Pilots Are Failing. Here's What Comes Next.

We’ve reached an inflection point in immersive learning.

Over the last five years, I’ve seen companies invest in AR/VR training pilots, often with excitement—but rarely with scale in mind.

The result? Most immersive learning programs don’t fail because the tech doesn’t work.
They fail because they were never set up to drive business outcomes.

Here’s what I’ve seen time and again:

🔸 The focus is on hardware, not habit-building
🔸 There's no connection to KPIs—turnover, time to ramp, cost-per-hire
🔸 Stakeholder buy-in dies after the sizzle reel is made

Meanwhile, the org still has the same problems: high turnover, inconsistent onboarding, and employees who feel disconnected from culture and mission.

But when immersive systems are aligned with AI-driven learning models, the transformation gets real:

✅ One Fortune 100 I worked with reduced onboarding costs by 75%
✅ Another cut early attrition by 33% within 6 months

It worked because we didn’t treat immersive learning like a toy—we treated it like a business system.

💬 My question to you:

Where have you seen immersive training succeed—or fail—and what did you learn from it?

I’d love to hear your experiences. And if you're at an org thinking about what comes after the pilot, let's talk.

Why Women Need to Embrace AI: Focus, Mentoring, and Getting It Done

One of the most interesting AI startups I've run across in recent memory is Tuffy, which bills itself as an AI-powered platform for human resources. I saw their presentation at conference last week, and was blown away by the possibilities for all workers, but especially for women. There has been a lot of talk about AI and bias, and that's an issue that absolutely needs research and to be addressed, but there's also a flipside -- what if AI can reduce bias in the workforce?

Additionally, what if AI can serve as a guide and public resource for those who don't have access to mentor networks or are just starting in their careers, or looking to switch? And what if it can serve as a neutral arbiter when it comes to matters of growth and promotion? Woman are constantly told to talk up their accomplishments but then often face backlash or the "tall poppy syndrome," where people cut them down for standing out. Some women are also just uncomfortable talking about their work and other people take credit for it and get ahead. There's also a huge amount of bias among managers, many of whom get promoted for being good at their jobs or being buds with the boss, not because they have any formal training. They can simply decide that they don't like someone, for whatever reason, and ice them out.

This happened to me at a job many years ago. I was a top performer at the magazine where I was a staff writer and was even promoted to an editorial position by my boss. When he got a book deal and left, a new boss came in, and for whatever reason, I was all of a sudden persona non grata. Frustrated, I asked him to lunch and requested that he pinpoint where exactly I needed to improve. Did I need to turn in copy earlier? Was my copy all of a sudden not clean? Did I need to develop better sources? His answer -- "be less rockist." That was it. Nothing to do with my work, he just didn't like my "vibe." But fair enough, I went out of my way to write articles about pop stars that got glowing feedback, including one introducing me to her parents at an award show. And even that didn't work.

I finally just bailed on that job out of sheer frustration, and that's not uncommon. People often leave because of bad managers, and that has a huge cost for organizations. But what if there was a way to evaluate people for the quality of their work, not just whether their manager was willing to promote them? If there was a set, defined way to measure performance, not just whether someone was friends with their manager?

Very few organizations are open about their performance targets and how they measure them, and that's frustrating for so many people. They want to do good work, but no one will tell them what good work is, or how to get to the next steps in their career. AI can synthesize this data and give employees clear and actionable steps, and once they hit those milestones, they can move up. They can also match people with mentors or even serve as mentors -- people love to talk about the value of mentoring but the resources are often gatekept or vague.

Once someone has a clear set of goals and deliverables, they can focus on that work and minimize distractions. I personally feel like I have wasted a ton of time pursuing projects that have not paid off because I mistakenly thought they would, and wished that I had guidance that I should instead focus on something else that would get me to my goals faster. This would also free up more of my time outside of work to pursue hobbies and caregiving responsibilities.

If AI can help everyone understand how to be better at their jobs and identify bias in hiring and promotion, that would be a huge benefit for everyone, and a revolution in how we work.

Why Women Need to Embrace AI: Radically Rethinking Education

Post-Covid, many public schools in the United States are at a crossroads. Math and reading comprehension skills are down; teachers are overworked and underpaid; and students are just checked out. We have finally hit a point where the traditional model of public education -- teaching to the test, teaching to the average, living in fear of lawsuits brought by parents, every student learning more or less the same thing -- is just running out of road. There will come an inflection point very soon when AI displaces many of the jobs students are being prepared for and the skills that they need -- critical thinking, analysis, management and leadership -- will be in short supply.

