Serendipity35

 Modern technology (and its grim efficiencies) has reduced job opportunities for the traditional white-collar population, but the need for artisans --the tradesmen class-- has come on strong.  Training and skills are shifting towards the next generations of the gainfully employed.  Online self-study and instructor-guided courses for topics in HVAC are readily available. These types of trainings are most often created for people whose career path began in the trades.

Artificial Intelligence is transforming industries faster than ever. In 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced globally  (World Economic Forum). While AI creates new tech roles, many mid-career professionals—accountants, data clerks, paralegals, programmers, and project managers—find themselves displaced with skills seemingly mismatched for the future. A counterintuitive opportunity lies in reviving artisan trades—fields where the human hand, creativity, and craftsmanship remain irreplaceable.

Trades and artisan skills, so far, have been largely resistant to this wave of job takeovers and are adding AI technologies as trade tools. Plumbing, carpentry, welding, and advanced manufacturing require spatial reasoning, adaptive problem-solving, and tactile precision—areas where AI and robotics still struggle. Modern trades use AI as a tool, not a replacement—e.g., welders using AR-guided precision tech or electricians diagnosing systems via IoT sensors.

The good news, for some, in this murky career landscape is that some professionals aren’t starting from zero. Project management, client relations, and analytical skills from corporate roles translate powerfully into trade entrepreneurship, though they have no direct relationship to the skills required to ply a trade. While a former finance analyst may have the budgeting discipline to construct and follow a profitable business plan for home remodeling, that analyst will still need a supply of talent for doing the actual work.

There are programs available as (re)training pathways to the professionally displaced, but they are young, and their career-shifting success is currently unproven

Program Type	Resource Types	Duration/Cost
Apprenticeships	National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA)	2-5 years (paid)
Bootcamps	General Assembly (HVAC, Robotics)	3-6 months ($5-15K)
Community Colleges	Tennessee Reconnect (free tuition for adults)	1-2 years
Micro-credentials	IBM SkillsBuild, Coursera Trade Certificates	Weeks to months
Trades Incubators	Etsy Maker Grants, Local Makerspaces	Mentorship + equipment access

Funding for retraining in these  programs, as well as some financial support for living, is listed as:

• Pell Grants for Short-Term Programs: Now cover high-quality trade certificates.
• WIOA Funding: U.S. Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funds reskilling for displaced workers.
• Employer Partnerships: Companies like Siemens and Bosch sponsor "earn-while-you-learn" tracks.

The challenge is both obvious and daunting.  Not only are career paths for entry- and mid-level professional careers at risk, but the need to pivot to new, unfilled, and available careers will be a complicated hill to climb.  This pivot, potentially, is immensely disruptive to the workforce. It may change some of our social constructs as well.  Our hope can be that reskilling displaced workers for trades isn’t a step backward—it’s an economic renaissance. By leveraging existing soft skills, emerging edtech, and a renewed cultural appreciation for craft, we can turn displacement into durability.  Maybe

Marian Croak, a name that may not be familiar to many, has had a profound impact on the way we communicate today. As a renowned American engineer, Croak has spent her career pushing the boundaries of technology, particularly in the realm of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). With over 200 patents to her name, Croak's work has enabled seamless communication over the internet, revolutionizing the way we connect.

Her  U.S. Patent No. 7,599,359 for VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Technology was ultimately used to create applications such as Zoom, WhatsApp and many others.

Born on May 14, 1955, in New York City, Croak's interest in technology was sparked by her father, who built her a chemistry set that led to her early exploration of the sciences. She pursued her passion for problem-solving at Princeton University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in 1977. Later, she received a PhD in Social Psychology and Quantitative Analysis from the University of Southern California.

Croak's career spans three decades at Bell Labs and AT&T, where she worked on digital messaging applications and VoIP technologies. Her team convinced AT&T to adopt the TCP/IP protocol, which allowed for standardized communication over the Internet. Croak's work on VoIP enabled the conversion of voice data into digital signals, making it possible to transmit voice, text, and video over the internet.

Another of Croak's notable achievements is her patent for text-based donations to charity. Developed in response to Hurricane Katrina, this technology allowed users to donate to organizations using text messaging. The technology was widely used after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, raising over $43 million for relief organizations. Croak received the 2013 Thomas Edison Patent Award for this innovation.

Croak's contributions extend beyond her technical expertise. As a leader at AT&T, she managed over 2,000 engineers and computer scientists, overseeing programs that impacted millions of customers. In 2014, she joined Google as Vice President of Engineering, focusing on expanding internet access and developing Responsible AI.

