The Occasional Perspective - 12/31/2025

Opinions and Reflections

The End of Work – I recently received a document written by Matt Diemer entitled, The End of Work. He’s a politician who lives in Ohio. The piece is entitled The End of Work, and it is excellent. It basically walks through the history of changes that have occurred in society as a result of technology transformation – the printing press, textile machinery, steam power, electricity, the automobile, the computer, the internet – and NOW, artificial intelligence. At each stage, the woe-seekers shared their angst about the end of society as we know it. The piece describes in some detail how – in fact – we’ve been wrong at each stage. Has there been a disruption? YES! Has there been a loss of traditional jobs? YES! Have there been societal shifts? YES! But, at each stage – the human race has survived, and while shifts have occurred, life as we know it has gotten better across the board for more people in a more democratized way. So, we should not be afraid of the next stage where artificial intelligence is upon us. Rather, we should embrace it and determine how best to integrate it into our lives.

A Note From The Wall Street Journal – The Editor in Chief, Emma Tucker, posted the following statement on December 26, 2025. It provides an interesting backdrop to the above commentary:

“There is a new power player on Wall Street: the family office. These secretive firms manage everything from investments to personal affairs for the superrich. Their influence is only growing: Families with these offices recently oversaw roughly $5.5 trillion, and banks and entrepreneurs are clamoring for a slice of their wealth. Meanwhile, billions are flowing into humanoid robot startups, but leaders in the field say the machines are overhyped. Despite impressive demos, androids still face daunting technical challenges that keep them closer to science experiments than a replacement for human workers.”