Big Options

 Reading this article article "Fertility on Demand" which explores how emerging fertility technologies could help women overcome the longstanding tradeoff between career advancement and motherhood, made me think of M. She is at the fork on the road where she can either double down on career and make real progress or shift gears to have children. Having turned thirty a couple of months ago, she has to make those decisions sooner than later. Being wise she's chosen to go on a sabbatical to sort out which road she's going to take. 

Despite decades of policy efforts, the gender pay gap persists largely because women’s earnings and career trajectories are negatively impacted when they take time out to have and raise children during their peak professional years. This will her story too should she decide to take pause now while her career is on the upswing While delaying childbirth can help women advance in their careers, fertility declines with age, leaving many highly educated women with fewer children than they desire or unable to have children at all. That is what M and many like her are afraid. How late is too late, when does the window of opportunity close for good. 

While egg freezing allows women to preserve their younger, healthier eggs for use later, with recent studies showing promising success rates if enough eggs are frozen before age 38, not every woman in M's stage of life is eager to consider it as an option. The process remains costly, physically taxing, and not universally successful. The stories of women who have tried it (with or without success) leaves those considering it ambivalent. Automation and AI are beginning to make egg freezing and IVF more efficient and less dependent on highly skilled human labor, potentially lowering costs and improving outcomes. Maybe that will change the game going forward. 

M is married so she has that covered. There are any number of women in her age bracket and career stage that are in what they would describe as a happy relationship. But they are partnered with Peter Pan. He has every reason and the means to settle down and start a family with the woman he has been with for a long time but he is not quite ready to pull the trigger and grow up. So the woman waits in vain and by the time she wises up to the fact that marriage and kids are unlikely in her current situation is close to the end of the fertility window. I know some in that category a well.

Finding Passion

I have long believed that the advice about finding your passion (and the rest will magically follow) is too simplistic and does not work for most people in the real world. Glad to see this article debunking the  “find your passion,” advice. The author notes that treating passion as a fixed trait waiting to be discovered is limiting and often counterproductive. Could not agree more. Research shows that believing passion is something innate narrows our interests, reduces creativity, and leads to disappointment when motivation inevitably wanes during tough times. The notion of  developing passions by exploring new interests with curiosity and openness is a much more productive one. People can cultivate multiple passions over time, enriching creativity and adaptability. 

The risk of too much passion can become obsessive, risking burnout and harming well-being, so it’s important to balance intense focus with periods of rest. I have seen this happen to several people over the years. A few have burnt out but others have stuck with their passions doggedly because they have no other options. The once passion may have turned into something else entirely with the passage of time yet they cling to it for life. My mother gave me a piece of advice when I was in high-school that I recall to this day and gratefully. She told me to write everyday because it feeds my soul but not try to make a career out of it until I am a stage of life when that is can be an option without causing any disruption.

 I have written consistently and with no other goal other than to feel a sense of satisfaction much like a carpenter might find from working on a piece of wood to turn it into something they have in mind. It does not matter what the end product is or what time it takes to get there, the process is fulfilling on its own. I did not ever have to find my passion because I knew what it was but acting on it ( by attempting make a living as a writer and take care care of my responsibilities as a single mother) wouldn't have served me well. 

More Human

I had an interesting experience at work a while back involving me and a co-worker who is convinced AI is a fad that will implode on itself and we will all return to the old ways of working. I owed her something that would be mundane and time-consuming to write up so I used AI to do the job for me (which got be about 80% of the way) and I only had to review more inaccuracies. When B reviewed it she found a mistake and pinged me immediately to point out how this was highly problematic because it was AI generated and full of errors and now that increases her effort. It was like she had found that smoking gun she'd been looking for. She had gone through a lot of work to find out mistakes which ended up taking only a few minutes to resolve. In the old days, this task would have taken me a whole day to get to the content to be considered "final". Notwithstanding B's umbrage at my use of "tools", it was only ten minutes of work to produce the first draft and thirty minute to update and and other fifteen to finalize. Still under an hour and it gave me the time to work on things that are more intellectually interesting and creative for me. I never found any joy in doing the routine parts of my job that are hard to delegate and yet fill like a time sink. Like many, I have found a way to escape it. B was deeply unhappy about it all even after we got it over the finish line. 

Reading this essay on what is means for humans to be intelligent in the time of AI got me thinking about that situation with B. According to the authors, what is now called for is a  dynamic, computational, predictive, and collective process that emerges from the interaction of many specialized parts (neurons, individuals, or agents). It is shaped by social and environmental feedback, and is not limited to biological systems. Intelligence is defined by its function, modeling, predicting, adapting, and cooperating, rather than by its specific implementation or economic output

For instance, when a scientific research team collaborates to address complex issues like climate change or medical breakthroughs, their intelligence is not simply the sum of individual IQs. Instead, it emerges from their ability to share information, predict outcomes, adapt strategies, and integrate diverse perspectives. Research shows that the effectiveness of such groups depends less on individual brilliance and more on the quality of their collaboration, communication, and social perceptiveness. 

