By Nicholas Hamner
Investment Advisor Representative
[email protected]
Last weekend I found myself at a flea market, thumbing through old books while a lady two tables over tried to pitch me some chipped Fiestaware. I found a couple of books that you might appreciate:
- A microwave cookbook with 200 recipes, including roasted chicken and a baked cherry pie, distributed by Quasar in 1984.
- A guide to making money with your computer at home, published in 1997.
- A book about reducing your workweek significantly by just outsourcing the things you don’t want to do, published in 2007.
Even though they are about completely different subjects, the books are identical. How? In each instance, the books’ creators 1) latched on to a new technology or concept that was all the rage, 2) attempted to use it for things wildly outside its intended purpose, and 3) the ideas, when viewed today, are almost incredibly out of date or inappropriate. Making an entire dinner in a microwave, from starters to dessert, is and was a terrible idea. Heating up a can of soup is one thing, but roasting meats is not the device’s forte. Likewise, I’m not sure anyone ever made a living in the late ‘90s as an at-home “clip art specialist”. And the idea of an employee outsourcing all personal email correspondence overseas or just telling their employer “I’m going to do all of this from home now” is ludicrous in 2026.
I didn’t buy any of the books. Or the autumn gold Fiestaware.
As technology changes, there will always be people latching on to whatever the latest & greatest tech is and proclaiming that it’s going to solve all their problems or make them a ton of money. We’re seeing it right now with artificial intelligence. Depending on who you listen to, the technology is going to make one person as productive as a whole office. Or AI is going to put a quarter of the workforce out of work within 24 months. Entire industries are going to change. Law firms will move away from billable hours, Hollywood studios will produce blockbusters made by one guy and ChatGPT, dogs and cats will live together in harmony, and anything that required you to speak to or pay a human ever will go away forever. So they say.
The markets have predictably followed the hype. Computer hardware companies like Nvidia are soaring. Software companies behind the technology like Anthropic are raking in billions while spending billions more. Even companies tacitly related to AI, like Caterpillar, whose bulldozers and construction equipment are used to build data centers, are seeing positive bumps. AI can do everything.
But just like microwave ovens, bulky 1990s PCs on pressboard desks, and outdated workplace behaviors, the primary question with AI remains: just because it can, does it mean it should? Just because you can, does it mean you should?
Just because you can give a two-sentence instruction to a music-focused app like Sora and have it spit out four verses and a chorus, does that mean music acts are done and that bands like the Beatles and Pink Floyd will never be relevant again? Just because you can take a photo with your phone and ask AI if the mushroom you found in the woods is safe to eat, does that mean you’re going to see tomorrow if you eat it? Just because you can ask AI a question about anything—politics, science, religion, finance, etc.—and get 10 pages of answers back, does it mean that anything in those 10 pages is worth reading?
It is, at its core, a value proposition. If you’ve ever been in a tradesman’s workshop somewhere and seen the line about “Good, fast, and cheap. Pick any two.”, you are already aware of where the value of AI is. It can produce content quickly and (relatively) cheaply. But “good” is the outlier. Is it good? More importantly, is it good enough for you to accept? Is it good enough for anyone to accept? And if you know the work product isn’t good, then would you rely on it? If your doctor cautioned that the advice they were about to give you wasn’t good, but was only obtained fast and cheap… how good are you feeling about that doctor? If you found out the lawyer you hired to keep your business safe got all their recommendations from ChatGPT, how safe are you feeling about your business?
With summer in full swing, chances are you have seen at least one event flyer that was made by AI. You’ve probably seen closer to a dozen. If your local fire company has had a movie night, you have seen an AI-generated poster. They all look the same, and they’re about as appealing to the eyes as a microwaved chicken thigh is to the palate. And the question remains: just because you can, does it mean you should?
