The Week in Jobs: June's Weak Jobs Report, Volkswagen's 100K Layoffs, & the AI Jobs Debate

Welcome back to the weekend jobs. Today is July 2nd. It's almost the fourth. Peter, how are you today?

I'm good. It's good to be back. I know we took a couple weeks off. A little break, a little summer break.

We deserve that, right? Exactly. But but here we are. We have the U.

S. men's team winning in the World Cup last night. Super exciting. We have the fourth.

What what else is going on? Anything else? That's good enough for me. Watching that game was uh was really exciting, and um it was worth staying up a little bit later for it.

Absolutely. Soccer fever is going on right now, and then we'll forget about it for the next four years. Exactly. For now, it is it is what matters.

And of course, we had the jobs report that came out this morning. That's why we're recording today on Thursday. Plus, we have a big holiday coming up, but yeah, this report, Peter, it wasn't good. It wasn't good.

Yeah, yeah, it was a little bit disappointing to see it. And then, you know, I know we'll we'll talk about it, but even just seeing the revisions, like it's I mean, I know we've we've mentioned that in the past, but it continues to hold true. It is, it should be unacceptable. There's nothing we can do about it.

The fact that we've gotten used to it, and as I say every month when this comes up, I immediately go to the bottom of the report. I almost disregard the top line number because we know it doesn't really mean anything. We know it's fake. But this revision was bigger than the last few.

I mean, we we almost settled down for a while with that, but now it's back in full force. 74,000 jobs that were claimed as real didn't actually exist between April and May. And they were all celebrated, right? And no one's gonna retract the celebration.

We're just quietly revising the number at the bottom of the report. And that seems to be kind of like we've said, this is I feel like I have deja vu here. We're talking about the trend of all these jobs, and then yeah, a couple months the actual numbers are are so delayed, it's it just gets swept under the rug. It's a footnote in uh in an article.

And yeah, it's it's uh it's disappointing to see for for those of us that are actually paying attention to these things. Yeah, Yogi Berra would be proud, it is deja vu all over again. We uh we we we've come to expect it and we've we're immune to it at this point. And what's interesting about this month, so 57,000 jobs added versus 110,000 roughly that were forecast.

So we missed the number, real or not. And so now you have to wonder, well, with the revisions we've seen, did we add any jobs at all in June? Yeah, it's it kind of kind of makes me think that the, you know, and uh this is something that I've seen in some other articles, people talking about that the labor market just seems kind of stuck, it seems stagnant, frozen. And yeah, these numbers just kind of lead to believe that we're not really adding as much as you know, we might be touting, or the government might be touting that we are.

It's it's easy to blame the government in this. I mean, it's their report, it's their numbers. I don't think it's intentional. Uh what I do think is intentional is the celebration, the backpatting, you know, saying what a great job they've done.

You see the Department of Labor tweeting out, uh, the the White House tweets out how how great they've done. No, they're not gonna tweet about the revisions. And I don't think that they intend to get it wrong up front because every administration gets it wrong. This has been going on for decades.

So that's not new. But I uh this one step forward, one step back seems consistent with everything we're seeing lately, right? The war is over, it's back on. Where where are we with all of this?

What the the question is, how long is it gonna last? Because we've been stuck in neutral with the job market for a long time now, back to prior to the the 2024 election. That was two years ago now that we were saying, well, we just have to get to November, and then things are gonna change. Nothing's changed, we're still stuck in neutral.

How long is it gonna last? I mean, we're coming up on on elections, so maybe by the end, maybe things will cool down after this year. Uh, but I I like you said, we've said this for for years, and I agree, it's it's not the the numbers being wrong isn't their their fault. It's they're revising them based off of new information, and that's that's always been the case.

Having the having that be the message and say, hey, here's what we've got. It's going to be revised because this is the process of how we know we devise all this. That would be a lot more honest than just saying, this is the number, it's set in stone, and it's great. And congratulations, everything is because it the normal, the average person realizes that things are changing, they're going through if you explain that to a job seeker or to anybody on the job market, they're going to understand that, but it just feels kind of uh flip-floppy, like you said, everything changes from week to week, it seems.

So this used to be such an important report that would come out. The stock market would would be impacted by it, company hiring decisions would would be impacted by it. And now it is almost irrelevant. I I don't think know how we could categorize it as anything but at this point, because we can't trust the the data.

