Mark Jones

Built @collab365 to keep knowledge workers ahead of AI. 50k+ trained. Two-person team. No gurus, no fluff... just the stuff that actually works.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

AI can be real and STILL be a bubble.

That’s the bit I keep coming back to.

The question isn’t "does AI work?"

Obviously, we've all used it by now .. It absolutely DOES work.

The big question is ..

What happens if companies use AI mainly to cut the customers the AI boom needs?

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

I see more announcements of layoffs and this still comes to mind ..

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@alvinfoo Write my thoughts here. https://t.co/XdZV07QgkE

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@PBDsPodcast https://t.co/XdZV07QgkE

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@LuizaJarovsky This is all happening a bit too fast.. here’s my thoughts https://t.co/XdZV07QgkE

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@verge My viewpoint: https://t.co/IzMUeVivIY

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@rohanpaul_ai My viewpoint: https://t.co/IzMUeVivIY

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@aiedge_ Here's what I think: https://t.co/IzMUeVivIY

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@IndianTechGuide My viewpoint: https://t.co/IzMUeVivIY

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@WOLF_Financial My viewpoint: https://t.co/IzMUeVivIY

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@elonmusk @interesting_aIl My viewpoint:
https://t.co/IzMUeVivIY

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@CBSNews shared some thoughts here: https://t.co/IzMUeVivIY

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

What's the point?

(This is long but hopefully it's worth the 5 minutes)

By this stage you've probably seen enough to know that AI can do it all.

So we can all expect plenty of:

"Your job has gone" Struggling to pay the mortgage Struggling to feed the kids Trying to look calm while quietly shitting yourself Wondering if anything you know is still worth knowing

You might be thinking, like me as a dad:

"What's the point of even learning this shit?"

"What kinda future are my kids moving into?"

On one hand we have the Pro AI crowd saying:

"No more disease" "Live till 150" (oh my god)"Work will be optional" "Everything will be abundant and cost nothing"

Lovely.

On the other hand we have the AI haters saying:

"We're losing control" "We will be locked into 15-minute cities" "Own nothing, be happy" "Your job is gone and your kettle is spying on you"

Also lovely.

And I'm somewhere in the middle, trying to raise my kids, pay bills, stay useful, and not have a small panic attack every time some 24-year-old posts:

"19 AI tools that will replace your entire team by Thursday."

I've been in tech my entire life.

I am 52. Or 53. Can't remember.

I've gone from "learn something new every 4 years" to where we are now, which feels like "learn something new every 2 months or you're dead".

It all feels like too much.

It causes anxiety. Anguish. That horrible tight chest feeling. That feeling of:

"What's the point?"

And it's not just AI.

We've also got blockchain, crypto, digital currencies and whatever comes next quietly changing the rails underneath money, ownership and trust.

Some of it has been nonsense. Some of it has been scams wrapped in buzzwords. But some of it is real.

We are clearly moving towards a more digital version of money.

And whether that becomes freedom, control, convenience, surveillance, or some weird mix of all of it… nobody really knows yet.

But it's another massive shift happening at the same time.

So if we have AI eating through jobs… digital money changing how we earn, spend, save and get monitored… and robots coming later to do the physical stuff too…

Then you are bound to think: "What's the point?"

Because here's the thing.

Work is not just money.

Yes, money matters. Of course it does. It pays the mortgage. It keeps the lights on. It feeds the kids. It gives you choices.

But work is also how a lot of us measure ourselves.

It gives us purpose. Status. Something to get better at. A ladder to climb. A reason to push. A way to say: "I built that. I earned that. I'm getting somewhere."

A bigger house. A nicer car. A better life for your kids. A bit of pride when someone asks what you do.

And yes, maybe some of that is ego. Maybe some of it is nonsense we've been sold. But it's also human.

We want to improve. We want to matter. We want to feel useful. We want to know that the effort meant something.

So when the CEOs of AI companies joyfully predict that millions of jobs will be replaced and some of them do say it joyfully, like they're announcing a product feature, I want them to understand something.

Your words have ramifications.

You get to say it from a stage, fly home on a private jet, and watch your net worth climb another hundred million before breakfast.

But somewhere out there, a 48-year-old accountant just told her husband she's scared. A developer who spent fifteen years getting good at his craft is quietly updating his CV at midnight. A training manager is sitting in a meeting wondering if she's about to be restructured out of existence.

