maybe you know I wish I had AI because I would do it better. So that's just the old way. I just go work on the task.

What's the new way? The new way is if I know that there's an AI that could help me I'm going to have to research it and I'm going to have to learn it. And the way the current architecture is you might need two or three different AIs. For example you might need one AI that creates a photograph that doesn't exist. You use a second AI to animate the photograph into a 3D image. You might use a third AI to add a script like a movie script to animate it into an actual movie. You might use another app to clean up the lighting and fix the sound.

So you could end up with — it might take you a dozen AI apps to do a thing. Now people might be impressed by your thing. It might be great that you did the thing. But all of your normal work you're going to have to pause and do a deep dive into what AI can do and completely re-architect your business process to do the thing. You will spend as much time learning the tools to do the thing as it would have taken you just to do it the old way.

Blah blah. Now I'm not a troglodyte who wants to stay with the old ways. I'm pro AI. You know let's do AI and the market will sort it out. But I think it is completely optimistic to imagine it's not going to add work to the cubicle class as well as at home. I think it will make my life at home harder because I'll be continuously trying to find out what tool — all right is it this tool but somebody says this tool and got to sign up and this one's not sending its data to the other one and why is the API isn't working today and all the things that used to be easy there'll be so much better way to do it in this complicated way that you have to spend all your time figuring out how to do it. Ordinary things that you did the other way.

Now in the long long long run is it going to make everything better? Maybe. Maybe. And also in the long long long run there could be fewer computer printers. I don't think we're there but there could be. You know at some point there'll just always be a screen everywhere so you really will never use a piece of paper. But that might be a long time away.

All right, the Hill is reporting there was a survey that showed that remote workers, the ones working at home some of the time, are more productive. Do you believe that? That the remote workers are more productive? How do you think they measured that? Just guess. I decided not to read the article. I read the headline. Well how do you think they measure the productivity of somebody working at home versus the office? Would it be — I don't know, impossible? Putting it out there. Is that one of those things that might be impossible to measure? Yes it is. Yes it is. It is impossible to measure.

So who do you think might have been behind this result that the remote workers are so much more effective? Could it be — I don't know, maybe people who work at home did the survey? Maybe when you ask people who work at home and prefer it if they're more effective they say yeah yeah I totally am. Do you work more hours? Sure. And when you work those hours in a distracting atmosphere with your dog and your kids and everything are you focusing better at home? Oh yeah oh yeah it's only way better. It was way better. Write that down. Write that down. Way better focus. And oh so many more hours. Weekends sometimes. I'm up all night sometimes. The work is so appealing I just can't stop.

Do I need to tell you that this certainly is — I don't really need to tell you that do I? I wouldn't believe anything of this domain. Now I'm not saying it's not true. I'm not saying that. I'm saying you couldn't possibly have accurate information.

This is sort of like measuring the temperature of the world. Every time somebody says they measure the temperature of the whole world the average I just laugh. Do you know why? I was born in the real world. In the real world you can't measure the temperature of the earth and compare it to last year. That's no thing. Who thinks that's a thing? Who thinks you can do that? Well obviously with thermometers the satellite stuff might be a little closer to something that's real. But who thinks the thermometers put all over the earth are giving you some kind of a good answer? That's ridiculous.

Do I have to be a scientist to know that you can't measure the temperature of the earth? All right. The fact that anybody believes that.

Apparently the American workforce is coming back strong. A lot of people in the 25 to 54 year age range heading the market. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Way more people are entering the labor market. So they do have openings and more people are going in. This is the Wall Street Journal who reported this. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do you think it would help or hurt the competence of the economy? Lots more people going to work. I think it's good.

Which people didn't have a job already? The competent people or the incompetent? Which ones were already employed? Do employers mostly preferring the incompetent? Well the highly capable people who were just sitting it out but now they've decided this would be a good time to go back to work? I don't think so. I think the capable people already had jobs and that the employers are lowering their standards to fill positions just like the military is doing. The military is doing the same thing.

So wouldn't you say that this good news that the labor force is really strong and people are going back into it, is that as good as it sounds? I mean it's good that they get paychecks so it's good for the economy. But if you're looking at the competence of the country it should take it down. Would you agree that that seems like a cause and effect of bringing in people who are not already well employed?

All right, I'm going to give you a little story before I talk about America's incompetence problem in a little more detail. I've got a friend who when he was 16 years old — and he's in my age range so this was long ago — when he was 16 his father owned a bowling alley and then his father got a better offer, better job at a big corporation. So rather than closing or selling the bowling alley the 16-year-old was asked if he wanted to just manage the bowling alley, just run the company. You 16.

So remember this is many years ago. So what did the 16-year-old say who basically had been running the company anyway? He was like assistant manager. He just got running it anyway. He said sure, sure. So it was a whole business, you k