This is kind of a pre-write still, I need to talk about how there using electric stimulation and brain implants in order to restore the ability to walk to have lost that ability due severe skeletal and nervous system damage.

The Kenyans who choose to rely on artificial intelligence training jobs for a living aren’t much better off right now either, that part may as well be another Journal entry anyway.

Have you ever heard of 60 Minutes? According to a Google search I ran in the middle of the night while writing this, it’s “the oldest and most-watched newsmagazine on television” and it “gets the real story on America’s most prevalent issues.” I was watching an episode of this show on YouTube last night and I noticed a single idea that sparked my will to write again. That idea was that “Ai is poised to replace us”

The idea that “Ai is poised to replace us” betrays the deeper belief that we are only as good as the utility of our trade. In my opinion, this phrasing reveals something deeper: That we’re replaceable. Swappable. Fungible.

Imagine replacing your mother, or your spouse, or even your little sister with an AI. It’s hard to imagine right? That’s because those relationships are close and personal—built on years of shared memories, disclosure, and everyday intimacy. In communication studies, we know that relationships grow stronger through personal disclosures: telling stories, sharing secrets, talking about your day. These moments, over time, make people irreplaceable.

So how is it that, when it comes to work—how people feed themselves—our worth becomes interchangeable?

As someone who’s been exposed to the writings of Engels and Marx during my time as a student worker at ASUO, this jumped out at me. That feeling of being an appendage of a machine, alienation—that sense of being disconnected from the product of your labor, from being disconnected from the labor itself, disconnected from coworkers, and even disconnected from yourself. AI threatens to amplify that. Not just by taking jobs, but by deepening the belief that your only value lies in what you can produce.

In the study of Business Ethics, we learn that the most ethical conclusion to the tragedy of the commons; is the institution of property, ownership and most importantly; the right to exclusion. Exclusion, in this context, is important because the idea that A) Resources are finite, B) If an individual owns a particular resource and that individual is allowed to exclude others from the use of that particular resource, then in theory, that resource can be managed to avert any sense of “personal scarcity’ with respect to that resource. The essence of this argument is that we are in hegemonic agreement to compete for limited resources through the institution of property. For example, If I own a house with mango trees on the property, these are my mangoes, you cannot take any of my mangoes because it’s my property. Should you try to steal those mangoes, it is within my right to call the police or defend such mangoes with whatever degree of force that the law permits. This is Ethical conduct. That we live in a meritocratic society and through hard work, study and competition, we are able to transcend the boundaries of ‘personal scarcity’.

The problem, as Marx and others point out, is that Universal scarcity is still very much a thing we all have to deal with on a personal level. Over time, people get priced out of the labor market for not having the right technical or personal skills, these people either have someone to handle their load of the competition that keeps their “Rights” valid or they don’t. By Rights I’m referring to what I call “the right to quiet enjoyment”, as subset of a group of property rights that are bestowed either as a consequence rental payments, mortgage payments or hopefully as a result of the full amortization of property.  But what happens when all the property is owned ? What happens when we run out of space? The world is finite, isn’t it? Population growth isn’t finite. The prefix “in-“ usually functions as a negation or reversal, meaning it often changes a word to its opposite. At least in the grammatical sense of the word, population growth is infinite. Meaning universal scarcity will either be ap problem not or later, but it will always be a problem unless the statement “Resources are infinite” can be reasonably revaluated as true.

This means that while on a personal level we mitigate some of the problems associated with scarcity but on a macro level we still have a lingering problem. What do we do when we run out?

I think we’ve already begun seeing the results of this problem. Rising suicides rates in the US, Declining mental health worldwide, wage stagnation, Populism in politics in particular are doing a really good job of framing up the problems associated with scarcity that are looming on the horizon. This constant obsession with inflation, housing and the economy. The extreme approach to cost minimizations that we are willing to entertain today include ripping apart families, ending worldwide collaborations and even war. We are killing each other for resources on one side of the equation so the other side can pretend that killing is wrong and we should all just get along? Is that what close personal relationships are? A preferred mechanism of perpetuating a collective delusion?

And once you drink the Kool-Aid and realize meritocracy is a lie, that capital is the only language spoken in relationships outside of your inner circle, you start to see how fragile everything else is becoming. As an appendage of a machine, you don’t possess the dignity of ownership and without ownership you won’t possess the dignity of individual rights.

Remember this journal entry is about 60 minutes, My apologies for the huge digression, Before I could even sit with that sadness, the episode pivoted to another ethical minefield: AI and nudification.

Young women, in particular, are vulnerable to this technology. Sex work already carries heavy stigma and danger, and nudification only worsens it. The younger you are, the more degrading it becomes—and the less power you have to protect yourself. It robs you of consent. Of control. It’s not just a safety issue—it’s a dignity issue.