And in 2025, the the jobs were revised down by over a million. So think about that. A million jobs that were claimed never existed, 74,000 over the past two months. And so what I used to consider to be the biggest report of the month, the biggest job news that would come out in any month, is now just it's almost a footnote.

Well, it's it's like many things currently, it just seems to be degrading the trust in government reporting. Um, where people kind of take it with a grain of salt, they're like, yeah, it might be true, it might not be true, it's gonna change next week. Because the more times that we that they they claim that this is this is great and this is the the end, and this is we're going up finally, and then it changes, it's kind of like the boy who cried wolf. Nobody believes it anymore because it we know that time after time it's it they've said that it's one thing and it's gonna change.

And they've said that it's another thing and it's gonna change. And what's crazy to me is we have technology at our fingertips that is better than it's ever been to a significant degree. And that trust, as you said, you said it perfectly, is degrading at a time where that should be important, right? That that I mean, and it should be possible.

So whether it's possible or not, we don't really know. But yeah, this is this is disappointing to see, not surprising, but I I I long for the day or look forward to a day rather when they'll actually get this right and maybe that trust will be restored. I don't know. I'm I'm not gonna hold my breath for that.

Yeah, I I I long for the day of having objective facts that we that you can look at in a more of a scientific method. Unfortunately, and I could go down a whole rabbit hole of this. It's it's sensationalism is what sells. It's it makes better news to have a giant sensational news article that uses verbs like, you know, great slams, like wins, uh just anything like that.

If I look, if I look at half of the news articles that are particularly talking about this, but you know, other things as well, they're they're evoking, trying to evoke an emotion. And I realize that anytime an article is trying to evoke an emotion from you, it's not going to be an unbiased take. And that's unfortunately becoming the case with even things like the jobs report, where that should just be a it's a boring report that people would read. It shouldn't have uh it shouldn't be trying to evoke motion emotions from me.

Yeah, it really is. I mean, this is a bigger topic, it's probably off-topic for for the weekend jobs, but there is no source of truth that we can rely on anymore. And if you we used to watch the major news networks, right? They would share data like this.

We took it as a gospel and we moved on and never really thought to question it. I think the default way to go now is to question everything. Uh, but I still think that's for younger generations, right? I I I I as far as I can tell, there's a lot of people, if you're not on Twitter, if you're not on social media and seeing the conflicting narratives out there that are 180 degrees different in many cases, you're only listening to one news station, you're never even gonna know this is happening right now.

And outside of this arena, when I try to talk to people in my personal life, my parents, for example, they're they're not interested in in these alternate sources, right? They have one that they trust, they've been relying on for a long time, and they're not gonna change. So it's it's really interesting to see as as we we have more access to information. It does force us to question everything we've been told all along.

Yep, yep, 100%. If you've got a news station that's telling you, hey, we had a great month for jobs, and then they never go back and say anything about it, then you're used to it. That's what you've you've got, and you've got no reason to question it. So well, I'll be on the lookout.

Caroline Levitt, are you going to talk about this at a White House press briefing today? Probably not. But I don't think uh they're good that they're gonna bring up anything that makes uh them look negative in this case. They'll just probably let it go by the wayside.

Now, the there was another number that really jumped out at me from this morning's report, and that is long-term unemployment. That that is continues to increase. It's now at 27.3.

That's a high number. What we look for there is for that number to typically be in the high teens. And we were back, we were there in 20 uh 23. Yep.

It was uh I want to check the the number to get it right here, but we were around 18. So I believe it was creep, it's been creeping down. So it's uh well it's it's up, right? It's uh it has been, yeah, but but it's since 2023 it's been kind of going up.

It does bounce around, but that's a really good indicator of how strong the job market is. So long-term unemployed are people who haven't been able to find a job in 27 weeks. And in that number, I I don't know if we trust it entirely, consistent with everything we've talked about so far, but we have to measure it against something. And if we measure it against the past two years or the two years ago, it's high.

If we measure against historical numbers, it's it's high. So that to me really sums up where we are in the job market. As you said earlier, it's a low, higher environment. We're not seeing huge, well, we are seeing consistent layoffs, we're not seeing layoffs at scale, right?