That's what your forecast sounds like from down here.

And it's not abstract. It lands in real houses, with real mortgages, and real kids asking real questions.

They are not just talking about jobs.

They are talking about people's PLACE in the world.

And if you've spent years getting good at something, whether that's training, consulting, developing, designing, managing or advising, this hits hard.

Because it's not just: "Can AI do this task?"

It's: "Will clients still value what I know?" "Will the thing I spent 20 years learning still matter?" "Will I still be needed?"

That's the bit people don't talk about enough.

And that's why this question keeps coming back: what's the point?

Why don't we just give up and give in?

I'm in the UK. I could pack it all in, take Universal Credit, and wait it out until we get whatever income the government dreams up.

Maybe that'll be good. Maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it'll be enough to survive but not enough to live.

Apparently everything is going to get cheaper anyway, because it turns out us humans are quite expensive and if you remove us from the process, stuff gets cheaper.

Great.

Except we are not just a cost.

We are PEOPLE.

Dads. Mums. Sons. Daughters. Business owners. Workers. Makers. Carers. Friends. Neighbours.

We are not just "labour". Not just "headcount". Not just "expensive humans in the loop".

But here's the thing I keep coming back to when I have those pangs of anxiety and whisper to myself:

"Breathe through it, Mark."

This is the BIGGEST opportunity of our lives.

This is the gold rush of our lifetime, except nobody knows where the gold is yet and half the people selling maps are full of shit.

And I don't mean that in some LinkedIn "make me go viral" way.

I don't mean "10x your productivity and become a billionaire by Tuesday".

I mean: when the world changes this much, the old rules start to fall apart.

The agencies charging £5k for things a smart person can now do in an afternoon. The consultants hiding behind jargon. The software companies selling "innovation" that is really just a spreadsheet with a login screen. The people who made things feel complicated so they could stay in control.

The old excuses stop working.

And yes, a scary amount of money is flowing to a very small number of people. The chip companies. The model companies. The platforms. The investors. The people who already had the money, the data, the distribution and the power.

That is real. We should not pretend it isn't.

But it is not the whole story.

Because these tools are also landing in the hands of normal people like me and you.

Small teams. Solo founders. Teachers. Parents. Tradespeople. Local businesses. People with ideas who never had the budget, the confidence, the contacts, or the technical team before.

A small business can now do things that used to take a whole agency. A parent can learn something at 11pm after the kids are in bed. A founder can test an idea in a weekend. A kid can build something from their bedroom.

That is not nothing.

But nobody really knows what to do on Monday morning.

That's the bit.

Because yes, AI can write the report. It can build the spreadsheet. It can make the plan. It can summarise the meeting. It can probably do 80% of the task.

But it doesn't know your client is panicking.

It doesn't know your boss is about to make a terrible decision.

It doesn't know the numbers look fine on paper but smell wrong in real life.

It doesn't know that the person asking the question is scared, confused, embarrassed, skint, proud, or trying to hold everything together.

That's where humans still matter.

Not because we can type faster than AI. We can't.

But because someone still has to make sense of the mess.

Someone still has to say: "Hang on. That sounds clever, but it's a bad idea."

Someone still has to explain it in a way a normal person can understand.

Someone still has to know when the answer is technically right but practically useless.

Someone still has to be trusted.

So maybe the point is not to learn everything. You can't.

Maybe the point is not to predict everything. You won't.

Maybe the point is to stay close enough to the change that you can still make good choices.

Learn enough to ask better questions. Learn enough to spot the bullshit. Learn enough to help someone else through it.

I'm 52 (or 53), building stuff on my own, figuring it out as I go, getting it wrong half the time, and still finding it more interesting than anything I've done before.

That's not inspiration.

That's all I've got for what's facing us.

And it's enough of a reason to keep going.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

Pope Leo XIV right now:

"Hey ChatGPT, write me an encyclical about AI."

ChatGPT:

"Of course. Quick question... what’s an encyclical?" 😆

Same, mate. Same.

For anyone else who didn’t go to Vatican University, an "encyclical" is basically a big important letter from the Pope.

Serious note though:

If the Pope is now talking about AI, it’s probably not just a nerdy tech thing anymore.

It’s getting serious.

Jobs. Truth. Trust. Power. Governance.

All the big stuff.

And yes, I still had to Google "encyclical."

