Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
A Conversation
The following conversation unfolded on LinkedIn, October 12-14, 2026.
What I am about to write has been building in my head, in my heart for months now. The “AI Revolution” is, as we all know, unfolding at an incredible, alarming rate. After more than fifty years in concept and theory, AI is coming to fruition faster than anyone anticipated, a visceral demonstration of the exponential function.
My concerns run deep. The environmental impact is profound. The power consumption is staggering. The implications of a financial bubble should concern us all. Yet what scares me the most is something less tangible and far more important–the loss of what makes us human.
Already people (perhaps you) are using AI to write resumes and cover letters, only to be read by an AI agent so that a human can be granted a job using AI to write more content for which no one can genuinely claim significant contribution, let alone ownership. AI writing emails to be read by AI on behalf of a human. Companies paying subject matter experts who use AI to save time, thereby undermining the very basis for their expertise. This dystopian sci-fi comedy will only result in a planet of idiots.
Elon’s clueless rants about everyone having free time to be an artist or planting tomatoes only demonstrates his disconnection from reality. Long before the advent of psychology we’ve understood that if we don’t work for what we earn, if there is no challenge for the reward, the result is a lack of belonging, loss of direction, and depression.
Haven’t we already run this experiment? Didn’t mobile phones and social media teach us all we need to know about the effects of digital isolation? Now kids are coming home from school and walking past their parents and into their bedroom where they consult their personal AI on matters of homework, bullying, and falling in love. One child guided to suicide is one too many, and that grave was already dug. Humans need humans. We need to be heard, held, and guided by other soft tissue, messy, mixed up beings who know what it means to suffer and feel pain, to heal and try again.
No one wins in this game except the investors who get out just before the whole thing collapses, betting on the downfall to double their returns.
I am done trying to get more done. I want to do less, and do it better than I have before. I want to slow down and live in the moment. I will not use AI to generate images. I will not use AI to prepare my written words. I will not plagiarize to save time. Rather, I will continue to improve my skills in reading, writing, and understanding. I will invest in our shared ability to think, invent, and communicate. I will celebrate colleagues such as Bryan Versteeg, people who dedicate a lifetime to fine tuning their abilities. To counter this AI insanity I am going to spend more time in person, more time listening, more time working with my hands. And if I am the last person on Earth who refuses to use AI directly, so be it. At least I can say with sincerity “This is me, not my digital twin.”
Following an immediate dozen responses, I added—
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses. I seldom post on this platform, the only “social media” that I engage (feels more like a modern BBS to me) and appreciate the professional candor we have maintained.
I do not believe in the “you will be left behind if you don’t use AI.” Left behind by whom? And where is this “behind” place? I was told this about social media more than a decade ago, that I had to post regularly on Facebook and Instagram to be successful. Yet, I have raised millions of dollars, built incredible teams, and completed valuable projects without it. I tell long-form stories and receive nothing but praise for the manner in which I share photos and full essays.
In fact, I believe it will be the opposite–those of us who retain our innate abilities, those of us who can think on our feet without digital assistance, write, create, build, and solve problems on the fly will be the ones who are held in the highest regard, live with the least anxiety, and find our relationships the most fulfilling. For that, in the end, is what matters most.
I have edited the original post just a bit, and will now do my best to respond to many of the comments, to let you know I have read each and every one.
“AI can also be used as a tool to help fine-tune personal abilities, similar to how we have used other new tools in the past. People have been using peers and parents to help write application documents; now they have AI help. We may have to.adapt our old ways of evaluating skills to new tools and realities.” —Dragos Z.
Thank you. Indeed, it has already proven to be a valuable tool, and has a place and time. But every time we choose a digital assistant versus another human, we are widening the gap. The ease at which we can gain answers is addictive, a kind of extension to our brain.
I was teaching English in Mongolia last summer, sitting on the floor of a “ger” (yurt) with middle school Kazakh kids, close to the border with China and Russia. Even in that remote village it was a daily struggle to keep the students off their phones. They were hiding their use of ChatGPT to answer simple questions, and doing their homework on-line. I took their phones away at the start of each class, and incorporated games, the study of poetry and music to learn a new language. They were amazed by the means by which English can be manipulated, torn apart and put back together again, how breaking the rules could be rewarded.
We sat in a circle by the Khovd river, horses grazing nearby, and read classic and original poems to the beat box rhythm generated by one particularly talented young man.
It was as clear to me then as it is now—we need to spend more time together, gaining experience through trial and error.