The the big companies when they lay off, lay they have layoffs, that gets a lot of press. But we're not seeing that as the overall trend in the market. We're just seeing stagnation. Yep.

Yeah. It's while, like you said, the there's articles that you'll see with layoffs, but in the grand scheme of the amount of people in the the US job market, it is not a huge trend, thankfully, right now, knock on wood. Um, but there's not hiring either. And that just tells us that it's a difficult time to be a job seeker, to be unemployed, because you're not able to get your foot in the door as these long-term unemployments continue.

You're fighting against all these other people that are that are in the same uh space as you right now. Yeah, and the the unemployment percentage hasn't changed. What has changed is people are leaving the workforce. We know that there are more people leaving than entering, and other people are dropping out altogether.

That trend has also been occurring since COVID, where a lot of people just didn't come back to work. You see these long-term employment numbers going up. People will naturally decide to just concede and and and and give up. So fewer people in the job market that looking for jobs.

That's why the overall percentage unemployment percentage rate isn't increasing. But seeing this long-term number is not good. I think there's a snowball effect to that, right? Psychologically, it's frustrating.

Uh and for for the people you know who might not be familiar, does this does the long term include people who are retiring? Because you could say that, you know, they might say, oh, well, that's that's boomers who are retiring, and therefore the the amount's gonna go up. No, no, it doesn't. That that's factored in people who are pulled out of the job market altogether.

Um, and so that's why the unemployment rate itself doesn't go up. But this long term is is just quite literally people who can't find a job after 27 weeks. And that number is up 286,000 year over year. So that that's 286,000 American workers who are not having success over a very long period of time looking for a job.

So, like I said, psychologically, that's super damaging financially, eating into savings if you even have that much savings. So that is a number worth paying close attention to. It was really not good to see this morning. This report was bad all around.

There's nothing, there's no positive takeaway from this report today, unfortunately. And we we had seen the numbers going up, right? April was good, May was good, but then we see that, well, those were fake numbers, as we've already talked about. So um there's no way to spin it positively.

The U.S. job market right now is not is not strong. Yep, it is it's not great.

And you know, with we've got inflation where it is, and and just the amount of that we're seeing with the people who do have jobs, their their dollars not going as far. And you know, I know we'll we'll get into uh the the zip recruiter art um study. Yeah, let's let's let's get into it, right? Because you you mentioned inflation.

This this really hits home right now um with this report. So go ahead and uh and and go down to the case. Yes, I mean basically they're saying that single earners now need uh $100,000. That is that's the magic number that a single earner needs to afford typical rent plus infant care.

And is that do we know if that's infant care for just one kid? I'm assuming it's they're they're putting it at the base level there. Yeah, yes, yes. So yeah, $100,000 for for a single uh earner for rent and infant care.

And that's one, I think they said uh was it uh $122,800 for um somebody to own their actual their house. So so yeah, so that that that's relevant because if you want to own a home, which most people do, that's a goal, right? The American dream is significantly harder than if you're going to rent. And that's no surprise, but now it's so the number that we really should be talking about is at 122,000 versus the 100, and only 28% of job postings offer income at 100,000.

It is a high bar to achieve. And I mean, that's that's six figures. That would that that used to be, I mean, uh, that's that was the goal. Like you six figures, you're you're making it, and you and now we're like that's just what you need to to survive.

That's not what you need to be like thriving and putting away savings for emergency funds, all these things in case you end up as part of the long-term unemployed on the market. Uh so it's it's crazy to hear that number being so high. Yeah, it really is. Now, the the the one thing that you know can help with this, of course, is the number of remote jobs where if you take infant care out, but that's not practical for a lot of jobs.

Someone has to take care of the infant, and you can't do that while you're working your job effectively. But it does offer potential, at least for some people, to have more creative ways to address it. But these these are these are things working against each other, right? Child care is go cost of that has gone gone up, it continues to go up.

The number, you know, the inflation number, seeing that to increase, uh, it continue to increase, that's working against us. So now the bar just continues to increase on how difficult it is just to maintain an average lifestyle at this point. Well, if you look at the uh the average wave wage growth, it's uh about 3% right now, and with inflation being at 3.6.

If you aren't getting constant raises, you're effectively making less every single year. And that is, I mean, that's I know that's been the case now for since COVID, it's kind of gone up uh over up and down. But right now it's people are effectively losing money if you if you aren't constantly going up, which is scary to say. Yeah, and and with only 28% of job postings offering that kind of income, go, yeah, where do you go?