Obviously the way we approach education applies to everyone, but given that three quarters of k-12 teachers in US identify as female, it has an outsize impact on women. So how can these teachers, who mostly work extremely hard in challenging conditions for far too little money, start making change using AI? And how can AI be used more broadly to update education and make sure kids are set up for success?

One interesting example is the Texas Alpha School. Students spend two hours a day on core skills like reading, writing, and basic math, and then the rest of the time on social-emotional skills and self-driven, AI powered passion projects. Teachers guide, mentor, manage the classroom, and teach the core skills. The idea of doing self directed work and using an expert as a mentor and guide is nothing new -- hello Oxford University -- but the incorporation of technology can get it to scale.

When I bring this idea up, there are two main arguments that come back. The first goes something like "this is great for top students who are self-directed, but most kids aren't." That statement radically underestimates most kids; most of them are self-directed under the right circumstances. They might not be self-directed to learn literature or calculus, but they might be super self-directed to learn carpentry or welding or design. Allowing them to pursue passions once they've learned the basics will engage them much more.

The second argument is about students with special needs. For some with profound disabilities, this model likely won't work, and they'll need other services. But for higher functioning kids on the spectrum, this is a dream come true, being able to focus on their interests for hours at a time. Kids who would have struggled because they didn't want to sit through hours long lectures on topics that didn't interest them will thrive in this environment.

Unfortunately we are still set up as a test-based system overall, and this will require a huge shift towards analyzing Capstone presentations. But in the long term, this will pay off, as we have a workforce that will be able to work with AI and move the ball forward. The worst thing we can do for the next generation is to keep things as they are.

Why Women Need to Embrace AI: Outsourcing the Mental Load

At this point, it's become a cliche -- a heterosexual couple with kids is surprised on the street and an interviewer asks the male half of the couple to name his children's teachers, doctors, or best friends. In a few cases he comes through (and is praised as if he just led a Middle East peace accord); in most cases he mumbles and stares at the ground. The female half of the couple rattles off all the information from memory while appearing exasperated.

Of course, there is nothing inherently "female" about the ability to make appointments and remember information. People of every gender identity do it every day. But even in 2025, women are expected to carry the "second shift," managing child care, family relations, and elder care, even if they have a demanding full time job. Some women choose to do this as part of an agreed upon division of household labor; more women do it because their male partners demonstrate weaponized incompetence. Sometimes, men want to be active participants and share the load and society just won't let them. A friend went on a business trip to Asia and told her children's school that she was going to be gone and to call her husband with any issues. A few days later, she was awoken in the middle of the night by a call from the school -- her son wasn't feeling well. When she asked if her husband was unavailable, it turned out the school hadn't even bothered to call him, despite her explicit instructions. She finally explained that she was in Japan so couldn't do much, and that the school should learn how to read.

But what if there was a tool to offload most of this mental load and let my friend have a restful night on an important trip? There is, and unfortunately, few women are using it. AI will soon have the power to lighten the mental loads of women and primary caregivers, giving them the space to spend that time and energy on whatever they enjoy.

Take managing relationships. In many hetero couples, men seem to expect their wives to be the social directors and make plans with other people. This includes coordinating with others to find available dates (for two couples with busy jobs in major cities, this is basically a nightmare-level SAT problem solving problem); finding a place to go; and reminding everyone. But feeding everyone's calendars and preferences into an AI could just spit back a few options, and then everyone just picks from those. It probably still can't get you into the Corner Store (my fellow New Yorkers know) but it'll cut out 90% of the work.

Or gifting. Again, women are expected to remember everyone's important dates and send cards and gifts and coordinate holidays. And if this is your jam, go for it and keep doing it old-school. But if this is a chore, feed that stuff into AI, and all of a sudden, it becomes automated and easy. Same with the nine million "spirit days" schools seem to dream up and kids forget about until the last second -- just feed it into the machine and get back ideas for everything, along with links to purchase if needed. A few clicks and you're done.

Trip planning is another place where AI can shine. The AI can plan the entire trip around your family's desires and needs, and then all you have to do is click to pay and then enjoy yourself. Think of what a revolution that would be -- instead of worrying and planning and stressing, you just get to show up and enjoy spending time with your family.

