The future isn’t in “tech-maxxing.”
Technology is becoming available to everyone, and just as we all have refrigerators, everyone will have AI-automated homes, tech, schedules, etc.
We’re a year or two from what I think will be a “Return to Analog” movement that will last at least a few years before that life is looked on like the hippies of the 60s.
Some remain, and they don’t cause problems, but they’re the minority of society.
Things are going to change (they already have), just not all at once yet.
Here are three calls I’m making, and then three reasons I believe AI will bring us back to our roots.
1) Hollywood turns into college sports (see: The NIL era)
Celebrities will sell their name, image, and likeness to production studios, which will use them to make movies at a fraction of the cost.
We’ll be watching films with the voices, faces, and bodies of real people who got paid to hand themselves over. 100% AI, barely distinguishable from the real thing.
The actor/actress won’t need to be on set; their likeness will be…
2) Desk jobs shrink, and the trades grow.
AI is going to swallow a lot of the white-collar work that happens behind a screen: reports, emails, scheduling, data entry, financing, and even some of the “smart” jobs we told kids to go to college for…
What it can’t do is fix your HVAC at 2 AM, wire a house, weld a trailer, or frame a roof, never mind creating any hardscape platforms or intricate landscaping.
The person who can work with their hands is about to be worth more than they have been in a generation.
A quick word for the dads reading this
AI is moving into our homes faster than any of us could have expected. Our kids are growing up with AI in their pocket, and we need to adapt to the times…
That’s why I wrote Fatherhood for Modern Times. It lays out three steps for leading your family in a world of people, AI, and screens. It’s $27 through Wednesday, Nov 11, then it goes to $47.
3) People go back to the theater.
When every screen is full of perfect, generated everything, real starts to mean something again…
People will want to watch actual humans on a real stage, with mistakes, sweat, and a live crowd.
I may be biased, as I am a fan of the performing arts, but I believe as objectively as one can that plays, local theater, and live performance are going to see a comeback, because we’ll want proof that a person made what we’re watching.
Why this brings us back to our roots
We’ll get our time back, and we’ll spend it on people. If AI takes the busywork, the question becomes, what do you do with the hours it frees up?
My hope is that we spend them around the dinner table, at the sports field, and in the room, present with the people we love.
We’ll crave what’s real. Handwritten notes, handmade things, and face-to-face conversations.
Faith, church, and the local community you can shake hands with will matter more, and when everything online can be faked, the things you can touch and the people you can look in the eye become the most valuable things you have.
Real skills and real work matter again. Physical work, training, being outdoors, being able to fix and build and provide…
Self-reliance stops being a hobby and becomes a strength again.
Technology made our lives easier, but it also pulled us away from who we are designed to be; connected to each other, to our work, and to nature.
I think AI will push convenience so far that we finally notice what we lost, and we go back to get it.
- Zac
PS: This week, put the phone away at dinner. All of it, every night, and pay attention to what you notice when the screen’s gone.