Um, what do you do? And that that's rhetorical because there's really no no good answer to that. Yeah, and I I mean I'm just reading some of the stats off this survey, and that for uh a mother that's working with an infant, rent plus infant care is 62% of the average income, which is you have to think as you know, people on the job market right now, that's a huge stressor, and that compounds with just the stagnation that we've seen. And then you know, we just talked about the BLS data.

To kind of put, I feel like the the mentality of the job market right now is not in a great place. And I know we are we will be releasing shortly, we're we're doing our quarterly uh mindset survey, so we'll we'll hopefully know a little bit more about that when we uh when we talk next. But uh if I had to guess, it's probably going to have gone down. Yeah, it's really really interesting.

The last two quarters our survey showed that employees are generally happy where they are, uh, but they're concerned about the future. I am with you. We will see within the next week. I don't know if we'll have the data by next Friday to talk about.

I think we might if we can get the survey uh results analyzed by then. But we I would I would expect that we will see the outlook declining. I I don't think workers are generally unhappy where they are. Yes, right?

Um, they're not looking for jobs. That's what the last six months have showed us people aren't looking for jobs at the same rate they were a year ago because they're afraid. They they know. They might be thankful, you know, they might be thankful for what they have, and maybe that that would be something that I would if I guess I if we see that go up, that's how I would interpret it.

Is if you're at a job right now and you're you look around, you're like, well, I I I could it could be a lot worse. And so that affects, you know, but the the thought of the of the job market outside of your your actual job is uh is is a little grim. Well, yeah, we we talked earlier about people not being able to trust the headlines, but what they do trust is their own experiences, what their own eyes and ears uh tell them. And what they see is that the market is is is not very active right now, and that's scary.

Um, so you do want to stay where you are, and maybe you should right now from for most people, right? So maybe the the the best way I can say that is unless you have another job lined up, don't leave the one you're in. That's advice always. That's advice now more than more than ever, because um, you know, seeing the long-term unemployment number, seeing what's happening overall, um, with with lack of new jobs.

And we're not going to talk about any specific data on this today, but all the reports that I've seen lately are showing that the number of job postings are declining as well. So every kind of trend kind of working against um workers right now. Always have a backup or a contingency plan. That's uh it's not a good time to be just kind of jumping and jumping out blind into the job market.

Don't don't do that. Don't do that. Um but all right, so let's keep the the the great news rolling. We're on a really uh really positive notes here.

There is some there, there's there's got to be something positive in here, right? The um uh not yet. Well, maybe not even overall this week, but let's turn the layoffs, right? So the big the big news in any given week is gonna be new job data that comes out, it's going to be um AI right now, and we'll talk about that too.

We have to, of course, and and then any any big layoffs. And so Microsoft, I maybe we can call this good news. Microsoft historically does have layoffs at this time of year. They're only, and I have air quotes for this, putting going anticipating a layoff of around two and a half percent of their workforce.

Now their workforce is huge, so that's thousands of jobs, but that's not as big as it otherwise could have been, or other others anticipate it being yeah, that's uh 2.5 is low for them. So I guess we if you want to look at the silver lining and say, yeah, that's that's uh that's good news. But um like you said, this is something that happens at this time of year.

They've historically done this, so this isn't really that big of a surprise. No, what what's a surprise to me though is that Xbox is one of the reasons that uh you know that that an area that's gonna be like that is not because of my sons. I can tell you that they are keeping doing their own. You're not losing losing money to PlayStation.

It's uh I I I guess I don't even do you know you're you're more of a gamer than I am, of course. What what which is a bit which is a big one these days? I I mean I you get you see both back and forth. Although I will put this is not related to this, but people are pretty up in arms about PlayStation saying that they're doing away with physical discs and they're only ever gonna do digital games now.

So people are like, well, you can't even own a video game anymore. So that's a yeah, don't don't get me started on that. I've got I've got friends who are very uh annoyed about that and how everything is becoming rent to own. You don't actually own the physical media anymore, and and all that.

I feel like Gen Z is gonna swing the other way. That's why like vinyl records and VHS tapes and everything and DVDs are coming back because everything is becoming being pushed towards digital. It's interesting that you're saying that because I just saw. On Twitter last night that one of the streaming platforms, I don't know if it was Paramount or Peacock, one of the big names, deleted a significant number of movies.

