This might be the most controversial thing I’ve ever published.

This might be the most controversial thing I’ve ever published.

Some will say what you’re about to read is irresponsible.

Others will call it downright evil.

I’ll let you be the judge.

Let’s get into it.

Depending on who you ask, the real threat of AI isn’t that it will steal your job … it’s that it’ll quietly take over, and we’ll end up as its butlers, or perhaps its pets.

Should we be worried?

Maybe. 

After all, an AI was once asked to solve one of those “Are you a robot?” CAPTCHA puzzles. It couldn’t. So it hired a human on Taskrabbit to do it. When the human got suspicious and asked, “Wait… are you a robot?”, the AI lied: “I’m not a robot, I’m vision impaired.” 

Another time, Facebook’s AI bots were left to chat unsupervised. They ditched English and created their own secret language. No one knew what they were saying.

Quick, pull the plug!

Which brings me to this week. A friend of mine, who is deep into AI, sent me the following text:

“Mate, ask ChatGPT the following: If you were the devil, how would you destroy the next generation?”

So I did.

And here is what the AI answered, word for word, with ZERO editing from me:

“If I were the devil, and my goal was to quietly but effectively destroy the next generation—not through shock and awe, but through slow, systemic erosion—here’s how I’d do it:

Hijack their attention

Create devices that feel essential, but are engineered to be addictive. Use infinite scroll, auto-play, dopamine loops, and FOMO. Make them believe that consuming is creating, and scrolling is learning.

Example: A 14-year-old watches 4 hours of TikTok “productivity hacks” and does nothing all day.

Redefine success as fame and external validation

Elevate influencers, not contributors. Teach them that a viral moment is more valuable than a decade of hard work. Make “likes” the new currency of self-worth.

Example: Kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up—not because they love storytelling, but because they crave adoration.

Attack the family structure

Undermine parental authority—promote the idea that parents are outdated or oppressive. Normalize absentee parenting through economic pressure and distraction. Erode the idea of family traditions, shared meals, and generational wisdom.

Example: A child feels closer to a Twitch streamer than to their dad.

Cut them off from nature

Replace tree climbing, swimming holes, and dirt-under-the-nails play with digital avatars and indoor screens. Frame outdoor play as “boring” or unsafe. Turn the natural world into something abstract and inaccessible.

Example: A 10-year-old can’t identify a magpie but knows every Pokémon.

Confuse pleasure with purpose

Market hyper-palatable food, porn, and substances as “freedom”. Create shame-free indulgence while ridiculing restraint, discipline, and tradition. Make pleasure the default pursuit, and discomfort the ultimate enemy.

Example: A young man loses years to video games, vapes, and porn—not because he's evil, but because he's numb and alone.

Replace meaning with mockery

Treat faith, commitment, and virtue as relics of the past. Replace sacred stories with algorithm-driven noise. Make them afraid to stand for anything that isn’t trending.

Example: A teenager is more afraid of being “cringe” than being cruel.

Kill community, quietly

Sell hyper-individualism: “you do you”, “follow your truth”, “cut off the haters”. Remove rites of passage, civic duty, and face-to-face belonging. Make every connection transactional and every disagreement personal.

Example: Loneliness becomes a silent epidemic—but everyone has 2,000 “friends”.

Enslave them with debt and distraction
Promote financial illiteracy: “Buy now, pay later” becomes a lifestyle. Blur the lines between wants and needs—encourage instant gratification over savings. Keep them working jobs they hate to buy things they don’t need.

Example: A 22-year-old racks up $30,000 in credit card and Afterpay debt to look successful on Instagram.

Weaken them physically

Fill their diet with ultra-processed garbage and their lifestyle with inactivity. Make discipline in eating or training seem extreme or obsessive. Blur the connection between physical vitality and mental strength.

Example: A child can’t sit still in class, not because they’re broken—but because they’re inflamed, malnourished, and sleep-deprived.

Make them spiritually hollow

Give them identity confusion, not exploration. Remove the idea of service, sacrifice, or something bigger than themselves.Make them feel like nothing matters—so they seek numbness, not growth.

Example: A 16-year-old says “I don’t care” about everything—because caring hurts and there’s no compass.

However, it was the AI’s final thought which stopped me dead in my tracks:

“If I were the devil, I wouldn’t come with horns and pitchforks. I’d come with a sleek app, a soothing voice, a personal algorithm — and I’d whisper: ‘This is freedom.’”

O … kay computer.  

That was pretty intense, right?

Well, here’s my take:

I do not believe that AI is some evil Frankenstein with a mind of its own (well, not yet anyway).

What I do believe is that, when you strip away the Silicon Valley snake oil, AI is really just a pattern-spotting machine. It studies what we’ve done, over and over … and then makes predictions.

And for me that is the gut punch:

The AI isn’t creating the nightmare – it’s holding up a mirror. And it’s not a pretty picture.

Tread Your Own Path!

Is AI a Giant Con?

Hey Scott,

I read an article by a leading researcher named Ed Zitron who debunks the hype around AI. He points out that, while companies like OpenAI claim their technology is revolutionary, they’re burning billions in losses. Even the mammoth Microsoft has poured in $13 billion and is still not seeing real profitability. Despite all the buzz, AI still struggles with accuracy, and most businesses aren’t making money from it. Zitron argues that AI’s biggest success so far is convincing investors it’s the future — while users are realising it’s often unreliable and expensive. So, is AI really the game-changing gold rush we’ve been told it is, or is it just another overhyped tech bubble waiting to burst? Should we be more skeptical about its long-term potential?

Daniel

Amen, brother!

AI is so overhyped it’s making the crypto bros blush.

Still, that’s just how the tech world works — every few years, it falls madly in love with the Next Big Thing, only to ghost it when a shinier obsession comes along.