Because this is the ultimate potential of AI -- making all our lives easier. Primary caregivers do so much valuable, difficult, ultimately unacknowledged work, and it doesn't have to be this way. Technology can reduce the burden of things we don't want to do, and give us back the time to do what we do want to. Instead of spending hours coordinating an elderly relatives's medical care, we can let AI do that and spend time sitting on a bench at a favorite park with them. Instead of running ourselves in the ground planning the perfect amusement park trip, AI can handle that and we can watch the children's eyes light up at the first sight of the castle or the rollercoaster.

When women and primary caregivers embrace AI and start building, they start to get their lives back -- lives they can now fully live and enjoy.

Why Women Need to Embrace AI: The First in a Series

A few days ago, a keynote speaker and futurist shared a reel put together by one of his speaking agencies, advertising their current slate of AI speakers. Pretty standard fare, but as I watched, I noticed that there was only one woman in the entire video. As sad as this is, it doesn't come as a complete surprise -- while the numbers vary, a wide range of reporting puts the numbers of women using AI on a regular basis far behind men. According to the Economist, women use ChatGPT between 16 and 20 percentage points less than their male peers, even when they are employed in the same jobs or read the same subject.

This is a huge issue for many reasons, including the fact that AI will touch basically every career to some extent in the next few years and that women can uniquely benefit from adopting AI. Over the course of the next several issues, I'll dive deep into why women should be using AI more, and what AI products and services can and should be built to support women.

A note on some terms and assumptions: in many cases, these benefits will be discussed in the context of women who have the primary caregiving responsibility. This is not to say single dads, same sex couples, and single folks cannot benefit from many of these applications; this is only to say that, even in 2025, women still shoulder the burdens of a lot of household management and caregiving. This is also not meant to devalue that work; merely to offer options and alternatives for those who want them. If planning costumes for school spirit days or managing appointments is your jam, do you!

In the spirit of offering alternatives, I want to dive into the first place AI can benefit women -- helping them make decisions about whether to stay in the paid workforce once they become parents. In the United States, many families are faced with extremely high childcare costs, and many women look at their current salaries versus the cost of childcare and decide to leave the paid labor force.

Unfortunately, this decision is often based on incomplete and asymmetric information. For instance, just because your salary is X at age 30, that doesn't mean it will stay at that number forever. Likewise, if you work for a place with retirement benefits or 401k matching, that money is often not factored into the equation. There is also the issue of losing out on promotions and visibility in your industry, which of course varies from job to job.

Imagine if an AI app existed where someone could plug in all their current information and it would run a deep analysis of all the data about promotions, salary growth over time, and retirement savings, and come up with a cost for every year someone was out of the labor force. That cost could then be weighed against childcare costs and other relevant factors. People could go into the process of making this decision with all the facts and make it with a clear head.

And plenty of women (and some men) would still decide that leaving the paid labor force is what they want, for whatever reasons, and that's totally legitimate. But at least they would be making an informed choice armed with all the data, and be able to prepare for whatever the financial implications of the decision are. This type of transparency could also lead employers to provide better benefits for parents as a competitive advantage, so that they can recruit and retain talent.

This is just one example of how the smart use of AI can benefit women. In the coming weeks, I'll be writing about household labor, emotional labor, how AI can benefit parents, and how AI can help women negotiate better. If there are other topics you're curious about, let me know. This will also turn into a longer article and a keynote, so if you want to do your part and book more female AI speakers, let me know.

One Year On, Some Thoughts on the Vision Pro

It's been a year and a day since I went to an Apple store in Portland, and walked out, according to my mom, looking the happiest she's seen me since I got the Barbie Dream House for Christmas when I was five. But 366 days later, am I just as excited? The answer is mostly yes.

First, the downsides. Since its initial release, the Vision Pro headset hasn't been updated, and it remains very heavy and harder to wear for long periods of time than other headsets. I was excited to use it to watch movies and TV on flights and had to abandon that idea quickly, as it was just too uncomfortable for me. It is fantastic for watching while laying down, which I do occasionally after a long week when I want to unlock a new level of ultimate dirtbag mode.

The amount of original content for the headset has been limited, and I have heard rumors that Apple has cut funding for new content as Apple TV+ has struggled with budgets and viewership. Maybe this will change now that we are all obsessed with Severance? The content is has released has been a mixed bag, with most of it feeling like a camera test than a narrative -- that said, it is improving quickly. The Weeknd video in particular was fantastic, and even the short film Submerged, which was lacking in story, had some very cool moments. I'm not sure I want to see yet another short doc that doubles as a director's dream vacation, but I'm not necessarily mad at it.

