There was no announcement.
No warning.
One day, what made us valuable, what we spent our lives building, just stopped mattering the way it used to.
For decades, knowledge was power.
It bought careers, credibility, and control.
If you were the one who knew, you were the one who got ahead.
But now?
Tap a screen. Find a machine. Ask a question.
The answers we once learned the hard way are available to anyone, instantly, and for free.
Something fundamental has shifted under our feet.
And if you built your life on knowing things, you can feel it.
The old playbook doesn’t work anymore.
And it’s time we talk about why.
The Rules We Built Our Lives Around Changed Overnight
For most of my life, success had a formula:
Learn more → Know more → Be worth more.
You didn’t need to be flashy, you just needed to be smart.
Lawyers, accountants, editors, researchers, we built careers around what we knew and how tightly we held that expertise.
The social order was our job model.
You went to school, studied hard, worked long hours, and earned your place.
You kept your skills sharp and your insights close. In return, you were rewarded with:
- Stability
- Status
- Influence
What you knew made you irreplaceable.
What you didn’t share often made you invaluable.
Knowledge wasn’t just power.
It was your identity.
And it made sense because back then, real, practical information was hard to find.
There was no Google. No instant access. No second screen.
You had to dig. You had to earn it.
And if you had access to rare books, journals, or mentors? You had an edge. People respected that. They relied on it.
For decades, this was the quiet contract we signed:
The more you know, the safer you are.
The Knowledge Flood No One Saw Coming
Then the flood came.
Not all at once. Not with sirens. But it came.
Around 2023 and 2024, tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and others started doing what used to take years of training in seconds.
- Need a contract reviewed? AI can explain it.
- Want to learn a new skill? AI will guide you.
- Confused about a tax rule, medical term, or editing process? Ask once. Get a decent answer.
Not always perfect.
But fast. Cheap. Accessible.
And improving by the week.
What used to be rare knowledge is now default access.
You don’t need credentials to “know”. You just need the right prompt, and a tool that knows how to summarize something.
And suddenly, everything we were taught to protect…
Became available to everyone.
The Experts Lose Their Edge
This part is hard to say… but even harder to ignore.
If you’ve spent decades becoming an expert, you’ve likely felt the shift:
- Your deep knowledge feels less needed
- Your finely tuned skills don’t feel as respected
- Your identity, your role as the “go-to” guy, feels shaken
Not because you got worse.
But because the ground moved, and AI has claimed all of the “How To” terrain you used to occupy.
In doing this, AI erased what you held valuable. In doing so, it redefines what society considers valuable.
With AI, people aren’t asking who knows the answer.
They’re asking how fast they can get it.
And for those of us who were taught that knowledge is security, it’s a psychological shock.
Your career just did a 180. That which you hold in your hands, that degree, that certificate of knowledge, that diploma, no longer holds sway over anyone.
The price of knowledge has dropped to nearly zero.
This huge change means that knowledge doesn’t work as a currency anymore. It doesn’t feel rare, it doesn’t feel earned, and people sense that its value dropped overnight.
Beyond general facts, even specialized advice is just a query away. Students draft essays in minutes, business owners get marketing strategies instantly, and professionals troubleshoot with AI at their fingertips.
Yes, there are mistakes and limitations, but the pace of accessibility is breathtaking. The genie is out of the bottle, and it is clear that simply knowing things isn’t a ticket to influence anymore.
Boomers & Late Bloomers Feel Obsolete
Are these expert roles all going away? Probably not, but they’re changing fast. The Boomer identity, so often built on having paid your dues through learning and doing, meets a real shock here. It feels strange, almost like being made obsolete not by a person, but by a machine, or by someone who uses that machine more smoothly.
People who found meaning in being the source of answers or who enjoyed mentoring others will feel displaced.
It’s a change that asks lifelong professionals to switch things up far faster than they imagined.
The psychological impact can be just as deep as the economic one, especially when society starts valuing speed and access over depth and lived experience.
What Makes You Valuable Now
Once it sinks in that knowledge doesn’t carry the same weight it used to, there’s a void that most people don’t know what to do with.
If AI can give everyone the same answers, what still makes you valuable?
Here’s the truth I’ve come to accept:
It’s not about how much you know anymore.
It’s about what you do with what everyone else also knows.