Throughout her career, Croak has received numerous accolades for her work. She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2016 and the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2022, becoming one of the first two Black women to receive this honor. She has also been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As Croak herself notes, "Inventors are usually people like you. Sometimes they're good at certain things, other times they're not, and that's ok. Just focus on what you want to change, and you become that change and can make that change happen."

Her legacy serves as a testament to the power of innovation and the impact one person can have on the world. As we continue to navigate the complexities of modern communication, we owe a debt of gratitude to pioneers like Marian Croak, who have worked tirelessly to bring people closer together.

 

This week, OpenAI made news with its new browser, Atlas. Wth all their plans and a new cloud-based AI browser, they need to scale their computing power. Here is a news summary (AI-generated, of course)

OpenAI has announced a strategic multiyear partnership with semiconductor giant Broadcom to co-develop custom-built chips and infrastructure. The collaboration aims to deploy 10 gigawatts of specialized AI accelerators by the end of 2029—a staggering amount of compute capacity equivalent to the power consumption of approximately 8 million U.S. households. (Markets Insider)

This deal marks OpenAI’s first venture into designing its own in-house processors, with Broadcom tasked with developing and deploying the systems. The chips—known as AI accelerators—are optimized for parallel processing, enabling them to execute billions of operations simultaneously. These accelerators will be deployed across OpenAI’s facilities and partner data centers, using Broadcom’s Ethernet-based networking solutions to ensure scalability and efficiency. (Broadcom Inc)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the significance of the partnership: “Developing our own accelerators adds to the broader ecosystem of partners all building the capacity required to push the frontier of AI to provide benefits to all humanity.” The Broadcom agreement is the latest in a series of megadeals OpenAI has struck in 2025 to secure the compute power needed for its rapidly expanding AI services. Earlier this year, OpenAI signed a $100 billion deal with Nvidia to deploy 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems, beginning in the second half of 2026. (Reuters) In another major move, OpenAI partnered with AMD to deploy 6 gigawatts of chips and received a warrant for up to 160 million AMD shares, potentially making it one of AMD’s largest shareholders. (The Motley Fool)

These deals reflect a broader industry trend: major tech players are increasingly investing in custom silicon to reduce reliance on Nvidia’s dominant GPU offerings. Companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have already begun developing their own AI chips, and OpenAI’s latest move places it firmly within this competitive landscape. While OpenAI has not disclosed how it plans to finance the Broadcom deal, analysts estimate that a single gigawatt-scale data center could cost between $50 billion and $60 billion. 

This latest partnership not only strengthens OpenAI’s technical capabilities but also signals a shift toward greater control over its hardware stack—an essential step as the race to develop next-generation AI systems accelerates.

OpenAI, maker of the world’s most popular chatbot, ChatGPT, launched a web browser, Atlas, this week. Will it make surfing the Internet smarter?

Atlas is available only for computers that run Apple’s MacOS operating system. The company plans to introduce a version for Microsoft Windows and mobile operating systems, including Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

I tried it out on my iPad. It doesn't have a traditional address bar. You type the address into the chat window. That essentially removes competing search engines from the process. Google did something similar more than a decade ago with Chrome by integrating the browser and their search engine.

Atlas is very light on using your device's resources because all the heavy lifting is done in the cloud. 

The biggest criticism, or maybe it's a fear, that I've seen early on is that Atlas allows OpenAI to directly gather all user data that can train their future AI technologies. Microsoft (who clearly have a horse in this race) cautions that in exchange for this AI and lighter load, ChatGPT wants permission to watch and remember everything you do online. They say it "out-surveils even Google Chrome, and that’s saying something."

It not only keeps track of which websites you visit. It also stores “memories” of what you look at and do on those sites. It can even control your mouse and browse for you. It could complete an online order for you. (more on that tomorrow)

It is still early to evaluate whether Atlas’s AI capabilities outweigh its data gathering, but the privacy concerns are real and huge. Does OpenAI offer sufficient controls for managing what Atlas remembers? That's unclear. 

This has been the appeal of other browsers, especially DuckDuckGo, which emphasizes its privacy and is also a lighter browser than Chrome or Opera. (I consider Firefox to be somewhere between.) After all, your default browser is your entry point to almost all of your online surfing. (Yes, apps can bypass it.) But Duck Duck Go has a small percentage of the browser market.

Adding AI to browsers is not a new thing that OpenAI invented. Another lesser-known search engine, Perplexity, makes a browser called Comet. Google has added its Gemini bot to Chrome and will soon add "agent" capabilities that let AI do tasks for you, and Atlas has an“Ask ChatGPT” button that lets you chat with the bot about pages you’re viewing. You can ask it to summarize an article, analyze data, or revise your email draft.

OpenAI's response to concerns about privacy and data collection? So far, just a shrug.