And those movies uh were people had bought them. So you bought the movie. You know, I I've I have movies I bought on Apple TV over over the years. I don't do it often, but occasionally.

And now you've lost access to something you bought. How crazy is that to think about? There has to that you like they have to give their money. If the the internet or the you know goes out at your house, you don't have access to it anymore.

So that's I've seen a growing wave online of people like you gotta physical media is the only way you can truly own it. So I'm I'll it'll be interesting to see if that's gonna come back in in the coming years. But do you do you want a physical disc at this point? I I don't.

I I don't even I I don't have any means to play a physical disc anywhere in my house. Well, you got an Xbox, you could play it on an Xbox. I suppose, yes. That that is that is true.

But but really, I mean, my I used to have lots of discs. I had cassettes before that, records. I'm old, but now it's just Spotify for me. So I I I think I'm okay with that, but there has to be some recourse for the for the company who I paid for this, you know, this to to take it all away.

I've still see, I've I've still got a big DVD collection uh between me and my wife. So uh she actually categorized them a couple years ago because specifically because she it what triggered her was she wanted to watch some movies and it wasn't on anything, it had been taken off Netflix or something, and you couldn't get anywhere. And she had the DVDs, she's like, all right, so she dug them all out and then recategorized it. And it was because she was like, I can't deal with I want to watch a movie sometime, and so and so platform has taken it off and it's no longer available.

I gotta rebuy it. So that's the that's her protection against that. And and I've got uh some some vinyl records too, but that's more of a for the novelty of it. So all right, you've you've identified a use case for uh I guess I'm I'm uh I'm being a hipster, but uh it seems to be uh more and more common with uh with Gen Z.

That I I know lots of Gen Z who are collecting DVDs and even it's now the nick the new thing to buy a VHS player and like play VHS stuff because it's got that 90s feel, which is hilarious to me. That TVs that I used, I I had a TV in my bedroom growing up and had like the um the VHS player built in, one of those little ones, and I we'd gotten rid of it. And now if you go on like eBay, those things are selling for like $500. So you should you should have kept it.

You should have kept it. I know it should have could have been an investment. All right, so let's get back to this, and we're gonna have to change the name of the show to the weekend jobs and a lot of other other random stuff, you know, unrelated uh stuff. So the couple other layoff points.

Oracle in their recent earning reports confirmed that they had laid off 21,000. Although we had already talked about that, so that's not necessarily news. The news from last week, since we didn't do a show, that really hit me. This hurts.

It's not an American company, but Volkswagen VW announced it. 100,000 layoffs, the biggest in the automotive industry. That's hard. That is a number that I can't wrap my brain around.

100,000 job losses from a single company. Yeah, 100,000 people from V from VW. And we know, I mean, VW's not been doing great in recent years. Um, so I guess I'm not surprised.

It's not like one of those companies where I would it came out of nowhere, but that number is is just astronomical compared to some of these other layoffs that we've seen. It really is. I mean, my first thought was how the hell did they have 100,000 employees? And then my second immediate thought was how did they lay off a hundred?

How are they laying off a hundred thousand and still operating? I mean, clear they're much bigger, I realize than I thought they were, but uh that that's not good to see. So here we go again. Big layoffs, how much of it is due to AI and automation?

There, that's that that debate you know continues to rage on. I'm sure it will for a while, but that's well. I mean, I know like right now, uh AI is the is the top-sided reason for companies laying off people. And you know, my thought on it, like I don't know that I trust every single company to say, why would they say we're not doing great as a company when they could say, oh, it's because we're restructuring to AI and we're actually doing so great that we're becoming more efficient, and then Wall Street rewards them.

But you know, that that might not be the case with every company, but I can't believe that every single one claiming AI is a hundred percent correct. But it's but it's more than a trend. Would you agree with that? Or it's more than it what is a trend, they're saying it.

I I think it if you had to assign a percentage, so it's roughly a hundred, a little over a hundred thousand job cuts here today cited, you know, that is with AI as a reason. That trend is is clear. What what percentage do you think is actually due to AI? I mean, it I would I think it's at at the very I guess I'll say 50% of them are really truly AI focused, with maybe 20 for 25%, a quarter of them being some percentage of it.

