"We Only Got 18 Months" | TP&C | Episode 94

Episode 94 — We Only Got 18 Months | Think Pieces and Conversations Podcast

In this episode of Think Pieces and Conversations, we get into the speed of AI and the warning that we may only have 18 months to get serious about building new skills before the entire landscape changes.

We talk about why now is the time to start stacking knowledge in generative AI, prompt engineering, AI agents, automation, professional certificates, free skill-building resources, and anything that can help you stay valuable in a world that is moving faster than most people are prepared for. The question is simple: are you preparing, or are you waiting until the change is already here?

I also tell a personal story about a run-in I had at a fast food restaurant and how that situation made me think deeper about where certain people may be in the next 18 months if they are not paying attention to what is happening. Fast food, retail, customer service, office work, creative work, college, school, and almost every industry will be touched by AI in some way.

This episode is about preparation, awareness, and the reality that AI education may soon become as mandatory as math, science, English, and social studies. The world is shifting. The people who adapt early will have options. The people who ignore it may be forced to react later.

"We Only Got 18 Months" is a conversation about urgency, skill-building, survival, and choosing to evolve before the system makes that choice for you.

Link to the Free Microsoft Generative AI Course for Certification:
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/career-essentials-in-generative-ai-by-microsoft-and-linkedin

Transcript

0:00

The things that give accompanying edge the present in this present day can literally be obsolete in 30 days. I'm like, yo, hold on. You got a man? She looked back, she smiled. She say, How old you think I am? Soon she says that an alarm rings off in my head. Like one of them DEF CON Emergency Fire Alarms rang in my head. I said, yo, usually women ask me how old I am. So I already knew that this conversation wasn't gonna go how I think it was gonna go. Welcome to another episode of Think Pieces and Conversations. We starting out early. We starting out early. We living in a time where things are moving very fast, scarily fast, alarmingly fast. You don't know what society's gonna look like in ten years. You don't know what societies look gonna look like in two years. So today, right? Don't judge me for this. I'm going to City Barbecue. Shout out to City Barbecue. Shout out to the people that know what that is. Um, it's a new spot over here. It's a it's like a fast food restaurant. They serve uh a lot of barbecue-inspired dishes. They serve brisket, they serve uh collard greens, they serve certain type of fries with the uh the sauces they got special names like brush fire, things like that. There's always a barbecue, charcoal, charcoal taste behind every dish. Well, at least the ones I've had. So I'm at the drive-thru spot. Right? I'm at the drive-thru spot. I see this chicken there. I'm like, damn, she look like she about 23. You know, she a nice looking chick. Whatever. You know, as a man, we don't look at we don't look at where they at. We don't look at stuff like that. We just say, oh, she cute. She got a nice, you know what I'm saying? Let's see what she's talking about. So I do this. I'm like, yo, as soon as she comes out to give me my food, first of all, before that, she like yo, go pull up to the front and uh I'm gonna give you your food or whatever. I'm like, I bet. So when I got a target on my head, on somebody's head, mind you, I'm thinking this girl is 23 years old. At least. So I'm like, alright. I got a target on her head. I'm like, yo, man, as soon as she comes outside, man, I'm gonna ask her if she got a man or not. I'm gonna start the conversation off. I'm plotting. As soon as I plot, I'm always plotting if I like a joint that much. Mind you, after I speak to her, that light goes away. So she comes outside, I look in my bag, I see the wrong sauce in my bag. I'm like, yo. Before I say anything, she goes, Oh, you got the wrong sauce. I'm like, Yeah, you gotta give me the brush file. She likes uh you're gonna have to give me those sauces back. I'm like, yo, you should just let me keep the sauces. She starts smiling. She's like, uh, can't do that, can't do that. You know how the Georgia chicks talk. Right? So she come back, she gave me the three sauces. I'm like, yo, hold on, you got a man? I'm like, yo, hold on, you got a man? She looked back, she smiled. She say, How old do you think I am? Soon she says that an alarm rings off in my head. Like one of them DEF CON emergency fire alarms rang in my head. I said, yo, usually women ask me how old I am. So I already knew that this conversation wasn't gonna go how I think it was gonna go. So I automatically stand guard. I say, yo. About 23. Every cell in my body, from her asking me that first question, I knew I was wrong. She was like, yo, you way off. She's like, yo, you way off. I looked around, I said, whatever her answer is, I already know I'm gonna be, I'm not gonna be attracted no more. Cause I ain't trying to catch no Epstein charges. She said, yo, I'm 17. I looked at her, I said, yo, uh forget everything I just said. She laughs, I drive off. And I thought about it. I was like, yo. Say if I was like, say if I said some stupid shit like yo, uh, you got two more years or say some stupid shit like that. I thought about that. I was like, yo, what if I said some stupid shit like that, right? Somebody would have said that. And I thought about how much things can happen in a two-year span. I thought about AI. I thought about where the service industry would be, even her job. I'm thinking far beyond just asking a chick for her number at this point. I'm thinking about AI. I don't know why. Actually, I do know why. Today I got a certificate. I did some AI training online. I got a certificate. I'm gonna show it to you right now. This is a certificate I got from uh in from LinkedIn. It's called Career Essentials in Generative AI by Microsoft and LinkedIn. It took about five or six hours. Completed all the modules, passed the test with like an A92 or something like that, got the certificate. I'm like, yo, in two years, even in six years, uh uh uh when this lady, this young lady would have been 23, the age that I thought she was, I was like, yo, imagine how much life is going to change in six years, right? I know I was long-winded with the story, but I want you to think about this in this perspective that job she has might be gone by the time she turns 23. It probably won't be occupied by a human in six years. Then I thought I was like, yo, I watched the YouTube video. They're like, yo, uh, this