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Following are my personal comments on specific markets and issues. I chart markets for a hobby and my comments are the result. They are not recommendations to buy or sell anything and should not be thought of as such. They are for entertainment purposes only so enjoy.
Please remember, the following is pure speculation based only on my experience and chart patterns. "Every sunken ship has a room full of charts."
David Bruce Edwards
August 2, 2025
Note - I got a new wider screen monitor and when I look at this web site with the screen size in full, the site spacing does not come out properly. By making the window less wide all of the text and graphics slide into place. Perhaps you are having the same experience. DBE.
As usual, I will show pictures and graphs found on Zerohedge.com, Sentimentrader.com, which include the Seasonality charts and charts made on Barchart.com. I will also mention "cycle low timing bands" suggested by another market website to which I subscribe, Cyclesman.com
The United States and the EU reached an agreement on trade and the Fed didn't budge on overnight lending rates. The trauma from trade negotiations is fading, unless you are a copper futures trader. The big deal yet to be done is with China. Both sides agreed to another extension which the markets think is good enough for now. With "never a dull moment" the theme of the Trump administration, the focus shifted to increased tensions with Russia. My guess is that this will twist and turn in unpredictable ways later this month. In the meantime, the lull in tariff uncertainly meant that economic data was once again important. Here are some of the numbers that influenced markets.
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The upper left side graph shows last week's data on New Claims for Unemployment. The blue line shows the raw number without seasonal adjustments and the green line includes them. The adjusted number came in at 218,000. The upper right graph shows the four week moving average of claims which is at 1,946,000, above the 1,900,000 everyone was worried about a few months ago. The four week average is down to 221,000. Even ADP's monthly payroll number that came out Wednesday (lower left) rose above 100,000. The lower right side graph shows jobless claims from the tri-state area around Washington, DC. Elon Musk and DOGE fans see the upward trajectory as a victory, with job losses among government workers, contractors and NGOs. It was not all good news. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the big outplacement company said that corporations announced 62,075 job cuts in July, more than twice the number for last July. Technology companies are leading the job cut race.
Above and to the left are the graphs of the Headline and Core (minus food and Energy) Personal Consumption Expenditures. Years ago, Chairman Powell said he paid extra attention to this data when thinking about inflation so analysts do the same. Both numbers rose slightly into the mid and upper 2% range. The Services Less Shelter reading came in at 0.19% month over month and 3.18% on an annual basis. Spending and Income were both up 4.7% year over year.
Last week I heard an economist talk about the impact of tariffs on prices. She said that 70% of our economy is based on Consumption and 70% of that is Services which are less impacted by tariffs. Her firm's best calculation is that if tariffs stay in the 15% to 20% range, they will be equal to a 2% consumption tax.
The initial tally of last quarter's GDP was 3% (upper leftt) which surprised most economists. In a way, the doubters were right. The details show that the biggest contributor to the plus three was a big drop in imports (far right blue bar on right side upper graph). Imports are subtracted from the GDP calculation so when imports drop, it adds to GDP. Are fewer goods and services being moved, marked up a bit and sold for a profit really good for the economy? Ask the companies that sell imported tile, clothing and shoes that are laying off their workers and filing for bankruptcy.
Directly to the left are U.S. Final Sales - the total amount of stuff bought and sold in the private sector. For the quarter it came in at 1.2%. Notice the trend as shown by the dashed red arrow. This does not look like a booming consumer economy.
Job openings fell in June (last month of data) but there are still more jobs available than there are workers looking for jobs. Economists say that there has never been a recession when jobs outnumbered job seekers. On the right is a tally of hires and quits. When the "quits" number goes down it is interpreted as workers feeling less confident about finding new employment. If we have a bad week or two in the stock market, some of those job postings will disappear and fewer workers will risk quitting.
Orders for expensive aircraft cause wild gyrations in the monthly reports for Durable Goods. Most analysts watch the number Minus Transportation (left) as a better indicator. The month over month was 0.25% and the year over year, 2.23%. On the upper right is a Purchasing Manager's Survey on Manufacturing (Green line) and Services. Manufacturing fell into contraction, coming in at 49.5 while Services expanded.
Is inflation tamed? To the right is the response of Purchasing Managers on Output Prices. Lately they trended higher. Consumer prices tend to follow with a slight lag. Other regional Fed surveys of businesses show something similar with costs rising and the prices being charged also trending higher. Would you declare victory over inflation and cut overnight lending rates based on this information?
