bit…

By merging with io, OpenAI doesn’t just acquire product design talent… they acquire nostalgia.
They borrow the credibility of the last great interface revolution to sell us the next one (if they can get it to work and convince the public that this is “the next”).

Still… big swings come with big risk.

Humane’s AI pin seemed beautifully designed… and bombed.
Rabbit R1 had hype… and vanished.
And there is a long list of tech roadkill on the path to greatness.

Most people won’t get this… because real paradigm shifts are invisible until they’ve already happened.

You don’t miss what you never imagined.
And right now, most people can’t imagine a world where the computer/phone/tablet isn’t a screen.
Screens still work.
Phones still win.
So what’s going to pull us away from the rectangle in our pocket?
Maybe nothing.
Maybe everything.
Because if they’re right… if we are entering the age of ambient AI… then this isn’t about building a new device.

It’s about removing the need for devices altogether (and this is where my bet is).

And if that’s true?
The interface isn’t the killer feature.
The interface is the thing that disappears.

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · The Next Big Thing Isn’t A Device. It’s The Disappearance Of Devices – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Real Learning… Real Worth… Real Work…

We say we value education.

But do we really… or do we just value the credential?
And even then… only certain credentials… from certain places.
Earned at the “right” time… by the “right” people.

Somewhere along the way, we confused signaling with substance.

Advanced degrees… brand-name institutions… fancy acronyms.
We treat them like tickets to a better life.
But the real world doesn’t always care where you went to school.
It cares whether you can do the job… and whether you can do it in a way that only you can.

Still, the system hasn’t caught up.

Job postings filter by degree.
Hiring managers default to the familiar.
And 40 million Americans with some college and no degree?
They’re treated as unfinished… not as experienced… not as capable.
Just… stuck.

(FWIW: I never graduated college.)

Only 38% of U.S. adults hold a four-year degree.
Still nearly every professional pathway, policy and perception treats that number as the default.
It’s not… and we need to stop pretending it is.

Here’s a thought:

What if becoming a licensed electrician or certified medical technician carried the same weight and status as earning an MBA?

What if we redefined the term “advanced degree” to include the trades?
What if we saw the rigorous, structured path to becoming a welder, plumber, or HVAC technician as equally difficult, time-consuming and socially necessary as becoming a surgeon?

Don’t roll your eyes… really think about it.

The pathway to mastering a trade requires real learning.
Not just technical skill, but communication, leadership, adaptability and creative problem-solving.

And here’s the kicker: while we’ve been busy debating “college or not,” AI has quietly entered the chat.

The entry-level jobs that once “justified” a degree?
Many are vanishing… replaced by machines that can write, analyze, summarize, and synthesize at near-zero marginal cost.

So now what?

Do we keep steering people into debt for a credential that may no longer open doors?
Do we keep telling a story about success that only fits a shrinking percentage of the population?

Do we start rewriting the narrative?

It’s time to break out of the binary.
It’s not “college or nothing.”
It’s not “academia vs. trades.”

It’s about expanding how we define intelligence, how we measure potential and how we reward all forms of work.

Let’s stop confusing where you learned with what you’ve learned.
Let’s stop rewarding pedigree over performance.
Let’s start designing a system that reflects this economy, this moment… these people.
Because if we’re willing to pay six figures for a diploma…
Why aren’t we willing to respect (and reward) the people who build, fix, heal and sustain the world around us?

Maybe… just maybe… it’s time we saw all learning as advanced… because all real work is.

A rant inspired by this week’s Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast with Kathleen deLaski (author of Who Needs College Anymore?).

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Kathleen deLaski On A Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #985 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to:

Kathleen deLaski is one of the most important voices rethinking the purpose, structure, and future of higher education. As founder of the Education Design Lab and board chair of Credential Engine, she’s spent the last decade helping over 1,200 colleges, organizations, and regional economies reimagine learning pathways for next-generation students – particularly the new majority learners often left behind by traditional institutions. Her new book, Who Needs College Anymore? is a provocative and optimistic look at how postsecondary education must evolve, drawing on over a decade of field research, human-centered design, and more than 150 interviews with educators, employers, learners, and policymakers. In this conversation, we unpack the diploma divide, the rising cost of education, the friction between what college teaches and what employers expect, and how AI is rewriting the script for entry-level jobs and professional training. Kathleen – whose career spans time as a journalist at ABC News, a Pentagon spokesperson, working at AOL in the early days of the Internet, and a philanthropic force behind education reform – brings not just perspective but practical ideas on how colleges, businesses, and society must adapt. This one challenges what we think college is for, and what meaningful learning might look like in a skills-based future. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose):  #985 – Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast .

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

SPOS #985 – Kathleen deLaski On A Future Where Degrees Won’t Matter

Welcome to episode #985 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast.