As such the durable human intelligence is collective, adaptive, and shaped by social and environmental feedback. By refusing to co-operate with me in the process, B had made sure we did not produce something that met the new bar of intelligence. Conversely, there are any number of instances where people from multiple disciplines apply their efforts in coordination (aided by AI) to accomplish novel and useful things that became possible through their collective human intelligence. 

Clearing Things

Great to see an educator acknowledge that they learn from their students. I found it relatable despite never having been a teacher professionally. There is a lot that I have learned from people much younger and less experienced than me at work. They way they think about a problem, what stands out for them versus what does not can prove useful learning. The questions they would think to ask in meeting with a customer or a client may not be the ones I would ask and that could prove a lost opportunity. I enjoy being challenged about my approach to problem solving by someone who is only a few years out of college and without any "real-life" experience. Some of the best outcomes came out of those debates where I changed my mind.

I’m also thinking to the brilliant student in my fourth year of teaching who’d ask “What does this have to do with real life?”. She had a reputation for whining in the school, but I went home and reflected on it. Over the next few weeks, I decided to work on giving her access to the math. As she arrived at her “oh!” moments, she asked better questions and participated more. I learned to reframe “whining” and to re-ground myself in patience.

That one particularly reminds me of L who was very vocal about things not making sense and questioned why we insisted on going down a path when it was far from proven that it would work. L at the time was a newly minted employee fresh out of his senior year internship. I admired his courage to call things out. There were a couple of times in the year that he was on my team that I decided quickly that L knew better than the rest of us and that turned out to be the right call. To this day, I ask myself how L would respond to something and it help clear the cobwebs in my thinking. 

Good Outcomes

An industrial design school project evolved into a significant legacy in marine conservation through the creation of an algorithmically designed artificial reef. Great to read about algorithms doing good in the world at time when bad news is more the norm. Inspired by the need to restore and protect coral ecosystems threatened by climate change and human activity, the project leveraged computational modeling, digital fabrication, and high-precision underwater monitoring to create reef structures that closely mimic natural habitats and promote biodiversity. 

The design process integrated ecological requirements with architectural innovation, resulting in modular, component-based reefs that can be customized and adapted for specific marine environments. Real-world experiments, notably in Gili Trawangan, Indonesia, validated the approach, demonstrating that these reefs can support coral regrowth and withstand environmental stresses over the long term. The project also produced new digital tools for reef design and monitoring, enabling broader collaboration among scientists, designers, and local communities.

In architecture and engineering too, computational and biomimetic design methods use digital modeling and simulation to create structures inspired by natural systems, integrating environmental and material considerations for innovative, sustainable outcomes.

Safe Haven

The findings of this research are not surprising and reflect growing skepticism among younger generations about the necessity and value of traditional college education, especially as AI reshapes job requirements and career paths. When leaders twenty or more years into their careers are asked by Gen Z about future-proofing their careers, it is common to hear the lame response "learn a trade".

If the person asking the question has spent their time and money getting a college education and now joined the workforce, that answer tells them that they are screwed and they have been foolish to have bothered with college. They would have been smarter to learn plumbing. Its easy for someone how had has a good run, made some money to be flippant about learning a trade to jump into once they are laid off but this is catastrophic for a young person on their first job out of college. 

Most Gen Z respondents feel they could do their jobs without a degree, a sentiment much stronger than in older generations. This skepticism is fueled by rapidly rising tuition costs and the perception that AI and evolving job requirements have diminished the traditional value of higher education, signaling a major generational shift in attitudes toward college. This perception is only solidified when they hear their best bet is to learn a trade. If a large-scale migration is indeed fueled towards trade-schools then those occupations can only experience a race to the bottom and not remain a safe haven option.

Having Moat

This Slashdot post highlights the personal stories of creative professionals who have lost their jobs or seen their livelihoods threatened due to the rise of artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT. Illustrators, copywriters, voice actors, and graphic designers have experienced  being replaced by AI-generated content, often without consent or fair compensation. 

For example, illustrators report companies using AI to replicate their style, leading to fewer jobs and lower wages, while voice actors describe unauthorized use of their voices in AI platforms, resulting in lost work and lengthy battles to regain control. 

The phenomenon will impact other professions no doubt. Anyone who is able to create IP of some sort is potentially at risk of it being subsumed by AI into its corpus of knowledge. Simplistically speaking one could try to build a moat by not share their best ideas with AI, keep that off the grid. 

Yet that may not be enough to save the person's job as one commentor has astutely noted:  AI is being hired everywhere under the name Good Enuff. If you're not perfect, AI doesn't have to be either. And AI will work 24/7/365 without bitching about all that needy shit humans require. Like pay raises, sleep, time off, vacations, sick pay, lunch breaks, and retirement funds.

Big Options

 Reading this article article " Fertility on Demand " which explores how emerging fertility technologies could help women overcome...