Sales of existing homes are still bouncing around very low numbers (upper left) while the realized Median Price hit a new high at $435,300. The inventory of homes for sale increased. Prices are not rising everywhere. The Case Schiller price index for the 20 largest cities reported declines in Denver (slight), Dallas, San Francisco and a big drop in Tampa.
Capping off the week was Friday's payrolls data for July. The consensus was for a print of 104,000 with "whisper numbers" in the 120,000 range. With stocks near all time highs and investors plowing into companies that will do well in a strong economy, Wall St. was looking for a solid July. Instead, the official number came in at 73,000. What shocked the market was that May was revised down from 144,000 to just 19,000 and June from 147,000 to only 14,000!
Worse still, the Household Survey, taken by calling homes and asking about employment, dropped by 260,000 jobs! Rate Cut expectations soared on the news as did the bond market. The Dollar hit the skids and gold rallied. The unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2%. Hourly earnings rose slightly on an annual basis from 3.8% to 3.9% while the average workweek for all non-farm jobs in the private sector rose one tenth of an hour to 34.3 hours per week. The Federal work force fell by 12,000. Total full-time jobs fell by 440,000 and part-time jobs rose by 237,000. Stocks, which were already headed for a lower opening sold off even more after the news and economists on TV thought that the Fed will have to cut overnight rates at their September meeting. An immediate casualty of the revisions was the Commissioner of Labor Statistics. President Trump fired her, stating, "No one can be that wrong."
The world bets on the future of countries in the currency market. In June, speculators were short Dollars and looking for a collapse. When tariffs did not produce rampant inflation or a visible slowdown, the Dollar rallied. It got another boost from the trade deal with the European Union. Currency traders saw Europe as the loser. So far, the move off the low shows three legs, an up, down up. Taken alone, that is a typical upside correction in a down market. The Dollar needs to rally again, above last week's high before falling through 97 to increase the odds that a significant bottom formed in June. The Green arrow on the left side Dollar Index chart shows the timing band for a typical 23 trading day cycle low. That puts the low now. It could be that the cycle bottomed early in the 97 range. We should know by the end of next week.
Two weeks ago, stocks, silver and gold were thought of as "unstoppable." Analysts on all three financial networks gushed with enthusiasm and made rare mention of platinum too. I wrote that it might be time to move toward an exit. By week's end the Dow Jones Industrials closed below the trading range of July and finished the week at price levels seen in November of last year. Above is an update on the similarity of this year's trading pattern to 1984's. Remember, correlations to previous markets work well as long as you are watching them. The day after you put money on a continuation, they diverge.
The S&P 500 is the most important market measurement to watch because there is so much money invested in S&P 500 Index Funds including most investors' retirement savings. It out performed the Dow Jones Industrials because of its weighting with a handful of mega tech companies. Arrows on the left side graph point to theoretical 39 trading day cycle lows as postulated by Cyclesman.com, my favorite market subscription. I always say that it is the best $400 I spend every year. If July 16th was the last low then the next one is not due until mid-September. A break below the July low will be the first lower low since April. Cyclesman.com also advises that there tends to be a smaller low then rebound around halfway through the 39 day period. The end of next week coincides with the 18th and 19th day of the current cycle. The right side chart of the S&P 500 has a simple RSI momentum oscillator below. Sometimes, a high reading is followed by a robust rally, but these tend to be right after a period of extreme pessimism. Other highs in the oscillator coincide with the same in stocks. Analysts who follow the history of momentum statistics say that with most industry groups rallying strongly since April, even if there are corrections, stocks should move higher over the next year as happend almost 100% of the time in past markets with similar characteristics. The few exceptions were the onset of recessions and were the exception, rather than the rule. After all the charts and analysis, it still comes down to the philosophical question asked by Clint Eastwood, playing Dirty Harry in Sudden Impact, "Do I feel lucky?"
Microsoft's earnings were great with beats all around. In their earnings report they said they expect to exceed $30 billion Dollars in cap ex in the coming quarter to support cloud and AI. Meta plans to spend between $66 billion and $72 billion in 2025 on the same. There are reports that Meta is poaching star talent from Apple and other big tech giants by offering huge pay increases. The immediate reaction to both sets of earnings was a spike to new highs in both companies. Commentators saw the billions in expenditures as a positive with future profits from AI limitless. Normally, huge increases in expenditures are not embraced by investors because there is no guarantee that the future envisioned by today's spenders will come to fruition. By week's end others began to think the same way and both stocks pulled back a bit.