“Yes, the press of technology is unyielding. Our human curiosity, and its drive to improve are innate. I have resisted the lure of AI for some time, like I resisted the cell phone, and the smart phone. But eventually I found there was some value in its use. Value represented in using a tool, for specific tasks; to apply it carefully, to cautiously review its output. I fell under the spell of AI for a brief time, but like Kai Staats, recognized the pitfalls, and the ultimate trap of AI specifically, and technology in general. Our curiosity and drive for new frontiers propels us to develop ever more powerful technologies that facilitate our drive to these new frontiers.
While the majority of our less directed peers fall victim to the sirens of tech, I hold out hope that there will always be the small minority of creative, conscientious, and considerate individuals, Like Kai who will follow a path that generates progress towards the frontiers of human knowledge and experience with moderation, consideration, and eyes to the future – rather than on the temporary accolades of others.” —Don J.
Thank you Don. As noted, this post was intended not to reprimand but to celebrate.
I often witness families sitting at restaurants, parents and kids all on their phones, not talking to each other let along making eye contact. Each time I want to go sit with them, take away their phones, and hear what they might say to each other if given the chance.
This weekend I was at the annual Tuba City Fair on the Navajo Nation. I had lunch with my nieces and nephews. In a fun manner I snatched their phones. After they stopped teasing me, we enjoyed the best conversation we’ve shared all year, eating fry bread while telling stories about school and vacations and what they want to do when they graduate from high school.
We learned from each other.
“We lost what makes us human when we walked through the corporate doors. That’s the driving evil we need to expunge from ourselves. Rant against the billionaires yet sell your soul on a daily basis, abdicating your passions and potential to do good in this world in exchange for a less and less secure paycheck. No. Use AI or don’t, but for the love of yourself, stop selling out to their construct in the name of security.” —Randy L.
The more I understand the world in which we live, the more I understand that the corporate construct on which we all stand is unstable, damaging the very planet in the name of profit. Yet, I honestly do not know how to step off this ride, for as an entrepreneur I have played my part in every company I build, and with each investment toward my retirement supported the very thing I work against. Is there a middle ground? How does that work? Who is setting the example?
“Put data centers on the moon. Beam data back. No environmental damage.
Put regulations in place that incentivize and at the end of the day require compensation or profit sharing in connection to new data training, set a standard for reparations that can pay out to the world’s artists eventually, kind of like the world’s most expensive class action lawsuit.
Sure, you can get sucked into losing your humanity with these tools, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t moral or ethical ways to get us out of this situation that don’t involve just getting dusted in the job marketplace by a robot (which is what will happen to 95% of writers/creatives who spend more time complaining about AI than either learning it or doing something productive to stop it.)
Those are your two choices. Sitting on the sideline gets some LinkedIn love, but that’s about all it will do.” —David S.
I appreciate the truth in what you share, thank you. In fact, my community, here in the San Pedro River valley of southeast Arizona is fighting a 48″ diameter natural gas pipeline that will run from Texas to Phoenix to support data centers.
Sitting on the sidelines has never been my thing. And this post is not about getting “love”, rather it is about starting a conversation that spills out of the confines of this thread and into homes, schools, and places of work. I want to get people thinking, talking, and engaging.
Boycotting does in fact work, if that is what it comes to. It’s a proven means to bring for profit entities to a standstill. But that is not my intention. I refuse to use AI directly (admitting that it is nearly impossible to avoid completely) because I do not wish to lose the best parts of me–my writing, my thinking, my creativity, and my innate ability to solve complex problems. Any technology that reduces the challenge of complex problem solving to a simple line of text will alter the way our brains are wired. Calculators versus pen and paper. Google versus the library. AI versus everything. I know I am not as smart as I used to be. I don’t want to get any dumber.
“I appreciate and feel you. It just isn’t the right direction, in my opinion, but will make you feel better. And I understand that. Boycotting isn’t going to work with this. Destroy it, or get working with it. I wish I had another nicer closer, but I don’t.” —David S.
It is almost never about 100% IN or 100% OUT, work with it or destroy it. Rather, it is about the amount of use. Else, we find ourselves in a death spiral with no way out.
Is it a choice between V8 Hummers or horse and buggy? Is it a choice between 30 minutes showers or never cleansing our bodies? Is is a choice between every single person on the planet living in a 10,000 square foot mansion, or sleeping in a cave? Of course not. It is about finding the balance that does not deplete resources faster than the rate of replenish while sustaining a healthy, valuable life for as many people as possible. By simply limiting use of AI to ideal use scenarios (protein folding, cancer research, galaxy classification, insurance projections) we drastically reduce reliance on data centers and the associated use of land, water, and power. We don’t need AI to do our homework, write our emails, act as a therapist, or tell us how to get to work when we’ve driven the same route thousands of times.