Kathleen deLaski is one of the most important voices rethinking the purpose, structure, and future of higher education. As founder of the Education Design Lab and board chair of Credential Engine, she’s spent the last decade helping over 1,200 colleges, organizations, and regional economies reimagine learning pathways for next-generation students – particularly the new majority learners often left behind by traditional institutions. Her new book, Who Needs College Anymore? is a provocative and optimistic look at how postsecondary education must evolve, drawing on over a decade of field research, human-centered design, and more than 150 interviews with educators, employers, learners, and policymakers. In this conversation, we unpack the diploma divide, the rising cost of education, the friction between what college teaches and what employers expect, and how AI is rewriting the script for entry-level jobs and professional training. Kathleen – whose career spans time as a journalist at ABC News, a Pentagon spokesperson, working at AOL in the early days of the Internet, and a philanthropic force behind education reform – brings not just perspective but practical ideas on how colleges, businesses, and society must adapt. This one challenges what we think college is for, and what meaningful learning might look like in a skills-based future. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 51:11.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.Check out ThinkersOne.or you can connect on LinkedIn.…or on X.Here is my conversation with Kathleen deLaski.Who Needs College Anymore?.Education Design Lab.Follow Kathleen on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) – The Rise of Human-Centered Design in Education.
(02:45) – Challenges in Higher Education and the Need for Innovation.
(06:00) – Cultural Shifts and the Value of College.
(08:53) – The Diploma Divide and Its Societal Implications.
(11:54) – Affordability and Access to Education.
(14:47) – The Disconnect Between Degrees and Job Market.
(18:06) – The Importance of Experience Over Degrees.
(21:13) – Networking and Its Role in Career Success.
(29:38) – The Impact of AI on Job Markets.
(32:36) – The Future of Entry-Level Jobs.
(36:05) – Reevaluating Professional Education.
(41:35) – The Value of Trades in Modern Society.
(43:06) – Digital Learning and Its Challenges.
(47:17) – Generational Perspectives on Work Ethic.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast – Episode #985.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Six Links That Make You Think #778

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

The Wonder Of Modern Drywall – Yassine  Maskhout – The Works In Progress. “Hat tip to my Just Evil Enough co-author for this one. The humble drywall sheet sparked a revolution in construction, and not just because you could finally hang pictures. I had no clue what a bottleneck plastering was. A reminder that we take much of the world for granted.” (Alistair for Hugh). What I Learned Gathering Thousands Of Nootropic Ratings – Troof . “Michael Pollan‘s book How To Change Your Mind, and subsequent Netflix series, did a lot to legitimize the therapeutic use of psychoactive substances. But for every Schedule 1 drug that’s being fed to religious leaders on the sly, there are hundreds of unlisted, potentially mind-changing chemicals out there. These Nootropics are being field-tested by citizen scientists (and if I’m honest, I’m wondering why, if there are things that can help my brain function better, I’m not all over these). How close are we to an Ozempic-for-the-brain? Well, here’s a collection of research into these chemicals, including charts with tantalizing titles like ‘Probability of life-changing effect’. Spoiler alert: Weightlifting is pretty damned good. Sadly, it’s not addictive.” (Alistair for Mitch). Ubiquitous Objects Transform Into Ambient Soundscapes In Zimoun’s Installations – Grace Ebert – Colossal . “If you told me this was an art installation created by AI for AI I would believe you, and be terrified, but luckily it was created by a very human Swiss artist, and these are mesmerizing.” (Hugh for Alistair).  Why There Are So Many Star Ratings – Felix Salmon – Axios . “I remember long ago, Mitch told me that bad reviews helped sell products on Amazon. People read them and say, ‘well I’m not worried about that factor,’ and it moves (some of) them to a buying decision. Humans are funny. Here’s another funny thing: we read 2.5 stars as 2 stars, but when you see the image of 2.5 moons () you read it as 3.” (Hugh for Mitch). Debate: Will The Truth Survive Artificial Intelligence? – Honestly With Bari Weiss . “I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast debate (and you will as well). E.O. Wilson’s haunting warning – Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology – feels less like metaphor and more like everyday conversation because AI is shaping everything from truth to trust. In this debate thought leaders Jaron Lanier, Nicholas Carr, Fei-Fei Li, and Aravind Srinivas tackle the core question: will truth survive artificial intelligence? The tension isn’t about misinformation – it’s about what happens when we stop wrestling with truth and start receiving it from sleek, confident machines that reflect our biases back at us. AI doesn’t challenge us… it confirms us (I have been writing a lot about this on LinkedIn lately). Jaron and Nick argue this risks dissolving the messy friction that truth requires. On the other side, Aravind (from Perplexity) and Fei-Fei hold out hope that AI can be a tool to democratize information and expand understanding. But beneath the optimism is an unsettling truth: we’re not just building tools… we’re outsourcing meaning. And in a world where the ‘authoritative voice’ might be an LLM trained on Reddit, the future of truth may depend less on the tech and more on whether we still value disagreement enough to fight for it. There are countless gems and soundbytes in this debate… do it up.” (Mitch for Alistair). Media And Machines – Anu Atluru – Working Theorys . “I think I found this article via Patrick Tanguay’s incredible Sentiers (which happen often). This isn’t just an essay… it’s a flashing red light on the dashboard of our attention economy. Anu lays out, with unnerving clarity, how media and AI have collapsed into each other to form a self-learning loop that now feeds on our culture while simultaneously producing it. It’s not just feedback… it’s feed-forward, and we’re watching reality get overwritten in real-time. The punchline? Our cognitive environment is being engineered – not curated – by machines trained on our own noise. If you care about the future of creativity, brand, or even basic selfhood, you should read this. She is sounding the alarm on the disappearing line between human experience and machine-generated simulation. In a world where TikToks become training data and the models that generate content are indistinguishable from the ones that consume it, your next big idea may not even be yours. This isn’t the future of media… it could be the end of original thought (unless we intervene).” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement  and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.