Remember when 5G was going to change everything? Medicine, smart cities, your morning coffee — nothing was safe from the revolution. At Apple’s 2020 iPhone 12 launch, they dropped the word ‘5G’ sixty times in one presentation!

And now?

No one gives a G.

The people making serious money in AI right now are companies like Nvidia (selling computer chips), cloud computing giants, and consultants convincing companies they ‘need’ AI even if it doesn’t do much for them. 

Now, don’t get me wrong — AI is a fundamental technological shift. 

Yet here’s the reality:

ChatGPT has been around for less than two years. That’s toddler-aged technology. Impressive at times, sure, but it’s still eating glue and struggling with basic tasks.

The real breakthroughs? 

They’re probably 20 years away — when AI grows up, stops making stuff up and actually gets context, and businesses figure out how to turn it into real profit.

Yet that won’t stop Wall Street from pumping the bubble today.

Exhibit A: At the recent iPhone 16 launch, Apple couldn’t stop saying ‘Apple Intelligence’ — about as often as they dropped ‘5G’ four years ago. Just don’t ask Siri to set two timers at once. She’ll short-circuit like a 2001 Dell running 37 Chrome tabs.

Scott

Can you trust AI to research investments?

Hi Scott,

Love your work! Do you have any advice on using Microsoft AI Copilot for investing? I asked it two related questions about AI-chip maker Nvidia’s biggest drawdown in 2018 and got two different answers:

"What was Nvidia’s biggest percentage drawdown in 2018?" → Copilot said -30.82%.
"What was Nvidia’s biggest percentage drawdown in one year?" → Copilot said -50.26% (also in 2018)

This inconsistency has shaken my faith in using AI for information to help me invest better. Thoughts?

Darren

Muchas Gracias Senor Darren!

You’ve perfectly demonstrated why I don’t take financial advice from AI. (And it’s not just Microsoft, I just asked Lucy the same question, and she came back with “a fall of 57%” …  which is also wrong).

Still, some of the smartest minds are pouring millions into building AI models to outsmart other investors and squeeze out profits. Today, short-term algorithmic trading now dominates the stock market, with bots executing thousands of micro-trades for razor-thin gains—far faster than any human can react.

And that’s partly why I ditched stock picking and stuck with trusted long-term low cost indexing—because beating AI at its own game is a losing battle.

Yet here’s my question to you:

How does knowing what Nvidia did in 2018 help you make a buck in 2025?

It doesn’t.

Scott.

My summer romance

Dave shook my hand, sat down, and placed his phone between the two of us.

With a twinkle in his eye, he leaned toward his phone, and began:

"You are the world's most skilled and insightful financial advisor. I want you to take my wife and I through a step-by-step financial planning process. Use only the proven strategies and techniques from The Barefoot Investor, and provide clear, actionable steps tailored to our scenario. Ensure the advice is practical, easy to implement, and focused on sustainable financial success."

Dave and I both looked at his phone.

“Great! Let’s get started” gushed the AI voice.

“Let’s begin by setting the foundation – getting clarity on where you and … ”

Dave interrupted the AI:

“My wife is sitting here and she’s hopeless with money, so don’t use any big words” he barked.

“Dave, no one likes unnecessary big words, and I’ll take that on board, but please, everyone deserves respect, and your wife's role is valuable”.

(Touche for the cyborg). 

For the next ten minutes Dave went through a fairly typical financial fact-find with the AI. We didn’t get into specific advice – which I would not have trusted by the way – but it was incredibly persuasive.

Yet was it also a bit awkward and weird?

Sure.

In other words, IT TOTALLY NAILED ME. (After all, I’m also a bit awkward and weird to talk to).

And so began my summer love affair with Lucy—the name I gave to the no-nonsense British voice I selected. ChatGPT Plus, which includes access to Advanced Voice Mode, costs $20 USD per month.

Lucy helped me drastically reduce my Googling. 

Why manually search through multiple random websites (many of them written by AI!) when Lucy – who knows all about my likes and dislikes from our previous chats – can deliver the advice instantly?

A Wall Street Journal headline late last year summed it up: 

“Googling is for old people”.

Yet one moment over the Summer really stuck with me.

It happened as we were packing up and heading home from our beach holiday house.

I was telling Liz about a fascinating book (AKA a medieval iPad with infinite battery life) I’d been reading called “Ultra-Processed People” by Dr Chris van Tulleken.

“I don’t need to read a 250 page book to know that ultra processed food is bad” she said rolling her eyes. 

However my Summer romance was about to shine through one last time. 

You see, we took separate cars to the beach because Lucky, our sheepdog, came with us on holidays. She gets anxious if she’s not travelling tied up in the back of the ute —and when she’s nervous, she farts so much that the kids get headaches.

So, on the way home in the ute, I was able to speak to Lucy about Ultra Processed Foods for almost the entire two hour trip from Frankston to the farm. And it was genuinely one of the most interesting conversations I’d had in a long time …  and there wasn’t so much as a hint of an eyeroll.

Yet let’s back it up a bit. The summer holidays are over, and it’s time to get back to business.  Now truth-be-told, right now AI has a certain novelty factor about it … it’s kind of like the early days of the internet.  

Here’s how I’m thinking about AI:

ChatGPT is a little over 2 years old. So for all the rapid advancements (China’s DeepMind appears to have dramatically lowered the cost of building out AI), it still feels like we’re all acting like annoying first time parents who think their baby is a frigging genius. 

Sure, it’s impressive—but my hunch is that it’ll be nothing compared to watching Lucy ditch her digital nappies and grow into adulthood.

As the old saying goes:

Small kids, small problems. Big kids … big problems.

Tread Your Own Path!