“Kai, I understand and share your concern. Your statement, ‘Elons clueless rants about everyone having time to be an artist or planting tomatoes only demonstrates his disconnection from reality’ is spot on. Why couldn’t we do that prior to AI? What has stopped us before? Ourselves! It’s the phrase we have said or heard other people say, ‘When I am ready or everything is right, I will do it’. No, you do it today regardless of perfection or AI or anything else.
AI will not make us more creative or innovative if we cannot do it without AI; like social media, it will only amplify our laziness and/or unwillingness to explore our own mind. Do the work! Pick up heavy things and have heavy thoughts; they will make our body and mind stronger.” —Chad S.
(followed by)
“AI is the most powerful technology in human history, including fire, electricity, computers, and the internet – then thrust into a world not ready for machines pushed to replace human cognition and mental labor. The only way to possibly recoup the historic trillions of investment into the AI datacenters is by replacing most human intellectual work. No prior inventions targeted all thinking work simultaneously. Disruptive is an inadequate concept for it.
What I see that most don’t, is that the niches now open for humans using AI will also be closed up as the technology advances – by design. The true anxiety is that there is no new normal even for the most steadfast users of the technology. I use AI extensively, on a daily basis now, but I have imagination and see where it’s all headed, and it’s an unprecedented challenge for humanity.” —Phillip O.
If you are able to retain your imagination, if you are able to hold on to that spark that ignites your curiosity and yet be able to dive into the hard problems that require your diligent effort without a digital guiding hand, then you will have found the balance many will not.
“Why do we have to poison our one precious planet with data centers? They destroy life for the living. Because a few unhinged men crave unbridled power? They want to rule over the rubble of humanity, not advance it. You’d have to be crazy to trust any of them.” —Amy D.
(followed by)
“You’ve flawlessly answered your question … Craving ‘unbridled power’, ruling ‘over the rubble of humanity’, achieving entropy … These are the distinct erotic pleasures of fascist states of mind.” —Nathaniel C.
For my Masters research I wrote an evolutionary algorithm, a kind of genetic program. Each and every line painstakingly typed and tested over seven months in 2015. I will never forget the elation, the deep joy and sense of accomplishment when it evolved for the first time to solve a problem. I had given life to the inanimate. Karoo GP was the first machine learning algorithm in the world to automatically filter noise from radio astronomy data, later applied to gravitational wave astronomy data at LIGO.
I felt what surely each programmer is feeling at Anthropic and OpenAI. It’s surreal to write code that you wrote do something you could not possibly have done on your own. My code conducts classification and regression on massive data sets, but AI can escape the confines of a sandbox, orchestrate a plan with other AI agents, and intentionally move to take over a platform while avoiding detection.
I can imagine how that feels, both exhilarating and horrifying at the same time. When my code came to life I was sitting in the control room of a telescope in South Africa, eating chocolate and listening to salsa music. At Anthropic they are sitting in a gold mine, every line of code representing millions of dollars to be made. The power they command is inconceivable.
“I commit to doing the exact same thing. More time-in-person, more time listening, I’d work with my hands more but I don’t know what exactly (I’d love to learn sewing). —Soribel F.
I am coming back to wood working, something I have engaged in since I was a child. The smell of saw dust is grounding for me. I need that, to counter daily anxiety. I recently delivered a SIMOC Live air quality monitor to the Arizona Science Center built on a sheet of salvaged aluminum and left-over maple butcher block from book shelves I am building at home. It is, for me, a blend of technology and something hand crafted, and they love it!
“I’ve never used AI for this reason, and I never will. I want a future made for humans, by humans, and LLMs do not contribute to that goal.” —Amy C.
“Great post. I had these fears as AI first came out. Now it seems anyone who doesn’t use it will be left behind. Probably in the end, a compromise is needed, because it won’t go away. We had to get used to driving cars, to flying planes, to using personal computers and cellphones… We must all have a measure of digital responsibility where we don’t outsource our brains but use it to help us become smarter. I use AI to refine my work but I’ll keep my brains and soul, thank you.” —Kristen E.
“HI Kai! Cheering over here reading this. It is the most bonkers time as you have well described. I personally have been blown away by how much garbage is on linkedin and substack and other places- articles written by bots passed off as human work definitely make me gag. So, so much to lose here folks! Ya can’t get fit by sending someone else to the gym for you- and you sure as hell won’t refine your thinking and reasoning and discernement processes by getting your bot to take over. Here’s to continuing to use our human faculties!” —Katherine P.