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

JUST IN: Pope Leo XIV announces he will publish an encyclical on AI within days.

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

https://t.co/NcVkG0Y2CV

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@CloudflareDev Any ideas when the agent memory is going to able to try?

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

Will we still need schools in 2030? 🧑‍🎓

By 2030, a lot of schools may look strangely outdated.

Not because children won’t need teachers.

Because the basic model of school is built around a constraint that may disappear.

One adult.

Thirty children.

One explanation.

One pace.

One worksheet.

One test.

That made sense when personalised tutoring was expensive.

But what happens when every child has an AI tutor?

Imagine a 13-year-old in 2010 who doesn’t understand algebra.

They get the explanation in class.

They miss one step.

They don’t want to ask because everyone else seems to get it.

They go home with a worksheet.

Their parent tries to help.

Different method.

More confusion.

Eventually the child decides:

"I’m just not a maths person."

That sentence has probably damaged millions of children.

Now imagine a 13-year-old in 2030.

They have an AI tutor that knows their level.

AI remembers the mistake they made yesterday.

AI explains algebra using football, music, Minecraft or money.

AI notices the exact step where they get lost.

AI gives them easier questions.

Then harder ones.

It checks again next week.

It never gets impatient.

It never humiliates them.

It never has 29 other children needing help at the same time.

If that exists, then an uncomfortable question follows:

Why would we still organise learning around 30 children moving at the same speed?

That is the part I think schools will struggle with.

Not whether AI should be "allowed".

That debate has probably already left the building.

The real debate is whether the classroom should remain the default unit of learning?

Because once explanation becomes abundant, school has to justify what only school can do.

And it can.

Schools can do more of the things AI will be terrible at.

They can help children:

be around other people,

take turns,

lose,

fall out and make up,

apologise,

perform,

disagree,

be bored,

be brave,

join a team,

play sport,

read a room,

make friends (and enemies),

and be seen by adults who know when something is wrong.

But this means school will probably need to change its purpose.

Less:

Everyone sit still while I explain the same thing.

More:

Use AI to learn at your level.

Then come together to argue, build, socialise, test, present, play, collaborate and prove you actually understand.

And yes, children still need to learn maths.

Not because AI can’t calculate.

Because learning maths forms judgement.

AI can say 147 children need 4.2 buses.

A child needs to know that means 5 buses.

That is not just maths.

That is understanding reality.

So maybe the best schools in 2030 won’t be the ones with the strictest AI bans.

And they won’t be the ones that just hand every child a chatbot and call it innovation.

They’ll be the ones brave enough to admit that information delivery is no longer their main job.

The dream is that every child gets personal help.

The danger is that we mistake answers for education.

If AI can teach the lesson, school has to teach the child.

How to think.

How to question.

How to judge.

How to challenge the machine.

How to co-exist with other people.

That might be the real purpose of school by 2030.

It's crazy time when you think how much change AI is forcing on us!

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

Microsoft has Agent 365.

Fine.

But what if the next AI-native category leaders don’t need Microsoft 365, Azure, or the Microsoft estate at all?

That’s the bigger strategic risk.

My take:

https://t.co/Ob6LN1U6xv

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

https://t.co/vuICDpkl5j

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

https://t.co/vuICDpkl5j

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

ty .. I was struggling to get it right in my head.

You goto a place where you think ...

"Nah.. governments will have thought about all this, we'll be just fine"

but then I realised ...

We live in a capitalist world and companies only really care about themselves and the day to day.

So it was good to think it through ..

TBH This whole push to "AI everything" really reminds me 'Don't Look Up' ...

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

AI can be real and STILL be a bubble.

That’s the bit I keep coming back to.

The question isn’t "does AI work?"

Obviously, we've all used it by now .. It absolutely DOES work.

The big question is ..

What happens if companies use AI mainly to cut the customers the AI boom needs?

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

@aiseomastery I think eventually AI the brakes will be applied (even if we dont force them). At some point the layoffs will outpace the revenue coming in (less buyers) ...

https://t.co/WoorWX9wXL

[Mark Jones @mark_jones]

AI can be real and STILL be a bubble.

That’s the bit I keep coming back to.

The question isn’t "does AI work?"

Obviously, we've all used it by now .. It absolutely DOES work.

The big question is ..

What happens if companies use AI mainly to cut the customers the AI boom needs?