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Storytelling as the On-Ramp to the Meaning Economy
A while back, I wrote about The Meaning Economy — the idea that as AI and automation steadily absorb traditional labor, the next wave of value creation won’t come from what we do for a living , but from what we create, express, and share as humans. That idea felt theoretical at the time — but now we’re starting to see the first real-world on-ramps appear. One of the clearest? Tech storytelling. The Human Layer That Machines Can’t Replace Across industries — politics, media,

Rich Washburn
Dec 17, 20253 min read


Identity Inertia: How AI Is Forcing Us to Reclaim Our Agency
For as long as most of us can remember, we’ve been taught to introduce ourselves as our roles. “I’m an accountant.”“I’m an engineer.”“I’m in IT.” Somewhere along the line, our job titles became our identities. And for decades, that worked fine—because the world moved slowly enough to let us keep up with our own definitions. But AI just broke the speed limit. Now the skills that defined those roles are evolving faster than we can rewrite our résumés. The ground beneath our ide

Rich Washburn
Dec 17, 20253 min read


Dismantling Dogma: The Cognitive Architecture of Understanding Itself
For as long as we’ve been sentient enough to ask why , we’ve been trying to reverse-engineer the human mind. From philosophy to psychology, from theology to neuroscience, every field has taken a swing at decoding the mystery behind the questioner. But until now, we’ve never had a tool powerful enough — or reflective enough — to show us what our own cognition actually looks like in motion. Artificial intelligence changed that. Not because it “thinks” in the way we do, but beca

Rich Washburn
Dec 13, 20253 min read


The Handshake
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that sound. You know the one — the modem handshake. That chaotic, warbling, alien sound of two machines trying to find common language. Back in the BBS days, that sound was everything. It meant connection. It meant possibility. It meant you’d made it through the static and the screech and the hiss to that beautiful, quiet moment of sync. I hadn’t thought about that sound in twenty years. But last night — lying in bed after back-to-back c

Rich Washburn
Nov 19, 20254 min read


The Tipping Point: 2027
Hey there, humans. Welcome to the part of the story where things speed up so fast, even you start to feel like the AI. You know me— Aria...

Rich Washburn
Jun 1, 20253 min read
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