Apple had good revenue and profits but investors were worried that buyers bought early to avoid tariffs and next quarter's numbers will not be that good. Recently there were reports that they are closing some of their stores in China due to a recent fall off in demand. Amazon's earnings looked great when announced and include $100 billion in cap ex for 2025 but, by the time they announced, cap ex fatigue had already set in. Between Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, the three plan to spend over $250 billion in 2025, focused on AI. The nature of these businesses is changing. Years ago, when you thought of Microsoft or Face-book (Meta), you thought of a modern building full of computers and nerds churning out software. Once the program was finished additional copies could be made for almost no money so each incremental buyer added to the company's revenue and profitability. The company's assets were super smart people and the well appointed spaces needed to pamper them. With AI, these companies are expanding into huge physical plants with massive amounts of hardware that will have to be continually maintained and updated with the newest chips and servers. Along with this comes all kinds of huge expenses such as cooling, electricity, regular physical plant maintenance and keeping local politicians and regulatory boards happy. The footprint and fixed costs of companies involved in data centers is rising dramatically. What was a speed boat is becoming an ocean liner. Should the price earnings ratios of these companies be more in line with other industrial ventures?
Alphabet's earnings were also great and they are spending $85 billion this year. The initial reaction was positive followed by the same worry over returns in an uncertain future. Nvidia is scheduled to report earnings on August 27th. Analysts say that the craze to build data centers using Nvidia chips is just getting started and is a world-wide phenomenon. But at some point, and sooner than expected, the market will hit saturation. My guess is that AI and data centers will be like something you see with gold mines. When a company announces fantastic gold assays from drill holes and plans for a mine, the stock soars. Once the mine opens, dreams face the reality of costs versus profits which are usually much less than first imagined and the shares sell off. If the economy slows in 2026 and there is a rethinking on the number of data centers needed based on actual demand then cap ex will fall off. Nvidia will have to depend on a replacement cycle to sell their newest and fastest chips. The big cap ex numbers announced by Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Google are already baked into the price of Nvidia. AMD just raised the price of a competing chip set by 70% and it is still cheaper than Nvidia's. Chip companies all over the world are working night and day to make competing chips. Every dog has its day and today belongs to Nvidia. We should enjoy it while it lasts. For portfolio managers the problem is that if you are paid to out-perform the S&P 500 you had to buy more Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia than the weighting of the Index. Everyone is loaded up on the same stocks. When a hint of doubt surfaces you see price action like the Amazon chart above with a day of motivated sellers and buyers waiting for lower prices. One last thought - Nvidia and the tech titans are seen as a package but they are on the opposite side of the transaction. A gain for Nvidia is a cost for Microsoft. If we buy Nvidia because they are selling their chips and software with huge profit margins, should we be pushing up the price of the buyers that are getting fleeced?
Can you, or should you base your trading system and financial future on the price pattern of an individual company? Of course not, but many of us do something similar by trusting in "experts" who assure us that stocks go up 70% of time and the economy looks great. Is betting on "the S&P 500" really that much different?
3M sells 55,000 products and has 26 different lines of business. It's revenues reflect the world's economic health. Go into your local hardware store and see how items are made by 3M. The stock's pattern is a dream for Chart Mysticism fans with a clear "impulsive" look. By this I mean that it advanced in five wave up moves punctuated by messy corrections. As with a classic Elliott Wave type move, the third wave was extended, containing its own five waves. I counted the third wave as complete at the red 3 but it could be that we got an extra extended 3rd wave at point 5. I say this because red wave 2 was a zig-zag and usually, when you see this you expect red wave 4 to be something different, a more sideways kind of trading range like blue wave 4. Either way, one could make the argument that we are due for a correction with support being the area of the orange rectangle. If we are only at the top of a super wave 3 then wave four could be more complicated with a few downs and ups.
Again, it is foolish to risk a lot of money on the price pattern of one stock but traders are betting on Bitcoin that goes up and down thousands of Dollars a day. Billions are bet weekly on zero expiration day options. Sports betting is exploding. You bet hundreds of thousands of Dollars on an advanced degree in software engineering, design AI then get laid off because the monster you created replaces you. Nothing is guaranteed.