My brain was already on fire. Forget the fact that my little sister is a touchy subject—but if I could protect her from that kind of degradation, I would. Without hesitation. No one deserves that.

But that raises the question: What kind of training or preparation do I require to mitigate this kind of harm? Is it journalism? After all, that’s how I learned about this in the first place. That has to be a valuable skillset, right?

Still, stick a pin there—because the problems go deeper.

Take the parents of girls who’ve been affected. They’ve asked, repeatedly, for pictures to be taken down. And the tech companies? Don’t comply. How do you gain compliance without force? Hire a lawyer? Sure—if you can afford one. Maybe you find one at church. Maybe you hope they’re pro bono.

For some of you, Affordability becomes the barrier between you and justice.
So what—you’re telling me people can degrade each other whenever they want, as long as they have the power to do so? Is harm not an important ethical consideration? According to what little research I’ve done on the topic of Business Ethics, No. If I had to represent why this is the case, the simple answer would be due to the local knowledge problem and Bastiat’s concept of the “seen and unseen.” It’s the idea that the system’s only purpose is to preserve and maintain free will—which, strangely enough, includes allowing one class of individuals to harm another.

My next question is; how is the allowance of harm not deleterious to us as a whole? It seems we’re approaching the concept of alienation again. Is this something only Nerds think about? Is this perfectly normal and reasonable conduct? Is it the case that my lack of willingness to accept such conduct the root cause of my unemployability?

Once again we approach The same question in a different context. People say things like, “They should’ve known better. They should’ve studied cybersecurity or economics or Law”
But really—what field of study would’ve protected these people?

What field of study is best equipped to handle the phenomena of people treating other people as interchangeable or insignificant? How do I work toward re-humanizing people instead of dehumanizing them in this economic landscape? What do I study?

Cybersecurity?
Information Security?
Digital Forensics?
Philosophy?
Mass Communication?

I’ve studied a little of all of the above subject areas as apart of my Business – Information Security studies with ASUO. I was rightfully assured that based on my current educational profile, that this would be the best starting point for one with my education and technological orientation, this would be the best starting point for me based on my goals. Lately though, its begun to feel like the more I study, the more there is to be studied. Instead of Business – Information Security, the more appropriate field of study seems to sound more like “Business, Information & Security”—to denote that we are mitigating scarcity and harm through the operations of business, the understanding of information accumulated in business, and an orientation toward security. Not just in the space of securing information or trade secrets, but also through the lens of architecting physical and intellectual spaces that are safe for individuals to use as a means to thrive and progress.

These are the considerations of my studies so far. It feels like I’ve somewhat become divorced from the technical considerations of the job market and shifted focus onto the communal erosion that seems to be happening as a result of the aforementioned universality of scarcity that leads us to harm one another.

How does one profit from coalition building? What other services are available in this space? And if I’m the one who wants to offer that service—how do I close the gap between myself, the provider, and the people who need it most?

How do I price it? How do I scale it? How do I make sure poverty doesn’t become a barrier again? Because we’re not just talking about the dehumanizing ramifications of technological process, or online sexual harassment—we’re talking about coercion, digital violence, sexual assault, libel, and manipulation in an unstable geopolitical climate.

So how do I get in where I fit in—and how do I do that, now?

“Our entire society exists In its current state because of a credible backstop of violence, threatened by the United states and our allies around the world, and thank goodness for that! “ – Palmer Lucky

The 60 minutes episode ended with a gut punch: the introduction of our newest military contractor, Anduril, and it’s CEO; Lucky Palmer. He’s right. The logical conclusion of all our competing and all our efforts to mitigate personal scarcity, even if only for our own country, is a terrifying amount of violence. If I want to mitigate the struggles associated with this new era that as been outlined for me, the answer is clear as day; start with a credible threat of violence. For lucky, that threat came from robotics, for the girls caught in the nudification scandal, their threats were legal, for anyone else, in any other kind of situation, we’ll call them an un-tapped market.

Yes, I looked at their job postings.
No, I haven’t applied.
And now you know why.

Written by Karl Barclay, Writing Mentor at ASU’s Writers’ Studio. Created in collaboration with AI (ChatGPT) as part of an ongoing inquiry into ethical technology, digital harm, and post-meritocratic futures.

---

TL;DR Thought Triggers:

• How should I specialize in for my graduate degree?
• The inevitability of poverty in a capital-first economy, how to profit.
• Tragedy of the commons + Local knowledge problem = nobody’s coming to save us.
• What can I build to bridge the gap?

References:

Our latest artificial intelligence reports | 60 Minutes Full Episodes
https://youtu.be/VAzKqh00g3c?si=XSoeV2wmZ88DDgCG