“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.” — President of the Michigan Savings Bank, 1903, advising against investing in Ford.
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olsen, Founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
The graveyard of technological history is littered with dumb opinions, so-called experts who couldn’t see the freight train of progress barreling down the tracks. Every great leap is met by a chorus of comfortable, smug insiders who declare it impossible, impractical, or just a passing fad, right before it renders them obsolete.
And today, that same tired song is being sung about AI.
The skeptics call it over-hyped.
Wall Street is warning of a bubble.
Policy makers are downplaying the impact as AI revolutionizes one industry at a time, from legal to engineering. They are catastrophically wrong. And I only need to look at the last 72 hours of my own life to prove it.
Last week, I upgraded the forum to new hardware and a new server. Migrations are never fun and are usually wrought with issues, and this one was no exception. One issue? The forum’s enhanced search function choked and died. Without this function, finding content becomes virtually impossible. No problem. I did what any business owner would do: I found a specialist.
I contacted a server engineer, explained the problem, and he confirmed he could fix it. I told him he was hired. But there was a catch. The engineer couldn’t get to it until later in the week. In the old world, this would be the end of the story. I’d wait, he’d work, I’d pay. But we no longer live in that world anymore.
While waiting, I opened up ChatGPT, described the server environment in excruciating detail, and pasted the exact error logs into the prompt. The AI directed me to the command prompt, which to me is like navigating a 12-cylinder engine in a Lamborghini: overwhelming, confusing, and a completely foreign language.Yep, it might as well be Italian.
Two hours later, after a back-and-forth dialogue where I, a non-expert, was guided by the AI, the problem was solved. The search was fixed. My next email was to the human engineer. “Thanks, but I no longer need your services.” He just lost a job. I just saved $180, his hourly rate.
This is how AI job apocalypse starts. No robot is kicking down your door. It’s a client sending a cancellation email because a $20-per-month subscription is now doing your job faster and cheaper. And this fear is starting to ripple through the entire workforce.
CNBC recently cited a new trend emerging in the workforce: the concept of “job hugging.” Employees are clinging to their jobs, heads down, praying the AI reaper doesn’t notice them. (Interestingly, the article doesn’t even mention AI, but I can guarantee it’s the fear behind the curtain.) Employees are not job-shopping; they’re just hoping to survive the week without their role being “optimized” by an algorithm.
This shift is happening because the value of specialized knowledge is collapsing.
Entrepreneurship: Both Your Defense and Your Offense
The old playbook of trading time for money is a career-ender, whether as a business owner or an employee. The “job hugger,” the freelancer, the consultant, anyone selling a task, is standing on the train tracks. The ultimate defense against this revolution isn’t upskilling. It’s to stop being a skill-for-hire altogether and instead, master the tool itself.
The ultimate defense to the forthcoming job apocalypse is Fastlane entrepreneurship. AI is a tool. An employee is a tool. A consultant is a tool. An entrepreneur is the architect who wields these tools. AI is just the newest, most powerful tool in the box. While it will replace millions of human tools, it will create thousands of entrepreneurial mastercrafters who can now build empires single-handedly. Here’s how to frame it, Fastlane-style…
Become the AI-Powered Architect. Your job is no longer to do the work, but to design the system that does the work. Remember, Fastlane is all about systems and processes, separate from your time. An entrepreneur with AI is a one-person army, capable of achieving what used to require a team of 20 and a seven-figure budget. Stop being the bricklayer; be the architect directing a fleet of robotic bricklayers.
Attack the Human Gaps. AI is great at logic and data, but it’s a dumbass at empathy, trust, and community. This is your moat. Build a brand that hasn’t lost its humanity. Create a community your customers crave. Offer a human-centric experience so exceptional that no AI algorithm can replicate it. AI can resolve a support ticket, but it can’t connect with you with a tribe, for example, The Fastlane Forum! Master
Tangible, IRL Problems. AI can solve web-based problems: “Fix my server.” Yet, it’s not so good at real-time, tangible execution that must occur IRL, or “in real life”. While it can design a package for vegan Pop-Tarts, it can’t manufacture the product. It can’t produce the box. The new winners will be those who leverage the technology, but bring its power into IRL.
The revolution is coming. And you have a choice. You can be the person whose job is swallowed by the coming AI Apocalypse, or you can be the person holding the automation remote. You can be the cog made obsolete by the machine, or you can be the entrepreneur who uses those cogs to build a machine.
The choice is yours, but the clock is ticking.
MJ DeMarco, Entrepreneur/Author
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