Now on to the good stuff. I spent the last summer filming content and came away with a ton of learnings, as well as some really special family videos. This is truly the secret sauce for reaching a mainstream audience -- when I showed my folks how easy it was to use and film their grandkids, they went crazy. I believe that in the next few years, this will be the killer app that pushes this towards mass adoption.

I also like it for work calls, especially as the quality of the personas has improved. My persona photo's stylish blowout and nice makeup is always on, and now I can get home from the gym five minutes before a call, towel off, and hop on looking like a polished pro when in real life I look like a maniac. It also cuts down on how distracted I am during calls, as it's harder to multitask in headset.

Overall, I'm glad I bought it and while I don't use it daily, I'd say I use it five days a week for various things. I can't say I recommend it for an average user yet, but in a few years it'll be ready for primetime.

Hey, I'm Finally Writing a New Book! Here's a Preview.

Over the last year or so, I've been noodling with a book proposal, a way for me to finally link together all the conversations and arguments I've had over the past several years about the future of technology and why things feel so bad right now. Basically, the old way is dying, the new way is being created, and we're stuck in limbo -- but things won't be like this forever. As long as we move forward with curiosity, openness, and a will to make web3 work for good, we can create something better. This book will provide context on why things seem to take so long, and will spell out a vision for the future that sees everything as connected as we move from the meta-present to the meta-verse to the meta-physical.

You'll be hearing a lot about this book as 2025 progresses -- I'm still hammering out final details with regards to publishing and an exact date, but it'll probably be mid-fall. For now, stay tuned and enjoy this excerpt from the introduction.

Despite all my energy, not to mention lots of research about how AI will impact businesses in the future and why VR is better for training than almost any other medium, uptake has been slow. Not a day goes by that I don’t notice something that could be done better or smarter using emerging technologies, but people don’t seem to grasp this. 

Put it this way: the Innovator’s Dilemma, the late Clayton Christensen’s groundbreaking book on why most companies that refuse to innovate wind up dying, came out my senior year of high school (I didn’t read it then as I was too busy pretending to read Infinite Jest). I am now in middle age, and several of my peers have children in high school. None of this is new, and yet companies make the same mistakes, over and over and over again. 

It’s not entirely their fault. For one thing, a reward system focused entirely on quarterly and yearly earnings doesn’t encourage taking big, long term bets. Meta, for instance, has been excoriated for “losing money” on virtual reality, even though they are investing long term in research and development. Most CEOs are so overpaid and wealthy at this point that they can steer a car right off a cliff and still walk away with a fat exit package; as for the day-to-day workers, no one seems to care what happens to them. 

Early adopters and innovators are also far more open to punishment by the market than those who lag behind. It’s a national news story every time a Waymo car is in an accident; meanwhile, drunk, stoned, and distracted drivers are free to cause havoc and death on the roads and it barely merits a mention at the tail end of the local newscast. If an AI agent returns an incorrect result, it is proof that the entire technology stack is a joke; at the same time, elected officials all over the world can lie and misinform from their offices and plenty of people simply accept it as true. If someone gets an upset stomach from a shoddily produced VR piece, that means they’ll never put on a headset again; a poorly made 2D video is likely forgotten in five minutes or less. 

Despite all this, these new technologies are coming, and those who don’t embrace them will eventually be left behind. Will there be edge cases who can stubbornly refuse and hold out? Sure; as I found out when, on vacation in Uruguay, the town I was in eschewed parking meters for a mysterious dude in a vest who took an unspecified amount of money to watch a car. There will always be patronage gigs, and there will always be, as David Graeber described them, “bullshit jobs” – governments will decide that spending money on make-work to keep people busy is better than giving them government support and dealing with idle hands. 

For the vast majority of people not lucky to be paid to hang out in a lawn chair all day collecting pesos, understanding, using, and implementing web3 technology will be critical to their future employment and survival. And beyond just work, this mode of communication and viewing the world will shape how we communicate, interact, and live day to day. We are at the edge of a major breakthrough, one that will change everything – but don’t expect it to happen overnight. Rather, expect a slow, steady upward slope, and then a hockey stick. The world you thought you knew will gradually start to shift, and unless you’re paying attention, it will pass you by. 

