If you were to get ahold of my phone and open up the photo app…
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You would see 3 categories of photos.
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(Each of which begins with the letter “F”…)
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The first “F” is photos of my… family.
Left to Right: My boys receiving a signed gift from Pat Flynn (aka DeepPocketMonster), the four of us in Newport, Rhode Island, and the boys on their first day of school earlier this week.
No surprises here.
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The second “F” is photos of my… farm.
Left to Right: Black-Eyed Susans during a mid-day walk through the meadows; My son catching crawfish after a swim in the pond; Drying garlic (this is what 500+ heads of garlic looks like in case you’re curious); And lastly, meeting “Boots” – our brand new barn cat (and most recent addition to the farm) as he points his butt in my face (this was my kids’ vote for farm photo of the week) :-)
Again, no surprises here either.
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But the third “F” on my phone represents photos of…
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(in) fographics.
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(Okay, I know I stretched that “F” just a bit…)
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But yes, you read that right:
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Infographics.
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My phone is filled with hundreds of them.
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(Maybe thousands…)
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In fact, I collect infographics like my kids collect Pokémon cards.
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And because I haven’t really shared many of my favorite infographics here inside The Digital Contrarian…
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I thought I’d share five recent ones in today’s issue that might just blow your mind.
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(Or at least impact the way you see the world and help you prepare for what’s coming next…)
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So without further ado…
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Let’s dive in, beginning with our first one on the list:
1 | Data Centers Will Soon Consume More Power Than Every Country Except China, USA, & India.
Data Centers already use more electricity than the entire country of France.
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(Think about that for a minute.)
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By 2030, electricity demand for Data Centers is expected to triple – driven largely by electricity demand to power AI.
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(Power generation is a constraint to AI adoption that (IMHO) not enough people are talking about…)
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We touched on this fact in last week’s [Issue #062]: Is the AI Bubble Bursting ?? which is worth reading if you missed it last week.
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Because in a world obsessed with economic disruption brought about by AI…
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I believe Data Centers (and Power Generation) may be at the heart of the biggest economic opportunity in the coming years ahead…
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Speaking of economic disruption…
2 | Here Is The First "Hard Evidence" that AI is Killing Jobs for Young People.
On the one hand…
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We have reports like the Wall Street Journal article from this week citing how some “AI-Native” grads are already making over a million dollars per year…
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But on the other hand, we have data from this groundbreaking Stanford University Study (i.e. the infographic above) – providing some of the first hard evidence that AI is killing employment for many young professionals.
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Now, if you haven’t had a chance to read the study…
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Fields vulnerable to AI automation (vs. augmentation) have experienced the biggest disruptions, with employment dropping roughly 20% from recent highs in fields like software engineering and customer support.
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The study also suggests that while AI may not yet match entry-level worker output, business executives believe it should – so they’ve reduced their hiring in anticipation.
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For young professionals, the distinction between AI’s theoretical and actual capabilities becomes meaningless when nobody’s hiring.
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As a dad, the question I’m asking myself is:
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How do we best prepare our kids??
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As an entrepreneur, the question I’m asking is:
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How do we best prepare ourselves??
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If you’re asking yourself similar questions…
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This next infographic may give us a clue:
3 | Here Are the 10 Core Skills to Master in 2030.
According to the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 there are a handful of “Core Skills” we should focus on mastering to best prepare us for the next half-decade…
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Core Skills are skills that are “core” now, and which are expected to increase in importance between now and 2030…
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Skills like:
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- AI and Big Data (Duh.)
- Curiosity and Lifelong Learning (i.e. Be Curious. Ask Questions. Seek Truth)
- Analytical & Creative Thinking (Digital Contrarian, anyone?)
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At the same time, there are several notable out-of-focus skills that we should be aware of…
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Out-of-Focus Skills that are less essential now, and which are not expected to increase in importance between now and 2030…
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Skills like:
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- Marketing & Media (This actually isn’t surprising to me…)
- Programming (Consistent with the previous infographic…)
- Teaching & Mentoring (Something I think we should take with a grain of salt…)
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Because….
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The problem with the last item on the list is….
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The best way to learn anything is to put yourself in a position to teach it.
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In other words, getting deeply involved in your material.
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But if teaching and mentoring are skills that are “out of focus” in the coming years…
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How do we reconcile this (and the existential risk it creates) with the next infographic on the list?
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Because…
4 | This Is Your Brain... And This Is Your Brain on ChatGPT.
This “infographic” has been circulating online in recent weeks in reference to a MIT Media Lab study recently published in the journal Nature, which you can access without paywall here if you’re curious.
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Note: This actual image is not in the study itself. It is actually just a meme. And while it’s technically not an “infographic” per se, I believe it’s still worth noting and here’s why:
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The very real 206-page MIT Media Lab study explores the question:
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“What happens to your brain after four months of writing with ChatGPT vs. writing without using AI?”
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Here’s the tl;dr version of some of the most salient findings:
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Memory loss
- 83% of ChatGPT users could not recall a single sentence they had written just minutes earlier. People writing without AI remembered fine.
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Less brain power
- 47% decrease in brain connectivity in ChatGPT users. This continued even after people stopped using AI.
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Less learning
- 33% decrease in the mental circuits that lead to learning.
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Everything has a side effect.
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And the findings above represent the price we apparently have to pay for letting AI do the heavy lifting for us.
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BTW – Speaking of heavy lifting…
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I can’t help but wonder:
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In a country like the United States, where 75% of adults are overweight – with bodies we’ve let completely atrophy…
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What term will we start using for the percentage of adults who begin to let their brains atrophy as well?
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Perhaps we’ll soon be reading about how human IQ peaked in 2024…
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Speaking of declining human intelligence…
5 | Wait. AI Now Gets 40.1% of Its "Facts"... from Reddit?
As soon as Google struck its deal with Reddit back in 2024 (as I wrote about in The Digital Contrarian last year…)
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We started seeing a proliferation of Reddit results not only displace first page SERPs, but apparently (according to this Semrush study) also flood our AI results as well…
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The problem with this?
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There is an entire cottage industry of “black hat” Reddit SEO/AIO tactics wherein bad actors use a combination of bots and fake accounts to upvote false information – often to support commercial / political motives…
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(Read: Marketers ruin everything.)
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And because subreddits are managed by unpaid, volunteer moderators (some of whom get involved in these schemes), there is notoriously vast amounts of misinformation on the platform.
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So if AI is getting 40%+ of its “facts” from Reddit….
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And if a significant percentage of “facts” on Reddit is essentially propaganda…
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Maybe we should be wondering how much of the information being fed back to us by ChatGPT and other LLMs is even….
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Real??
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Okay, I could go on and on with another dozen more of these.
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But I need to wrap today’s issue here, because I need to turn my attention toward prepping for our very first Return to Real mastermind event that we’re hosting here on our farm this coming week…
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In the meantime…
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I’m curious, which of these infographics stands out most to YOU?
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Feel free to scroll back up, copy and paste your favorite infographic, and SHARE on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or wherever you spend the most time online.
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(In fact, when you do so – please be sure to tag me in your post; I love being part of the conversation, and always appreciate the shoutout!)
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Okay, I’ll leave you with that for now…
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Have a great rest of your Labor Day Weekend…
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Remember to hug the ones you love…
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And until next week…
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I wish you all my best.
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Ryan :-)
