I’ve been seeing the recent studies saying the current generation of young people are now officially less cognitive / intelligent than past generations, for the first time in history, which is obviously quite disconcerting. However I am left to speculate, not so much the causative effect of why, but more so to what end?
If you ever had the pleasure of watching “Wall-E”, you will recall seeing the humans on the drifting starship reduced to gelatin masses with little to no functional bone structure, and no purpose beyond consuming and being fed a constant diet of digital stimulation via advertising and product placement, to the point that even communicating with other humans right next to them, is done via video calling. As funny as it was at the time, it’s alarming to see how close that is becoming to a current reality.
Obviously weaker minded people allow suggestive control and obedience, as many conspiracy orientated individuals would tell you (remember the whole fluoride in the water thing?), this is all part of the plan, but I am not interested in conspiracy theories, nor going down any dark roads today.
No, I am more interested in the concept of Intelligence being turned into a currency or commodity.
We are seeing currently the birth of the “first” generation of A.I that is swarming across the web and into people’s homes. A.I is quickly growing and developing into whatever the next generation will become. In the middle of this, is the battle for the “soul” of the A.I itself, and it’s ability to do tasks, with Intelligence.
Whether Agentic A.I succeeds or fails at the tasks the programmer designates to it, falls down to how intelligent it can act. As such, this means intelligence itself is becoming very valuable. The difference in simple tasks, like generative prompts displays this, when you see just how big an impact the choice of words or sentence structure can dictate the final generated image.
So, in the midst of this “renaissance” of the digital world, we find ourselves at a crossroads: embrace the new and find the value in what we can moving forward, or be doomed to be left behind and struggle for the basics, as paying your rent & buying food.
Turn your mind into a viable source of income. Intelligence, is somehow in 2026 becoming scarce, and not common place, and as such, an intelligent and creative mind, will thrive in the coming years.
As easy as it is to dismiss this as some fad, or trend that will soon die off, it would be foolish to ignore the possibilities and opportunities being presented.
Even for the not too tech-savy, there are tutoring jobs for training A.I that even a regular person can do.
If there ever was going to be a new Gold rush, this is it. Intelligence, the new commodity.