The new economy runs on things AI can’t replicate:
🔸 Perspective and Angle
- Raw facts are everywhere
- But insight? That’s still rare.
Your perspective filters the noise and shows others what matters. Forget about How, focus on the Why instead.
🔸 Clarity and Pattern Recognition
- AI can summarize anything, but
- It’s never been wrong, and had to live with it
- It doesn’t know hallucination from reality
- It can sound right and still be irrelevant.
- You know
- What to trust
- When to question the timing or the context
- The exceptions that make or break a decision
The value isn’t in knowing more, it’s in seeing what others miss while they’re still scrolling.
🔸 Application and Adaptation
- Knowledge without context is just trivia.
You know how to apply what works, when it matters, and why some things don’t.
🔸 Storytelling and Connection
- People don’t follow data
- They follow the voice. They trust the stories
- They respond to being understood
Connections have always been human. And now, it’s your greatest asset.
🔸 Experience and Discernment
If you’re a Boomer or a late bloomer, this is your edge.
- You’ve lived through real consequences
- You’ve seen what theory misses
- You can see through the B.S.
That kind of judgment? It’s not downloadable.
The New Value Equation – You & AI
AI can help you get there faster.
But only you know where to go.
Treat AI like a teammate, and your relevance multiplies.
AI won’t replace what you know, but it does expand what you can accomplish.
You draft quicker. Test faster. Think wider.
But the direction, the why behind the work, still comes from the heart.
In a world of instant access, sameness is easy.
But value?
That comes from the one who brings depth to speed and judgment to automation.
The basics are covered. That’s what AI is for.
But the signal in the noise, the clarity, the creativity, the meaning, that still comes from you.
You & AI isn’t a shortcut. It’s a skillset.
And in a sea of sameness, it’s your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that becomes your advantage.
The New Skill for Wielding AI Power
I used to think having all the answers was the goal.
But in this new world, that’s not enough.
The edge now belongs to those who ask better questions, see further, and use AI like a colleague, not a tool.
We call it prompt engineering.
Not because it’s technical, but because it’s intentional.
The skill is about guiding the narrative with the help of AI.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Knowing What to Ask: Clarity begins at the first question. Are you just curious, or are you driving toward a decision?
- Providing Context: AI works best when you set the frame. Scope, audience, tone—you are the director here.
- Iterating Intelligently: The first answer is rarely the best. Mastery means knowing when to push, when to pivot, and when to ask again.
- Evaluating Critically: AI isn’t infallible. It is persuasive though. There’s a difference. Your discerning eye is what keeps outcomes grounded.
- Shaping the Output: The real value is how you reshape and apply the output in context. That’s where impact lives.
In a world where everyone has access to the same tools, value belongs to the one who knows how to use them well.
Prompt engineers aren’t the new techies.
They’re the new translators, strategists, and guides.
In this new era, that’s who will lead us.
Is Power in Knowledge Really Dead? Facing the Real Question
After all this, I keep coming back to the question: Is knowledge really dead?
Yes—and no.
The traditional concept of “Knowledge is Power” as a standalone currency is, indeed, dead.
We can no longer rely on what we know to secure influence, stability, or financial gain. Blackmail is illegal.
AI has made knowledge obsolete by putting answers at everyone’s fingertips. School knowledge, book knowledge, and static expertise have lost their value as tradable assets in this new world.
Like a phoenix rising up out of the ashes, the real power emerges. It’s in the synthesis of what you know with what makes you uniquely human, your lived story, your perspective, and your ability to wield AI as a guide, wielding a machete cuts through the underbrush.
Knowledge hasn’t been erased. It has transformed into a commodity that, when paired with clarity, connection, and discernment, becomes more impactful than ever.
For Boomers like me, this shift is a call to action. Pick up the sword of AI today. and weild it intellegently.
My big picture thinking showed me the Death of Google Search in 2023. Today, it is down 30% as people continue to shift away from those thin blue links to faster answers from ChatGPT.
The ground has changed, and our opportunity now is to blend our decades of experience with these new tools. We can create something that AI alone can’t replicate. The meaning, direction, and human connection in a noisy, automated world is where we will reside.
I’m here to be your guide, your curator, and your steady hand, helping you navigate this new landscape where the power isn’t in knowledge alone, it’s in what you do with it.
That’s the adventure I’m ready for, and I’m here to lead the way.