is where I even got the link to even get this uh this training course. They was like, yo, you got 18 months. You got 18 months before your competition in AI, you getting a job in AI, you doing this in AI, everything becomes exponentially harder. You got 18 months. This was a YouTube video that came out a month ago. So I was like, let me go get these certificates. This is one of four, one of five. I can't even send this to people that uh would benefit off of it because everybody's not as focused as I am, or everybody's not as focused as the next guy that understands this window of time that we have, which is a year and a half to gain the skills in order to be competitive for this next phase in AI and society. There was a time when two years, yeah, technology would be different in two years, but it wouldn't be drastically different in this AR era that we in literally in thirty days, something that seemed to have given you an edge or accompanying edge can be completely obsolete. The things that give accompanying edge the present in this present day can literally be obsolete in 30 days. Currently, right now, I got I got some time off from work, and I'm taking a few classes while I'm off. Besides this, besides this uh one certificate that I got. Thought about the lady. I was like, yo, I wonder if she's learning about AI. Forget all the I'm already off the get it the number thing because I ain't trying to go to jail. That's dead. I was like, yo, I wonder if she's learning how to do this shit. There's a lot of people that's gonna fall behind in this thing. As I'm going through this certificate, though, going back on the subject of this certificate, I want to give y'all some good news. They are considering ethics when it comes to AI, they are considering and uh letting people know that the human intelligence and the human creativity and the human point of view is just as important as generative predictive AI, it's just as important as clawed code, chat GPT, uh uh uh Google Gemini. We power these these things, so the ethics in the background, they are making sure, hopefully, that the human element is pedestalized and protected, but that's no guarantee. In the small eighteen months that we have, when that lady that I was talking to becomes twenty or nineteen or whatever, there's gonna be courses in college, if not right now, that's gonna be mandatory, such as a math, uh uh uh English. They're gonna have mandatory AI courses in those colleges. Just like how back in the day when they had mandatory math courses, AI is gonna be Mando. You see this apple right here? Off subject. This apple is a fragrance. This is off subject. Uh, this is what I got today, and the funny thing about this apple, there's another apple that's on the iPhone. I can't show it because I got a case. There's an apple that's behind your iPhone right now. You can go look at that's when humanity first seen this apple, as far as it being being behind a phone, that's when we tapped into the dangers of knowledge and how powerful and how dangerous knowledge is. AI is us taking another bite out of this apple. We have the power to make things better in our lives, increase creativity. There was a module that I went through in this in this uh class that I went through. There was a module where a lady was on there, she was like, Yo, AI isn't meant to stifle your creativity, it is meant to open it up, it is meant to destroy all barriers of entry to where you could just think of something and exercise your creativity effortlessly with this AI system or this large language model or this AI music program or this AI uh video editing program or this AI whatever whatever program. The future of AI is effortless creation, but we don't want to take away the uh uh the spirit, the soul of every human's creation. We don't want to take that away because that's what makes art unique, that's what makes a creation unique, that's what makes a creation quality, mediocre, excellent, Oscar level, Grammy worthy. These are the things that make that beautiful and special, and AI at its peak, at its fully realized form, is going to make sure that you create effortlessly with a thought, but it's still unique to you. And I'm like, that sounds like a beautiful that sounds like a beautiful uh uh outcome. Hopefully we get to see that, right? Hopefully we get to see that, but I'm not taking no chances, and I don't think you should neither. You need to find some of these courses. I might put this in in the description so you can see it, and you go do it for yourself. You're gonna have to make a LinkedIn profile. This is a free course, you don't have to buy nothing. This teaches you about generative AI, Microsoft Copilot, uh uh content creation, prompt engineering, it teaches you about a lot of things, and it's a great beginner. Uh, it's it's actually a professional certificate. This is I might could get a good job off of this. This by Microsoft, right? Take that time and learn these things because in 18 months, you know how the the OGs tell me, yo, every year a bad bitch turned twenty-one every year, gang. Jobs are gonna be leaving, jobs are gonna be getting cut or changed up every month because of AI. Don't wait until you start scrambling. This is what I'm doing. I'm not waiting till I gotta scramble. I'm in scramble mode right now. Every night, I have broken sleep because of AI. Every single night I got broken sleep, every single night because I'm anxious, I gotta do something. I I can't be comfortable, I haven't been comfortable in years, to be honest. Something is making me move, and I don't know what it is when I started learning about AI and getting these certificates. I was like, things started to ease up a little bit, but I'm still empathetic. I still be like, damn, what is everybody else doing? Is everybody else on this? I use AI and just content creation in general. I'm I'm already practiced in AI, but there's certain skills that you gotta learn, I guess, in the workplace, for the workplace, for when AI becomes fully integrated into every single company that we know of right now, especially if you're in a Fortune 500. Guarantee 100% of the Fortune 500 got some type of AI going on with it, and I want to get more money. So, why not learn it? But yeah, that's all I gotta say, bro. This is Think Pieces and Conversations. Hopefully, you enjoyed the episode. Make sure you like, comment, subscribe to the channel, and we're gonna highlight you for the next time. 18 months. 18 months. Take advantage of your time. You don't have to take that trip. You don't have to go out that weekend with that girl. She sh listen, she you're not the only option anyway, my nigga. Sorry to tell you. Get your certificates, get your education up. I'm taking that foot forward. You should take that foot forward too. I'm out of here.