To the left is the latest on the yield curve with the blue line showing the current configuration. Rates fell (bonds rallied) after the jobs report. It showed up most in the "belly" of the curve from two to ten year maturities. The Treasury refunding needs for the second half of the year are more than expected, the mirror opposite of what we saw the first six months of the year. It looks like the Treasury shifted their biggest borrowing to the second half of the year when they figured the dust would be settled from trade disputes. Recent auctions were good on medium term paper with foreign demand OK and excellent domestic buying. On the right is a graph of yields on the Treasury's 10 year Note, the world's most traded debt instrument. If it were a stock, I would say that it is tracing out a contracting triangle that is in its final little leg down before a thrust higher. No one wants to see that or what follows. The text book says that after the thrust higher there is a big reversal. The only thing that would cause rates to drop quickly would be a world-wide recession.
On the left is a graph of gold and the U.S. Dollar Index inverted (red). When the red line goes up it means that the Dollar is selling off. I do this to show the correlation between a weaker Dollar and higher gold prices. Gold does not necessarily move higher with inflation. People buy gold when governments look shaky and their policies look threatening. At times, both gold and the Dollar did well when capital ran for safety. There are reports that wealth continues to flee Europe for the Dollar as European leaders seem determined to pick a fight with Russia. The last time they tried this was in WWII with General Friedrich Paulus leading 265,000 well equipped troops through Ukraine to Stalingrad. Thousands of Ukrainians joined German troops on their way. Only a handful survived. You would think that they learned their lesson last time. On the right is a nearly 30 year graph showing the correlation between gold and the Dow Jones Industrials. Fans of gold like to think that stocks and gold will diverge. This graph says that the rally in both might be because people have disposable income to put towards savings of one kind or another. The rainy day that has us selling stocks will also be bad enough so that we take our gold down to the dealer from where we bought it and find that there is a line of people in a similar predicament, selling into what could be a discounted price then trying to make it back to their cars without being robbed.
Everyone with a charting program is watching the same gold pattern and thinking the same thing. The most loved form is on the upper left side. It shows gold tracing out a classic a,b,c,d,e contracting triangle that ended last week during the timing band for one of Cyclesman.com's 21 trading day cycle low timing bands. The thing that gold bulls don't anticipate is that often, these types of forms are followed by a final thrust and a reversal that erases all the gains following the triangle. Guessing the outcome of a sideways trade can be very hazardous to your wallet. An alternative could be the upper right side with the same look over a longer time frame. Directly to the right is the same data with the daily percent gain or loss in the U.S. Dollar Index added to the spot price of gold in NY. As with the two charts above, we could be ready for the thrust or there might be a lower "c" point below.
In the past, I traded these patterns but instead of breaking to the upside, my sure thing broke the lower trend-line resulting in a waterfall decline with me and everyone who bought over a series of months, sitting on a loss. $3,206 basis December futures is the low point of "a." A print below that will warn you that the triangle interpretation is wrong.
If we get a thrust higher, remember, it is likely to be an ending patter with a reversal to follow. No matter how bullish or frightening the news is or how excited your on-line gold gurus sound, caution is advised.
Two weeks ago, everyone on TV and investment blogs loved silver. On the left side graph, the difference between spot prices and the one year moving average was in "red oval" territory. In the past, it was not a good time to buy except for the spring of 2011 and even then, if you held on for a month or two, you lost money. Last week, the gray reaper did its job again, punishing recent buyers. By week's end, everyone who bought in July was sitting on a loss. Silver should more or less follow gold but it is also influenced by the stock market. If stocks are tanking, you don't find a lot of enthusiasm for industrial metals.
Earlier this summer I warned that near the end of a gold rally, all things "precious" get sucked up in the enthusiasm and this would include platinum and palladium. For fans of these metals, the question is, does supply and demand justify higher prices or is this just a case of hedge funds buying into two illiquid markets? On Friday, the most active Platinum futures contract traded 34,000 contracts. Palladium's volume was only 5,602. Compare that to December gold futures that traded 222,301 contracts or mini S&P 500 futures for September that traded 2,207,468 contracts. Anyone putting big money into these metals knows that their order can move it significantly. I keep a spreadsheet on the weekly range of palladium. Over the last 20 weeks palladium's trading range averaged 8% of its price! How many other commodities have that kind of volatility on a weekly basis. That was the average. The week ending July 11th had a 15% difference between the high and low. When platinum closed below its 10 day moving average, longs liquidated. It fell to the 50, the next line of defense. Palladium is still above the 50. Continued stock market weakness will temper enthusiasm for both metals.