And I I kind of think there's at least there's at least a good chunk of them. Say 25% that are they're gonna claim that it's AI where, and even if it's a fringe case where there's been some automation that they've added, why would you not say that, oh well, we've done this, you know, we've done away it's AI, but also we you know need to get rid of this department because we over overextended ourselves or whatnot. So most companies, the majority of the employers in the US are not public companies that have to announce this publicly.

So it's happening quietly, it's happening with no press whatsoever. It's happening in terms of companies just not replacing people. I think that's where we there's no data that we can point to for this. There's surveys, but once again, it's it's easy to question the validity of those.

But I know it's happening. I I know that it's happening when I talk to peers, when I talk to people at other small businesses. I don't know, I don't think that it is happening at scale with enterprise organizations yet, because they're treading more carefully down the AI path. They have more to risk, where a small business is willing to take those chances with AI.

And from what I can tell, and I have a pretty good feel for this, I think, that small businesses are advancing with AI much faster than large enterprises in terms of integrating into their day-to-day workflow. Um it's and it's extremely powerful and getting better all the time. So that's what I where I think it's it's really showing up is when we see fewer job postings, we know that's happening. That's data we can actually see and trust.

We're seeing um hiring stalled. And I think in yes, it's part of the economy. It's the are we at war, are we not at war, interest rates, all those things working against hiring. But I think companies on an increasing basis are first considering what they can replace when someone leaves or they have a new need with AI before jumping into hiring a human.

I I that's a hundred percent right. I I don't think it's necessarily as the cause the cause of many, you know, as many layoffs, but a hundred percent agree on companies. Can we do we need two people or can we just hire one person? You know, and I think that's what's the a lot quieter, and that's probably affecting, like you said, the lack of job postings to some degree.

We there is these companies are still going about business as usual, but they don't have to bring on as many people. So that's gonna become a something that we see maybe that's just part of the job market going forward, I guess. That's the new norm. And and I anticipate that we're going to see a lot of back and forth with AI uh pullback as what uh it and then we're gonna pull back on employees, and then we're gonna have to hire some back because what AI is doing is is creating it's AI is saving time through automations, but it's also creating new work that needs to be done.

So what we saw in the past week was Ford announced that they're bringing back 300 engineers. Now, Jim Farley, Ford CEO, sometime within the past year said that he anticipates up to 50% white-collar unemployment directly tied to AI. He's on record saying that. They're clearly trying to move in that direction.

But when you, it's like a domino effect, but you don't really know what's going to happen once the dominoes start to fall. So once you start implementing AI, you see that you can do more. You can see do new and different things. Yes, you're gonna have a need for new employees.

So that's my on record is has been for a while. We're gonna see job displacement, but we're also going to see a need for two pre uh new positions being created where I what I don't where I don't have a good feel is for which one's going to uh have the bigger impact. And I I I worry that there's good the displacement's going to outweigh the creation, but I think both are going to happen simultaneously. I yeah, I agree.

And I do tend to believe that, yeah, displacement will outweigh the creation of new jobs. But yeah, you see these companies, if they're automating all these things and then they're oh dang, we broke X, Y, and Z process in the in the in doing that, and now we got to bring somebody back who knows how to fix it because the how can you know the AI doesn't have the knowledge to fix it, it can automate these things, but it doesn't have the wherewithal to to know that this is related to that.

And I think we're gonna see a lot of that. We saw that obviously with Ford, but it's gonna be some time till we kind of know where we where we settle. I think we're in a period where companies are enamored with AI and what it can do, and the risk is worth the reward. So they're like, yes, we we know some things are gonna break, we know we're gonna lose some money and in efficiencies when these things go through, but it's worth it and it's growing, it's just growing pains.

So um I it'll be interesting where we go over the next year as more as this becomes more of the norm and we start to see what are the typical areas that AI does break that maybe become new career paths. Uh it's gonna be an exciting ride. Uh, and for those who are expecting to be in the workforce for any period of time, whether it's a couple of years or a couple of decades, it really is incumbent upon you to embrace what's happening and not ignore it. I that's a message that I know I sound like a broken record with, but it's because it's that important.

