⚙️ ALL SYSTEMS: https://ethanairesources.com/systems
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📖 Essays on Consciousness & AI ⤵
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— CHAPTERS:
0:00 Intro: The post-AI world
1:30 Why credentials broke
2:30 Why “keep up with AI” and “just develop taste” are each incomplete
4:00 What the delicate abilities really are (the trustworthiness of want)
7:30 Where this comes from: Hillman, Buddhism, the daimon
8:30 How to domesticate it: getting on the root of your want
10:30 A principle of worth for the post-AI age
IN CONVERSATION WITH
James Hillman, The Soul’s Code (1996). The acorn principle of calling: there’s one thing in you that wishes to return forth, and the credentialing system was designed to suppress precisely that.
Daniel Thorson, The End of Hoop Jumping. The hill-climbing vs. valley-crossing body; the system that manufactured hoop-jumpers; what AI is definitely automating.
Rob Burbea, Soulmaking Dharma / Eros Unfettered. Desire as path, not downside. The trustworthiness of eros, correctly engaged.
Dan Shipper, AI Creates More Work for Humans, Not Less (Every). The shift from execution to planning and assessment; why being clear about what attractiveness like turns into the bottleneck.
Michael Spence, Job Market Signaling (1973). Why credentials labored: they have been pricey to faux. AI removes the fee.
Randall Collins, The Credential Society (1979). 50 years of credential inflation, and the bureaucratic logic behind it.
Galdin and Silbert, Making Talk Cheap: Generative AI and Labor Market Signaling (2025). When LLMs flatten written functions, the market turns into much less meritocratic, no more: top-quintile staff employed 19% much less, bottom-quintile 14% extra.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08785
Cui, Dias and Ye, Signaling within the Age of AI: Evidence from Cover Letters (2025). Companion empirical research, identical course.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25054
Peter Cappelli (Wharton). On what employers are literally doing once they cite AI for layoffs: “they’re just hoping.”
Zak Stein. On standardized testing as an instrument of paperwork, not a principle of intelligence.
DATA SOURCES
Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Canaries within the Coal Mine? (2025)
https://digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/publications/canaries-in-the-coal-mine
SignalFire, State of Tech Talent Report 2025
https://www.signalfire.com/blog/signalfire-state-of-talent-report-2025
NY Fed, The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates
https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market
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