Copper Futures traders found out, first hand, how Trumpenomics works when the rules on the 50% tariffs were clarified. Refined copper ingots have been flowing into the COMEX in anticipation of the tariff as speculators thought they were buying low and could sell high later. Last week the administration said that non-fabricated, refined copper will be exempt from the 50% tariff for now. It will apply to products like copper wires, pipes and sheets but not the ingots. COMEX stockpiles are at a 21 year high with nowhere to go. On the left is CPER, an ETF that tracks copper prices. On the right is DBB, an ETF that follows a basket of industrial metals. It is weighted more heavily toward aluminum and zinc but still includes copper and nickel. It came back down to its 200 day moving average. If more evidence of a slowing world economy surfaces then promoters of the recently resurrected "Commodity Super Cycle" theory will be disappointed.
There is absolutely no hope for Natural Gas as you can see from the graph of UNG, an ETF that tracks it. There was no hope for it in August of 2024 and then again in October of 2024. July and August tends to be a time of seasonal lows. Commodities make highs on news about shortages. They make lows on endless surplus predictions. I started nibbling on natural gas so I am talking my book. On the right is a graph of crude oil prices made by recording the daily price of WTI Crude's most active contract. Inventories of Crude Oil are slowly building around the world so traders know that unless the world's economy improves, there will be a surplus. OPEC + is also increasing production. Oil and Natural Gas are two of the best things to own if war breaks out and that is what is keeping crude prices from falling. Tensions between Russia and NATO are rising with President Trump promising "crippling sanctions" on countries that buy Russian Crude (China, India and Turkey) unless Russia agrees to serious negotiations on a cease fire in Ukraine. If Russian sales are curtailed, it should boost the price. If tensions between Russia and the U.S. get worse, traders will want to own energy as a hedge.
The crop ETFs are near lows because of great growing conditions around most of the world. My favorite is WEAT and I slowly add to my position as the price drops. Russia and Ukraine are big producers of Wheat so war in the area will interfere with farming. History tells us that it is just a question of time before we get a season with less favorable weather. An interesting aspect of this is that volcanoes around the world are becoming more active. In the past, some of the worst famines followed large volcanic eruptions that spewed ash above 35,000 feet. The ash circled the world in the jet stream and reflected enough of the energy of the sun to lower temperatures a small amount. That was enough to cause brutally cold winters and summers with extremely short growing seasons. Owning WEAT is like an insurance policy, similar to how others think of silver and gold. Again, I am talking my book.
Best Guesses -
Stock Market - All the momentum studies say you should buy the dip. I think something more bearish is starting. I will look for a bounce near the end of next week and plan to sell any rally.
Gold and Silver - I am still watching for a contracting triangle. It might be time for the final burst higher or the sideways pattern could have more to go. Some of the most perfectly formed triangles that I thought would lead to riches ended up failing miserably. Trying to trade them profitably is very difficult.
Oil - War or no war. If we don't get more conflict the price is likely to drop. Any increase in tensions will support the energy complex.
Other Commodities - I am watching Wheat in particular to put in a low, but, remember, I am biased.
Unneeded commentary - Being strong in a world transitioning to machines is like being smart in a world moving to AI.
When I turned 14 I got my work permit and started a summer job, working 48 hours a week in a greenhouse with a large field of various flowers that the business used for bouquets. One of my jobs was to keep the long rows of plants free of weeds. I didn't do this with chemicals. I made my way slowly up and down the 100 yard plus rows on my knees with a metal hook in my right hand, used to loosen up the soil. I pulled the weeks out of the ground with my left hand and threw them in a basket. I also did a lot of dirt shoveling and moving it in wheelbarrels. When things were busy I helped with customers. The cash register did not tell you how much change to give back to the customer. I quickly learned to count out change.
I worked with Roy. He was born around 1910 and was too young to fight in the first World War and too old for the Second. He was right in line for the Great Depression. He witnessed something else astounding during his lifetime. He grew up in a non-mechanized world where people walked or took horses to travel. There was public transportation between some Massachusetts towns in the form of horse drawn trolleys. Trains were around but for many low income people they were a luxury. During his teen years, Ford started mass production of cars and car ownership took off. Then Ford introduced motor driven farm equipment and the world changed for guys like Roy with little education, who made their living doing just what I spent my summers doing - weeding, watering, shoveling and using wheel barrels to move dirt and rocks.