And the surprising thing to me continues to be the number of people who haven't arrived there yet. Yeah, still are not paying attention to what is happening. And that's where I see a big divide happening, even you know, among individuals and among companies where those who there are many who just aren't on board yet. And then there's others who are, and I think the ones who are are gonna win.

Um, even so even beyond just being on board, I'm I mean, we're seeing more and more people who are just anti-AI in general. Um, and I I think a lot of that is you know, we we we talked previously about like the data centers and stuff like that, and I can I can totally see that, but it just kind of lumps in seeing AI as a bad thing in general. And you I think that group is is growing. I mean, from if the news is to be believed in all the articles that I've read about it, but in the general sentiment online, but I think we're gonna have that that divide of people who are kind of they they go they go with it or the those who are being obstinate or stubborn about it.

Were there were there people who were fundamentally opposed to the steam engine, you know, were like I mean there were, they're called Luddites, right? You know, like you go, hey, I don't I don't want these tracks going across, you know, the the the land, and and obviously pollution wasn't you know the the concern that it is now, but it anytime there's a big technological evolution like this, there there's the it doesn't being opposed to it, like I would say do it do it at your own peril, right?

You may not like it, but if it's going to happen regardless, protect yourself, right? Protect your future. Now, the caveat I'll say to that is if it gets bad enough, well, then that's a different kind of problem for society that could lead to revolutions. That we see we've seen that too through history.

Just because it hasn't happened in our lifetimes doesn't mean it can't happen. So that's the but on the general historical scale, that's a lot more common. So it really is, isn't that interesting though? Like we look back at history and think, well, that wouldn't happen today or couldn't happen today.

It damn sure could, and it damn sure may, if things were bad enough for enough people. That is an unknown right now. And again, I think adoption, if you had asked me a year ago, I probably said, because you probably did ask me a year ago, that adoption would be farther along by now. So I I've realized that the potential isn't necessarily being met.

But there's risks and there's there's challenges, and it takes time and effort. We we are huge users of this, and we know that you have to invest a lot of time to get the result. Um so that hasn't happened at the speed I anticipated, but if and when likely that it does, if it gets ugly enough, that's that's also kind of a scary thing. R the yeah, people's appetite for risk and their willingness to change is that's the limiting factor here.

And humans can't, I mean the systems can change, are changing and evolving way faster than humans are comfortable with, and that's going to be the thing that stops. So that's why I, yeah, I think it's going to go a lot slower than it could potentially if people just let it off the leash. And maybe that's a good thing. I don't, you know, maybe we should think twice before completely unloading, you know, an entire automation processes.

Um, it's it's cool to see what can happen, but yeah, we're still in a we're still in a gray area where people's willingness is not quite at the same level as the capabilities. Very gray, very gray. But but we'll keep talking about it, we'll keep reporting on it. Um, I think that's it for today.

We've covered all the possible bad news that we can. That's why we started off with the good. The soccer team's doing great. It's the 4th of July.

It's it's yeah, let's look at that as the as the positive outlook and and try and put it out of your mind for a little bit of the uh the jobs report and everything. Yeah, enjoy, enjoy your life along the way because we're gonna we're gonna it's gonna be crazy times, but I I want to be optimistic here before we close and just say the more I use AI, honestly, the more I see of the potential that it can deliver to everyone. There's no barrier, right? There's no barrier of I have to go to college to be able to be, you know, a high wage earner, I have to have the right pedigree, I have to have the right anything.

This it's available, it's it's not entirely free, it's close to it. In some cases, it can be, but this is creating opportunities for those who will embrace them that have never existed in human history. Um, and so I do get excited about that. Um just if I could, if I could share a message to a broad audience, I would say take advantage of this because it's a window that's open right now, it's gonna close eventually.

And if you start today, even you're way, way ahead of the curve. That I feel very confident saying. AI is a tool, just like anything else. And it can be used to do really cool things and really great things, and it can be used to do really bad things, and if it's used irresponsibly.

And I think that's where we're at we're at right now. Like hum, we're we're catching up. We got to figure out what are the good ways to use it while avoiding the bad ways to use it. And uh hopefully we'll get there eventually.

Well, we're gonna get somewhere eventually. We're gonna get somewhere. Well, hopefully, it's to the the better, more more good than bad. Well, that's that's it.

That's a good note to close on. So good to be back, good to have this conversation again. We will do it again next week. Thanks.

See ya.