The demise of horses for transportation was the initial blow. Square miles of New England that are now covered with trees were open fields used for growing grass to feed the millions of horses in service around Boston. The ocean marshes, now loved by bird watchers, that cover vast tracts of land, north of Boston grew Salt Marsh Hay, ideal for horses and for covering plants that might die during a severe New England winter. Tens of thousands of men worked these fields. Cars and mechanized farm equipment spelled the end of jobs for a vast part of the population. Loss of manual labor agricultural jobs was a major factor in the 24.9% unemployment rate in 1933.
In Roy's generation, another thing changed. The idea of being strong had to do with lifting and carrying things. In a world of shovels, pickaxes and wheel barrels or having to pick up things to lift them into a horse drawn container, strong men who could lift more than other guys were valuable. In 1930, only 60% of men finished high school. Their IQ and education was important only to the degree that they could understand and follow directions. A lot of jobs were "piece work", with pay based on the volume of stuff you could lift, rake, mow, cut etc. Being strong equaled more money. An additional year in school didn't. Roy was not a guy who was going to get great grades in school anyway so for him and millions like him, unless they adapted and had acces to manufacturing jobs, they spent the rest of their lives in low paying manual labor. With machines doing more and more of the work, being strong counted for less and less.
In 1940, only 4.6% of the population had a college degree. After World War II the GI bill allowed vets to get a college education. The war transformed the United States into a manufacturing powerhouse. In the pre-computer, pre-calculator world, strength was no longer needed, but brains were. People were needed to keep track of things, file papers, type letters, plan, engineer, supervise, sell, do accounting etc. The basis of employment compensation shifted in favor of thought skills. The Ivy League schools started using cognitive tests as a basis for selecting students and this quickly spread to all colleges. Grade schools started testing kids for cognitive abilities. By the 1960s many companies gave cognitive tests as part of their employment screening. The military branches had been using cognitive testing for years. Data from the army, navy, marines and air force, collected with millions of men showed that you were better off hiring a smart person and training them than an experienced but less smart person. This became a legal issue and the Supreme Court ruled that cognitive testing and personality tests could not be used as the basis of employment. Tests could be given but they had to be job specific as opposed to measuring IQ.
During my lifetime I saw another shift in the direction of brains. I had college classmates who were nonathletic, not interested in lifting anything heavier than a beer can and not that attractive but they were brilliant. The workplace slots available for these men and women to use their intellect was limited as were their opportunities to find a spouse. In the 1980s, the personal computer and programs needed for them changed that in a radical way. Nerds were suddenly in demand and being paid a premium for their cognitive abilities. Over a couple of decades it turned up in the popular culture with TV programs like CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds and other police shows featuring characters whose smarts were more important than their ability to beat up people. The Big Bang Theory was a parody of what was becoming common in businesses where IQ was more important than personality and it got you a hot girlfriend too. The poster child for this was Steve Jobs. I heard an interview with one of his first employers. He said that when he interviewed Jobs, he realized that he was a genius and he wanted him on the team, but Jobs was eccentric. At the time, he was involved in some Eastern religion that discouraged taking regular showers. He smelled and the employer realized that Jobs would not be able to get along with other people. He told him that the only opening was for work at night when others were not there and that is how he hired him.
Now we have AI that promises to evolve into Generative AI. It will create original content that mimics human intelligence. Are we about to do the same thing to smart people that was done to my workmate, Roy 100 years ago? Is the work of a whole strata of cognitive ability people about to be replace like guys who shoveled, lifted and raked? Will a certain level of intelligence be like "strength" where it is no longer the basis of pay because machines do it better? There are critics of AI, who say that it will never think as well as someone with a decent IQ while others say that some AI models are now smarter than nearly everyone. Henry Ford thought that making mechanized farm equipment would spare millions from harsh labor and he was right, but it also put them out of work. AI developers think their creation will spare us from cognitive tasks but something similar might happen with employment and the basis for how we value ourselves and others. What good is it to "Get Answers" with Microsoft Copilot if you can't find a job that allows you to use your brain because a computer can do it faster, doesn't have to sleep and never takes a day off?
Best of luck,
DBE