In 2025, Remember: There Is No Finish Line in Technology

I spent most the the holiday break working on the outline for my forthcoming book, "The Spatial Race." January 1 was my first official writing day, and in only a short period of time, I've managed to cover a decent amount of ground and circle back around to a profound idea -- in tech, as in running, there really is no finish line.

As a distance runner, this seems almost counter-intuitive. Of course there is a finish line -- you do the miles or the time, you cross it, and someone gives you a medal and a snack. But the issue is that for many runners, that finish line is only the start. More than once, I've finished a race, eaten my banana, gotten in the car or on the train to go home, and opened my phone and registered for another race. There's always something else to run. The finish line is only when you cannot physically move anymore.

In technology, everyone seems to want a finish line, despite the fact that it simply doesn't exist. Bloggers LOVE to say tech has failed because it wasn't adopted fast enough, or it made mistakes, or didn't solve their exact problem. Waymo gets in an accident and people talk about banning it; a human driver mows down a massive crowd on Bourbon Street and only a few days later the street has been hosed down and reopened and no one has said anything about outlawing cars. ChatGPT returns an incorrect result and people call for Sam Altman's head; turn on any cable news show and someone will cheerfully spread lies while the panel nods along.

That's because we seem to have this huge desire for things to be done and finished and set, despite that never being the case. It took sixteen years from the introduction of the Macintosh for over half of households to have computers. And over those years, and the 25 following, computers evolved and changed and grew. The same can be said for phones, or headsets, or chatbots, or any other device.

And when exactly is a technology considered finished? Many of us are used to Zoom calls, but my friend who just bought a new house is wasting an entire day driving to her bank because they only do in person closings for...reasons? I guess they just shut down during Covid? So is video calling dead because a certain group of dinosaurs won't use it? What exactly is the benchmark here?

This is a roundabout way of saying that in 2025, I hope we all resolve to forget the idea of linear timelines and starts and ends in technology. I taped a podcast recently where the host called Google Glass a failure -- but versions of that exact technology are being released to great fanfare now. Sales of the Vision Pro have been slow initially -- but who knows what the device will become in the future. AI is getting better and smarter every day and will continue to evolve.

Transparently, I'm as guilty of this as anyone, at least in my own life. I've always tended to disregard what was in front of me for the next thing, dutifully climbing the mountain and racking up the honors and awards in hopes of some nebulous future state. But this year, I resolve to be more present and not worry so much about where the next thing will get me -- I'd rather stop looking for the finish line and just enjoy the run.

And With That, the 2024 Season Comes to a Close

Well, that was a (mostly) fun one.

Sure, I'd be happier if everyone was working from a Vision Pro and if the Meta Orion glasses were stocking ready for the holidays, rather than a few years away. And I'd be elated if all the companies building these headsets would commit in a real, sustainable way to funding content creators, rather than launching and killing funds. But 2024 did see several tentpole moments in the XR space, with the Vision Pro coming to market earlier this year, Pico releasing quality headsets in the fall; Meta announcing Orion at Connect; and Google and Samsung closing the year with a new headset launch. The fact that all these companies continue to invest in new hardware at least is a sign that they are taking the market seriously and believe that it has room for growth.

On the AI front, there were insane advances, but the market got super frothy (not everything is an AI company, folks) and there's still a huge delta between what AI can actually do and what people think it can do. I will say I'm using ChatGPT as a search engine at this point, pretty much entirely replacing Google, but there's still a long way to go. It's useful for brainstorming and first drafts and iterating on creative work, but you still need someone to know how to prompt the machine and come up with the ideas in the first place. Still, it's coming, and it's up to us to make sure that we use it to benefit humanity and create better and safer working conditions.

For me personally, 2024 was pretty excellent. Every year I create a spreadsheet of goals and objectives and make sure my actions and how I spend my time aligns around those. I'm certainly not perfect (Netflix happens, as does having to smile and nod and tolerate people who are not acting in highest and best) but overall I've managed to stay on target. I'll miss a few (yet another year where I don't magically turn into Alison Roman in the kitchen), but generally I'm pretty happy with things.

A few highlights:

JFK Memento went on an INSANE award streak, racking up 26 awards and nominations this year! It won Best Art or Film at the Auggies, Best Heritage Experience at the European XR Awards for at Stereopsia, Best in the World at the QLD XR Festival, and of course, was a finalist for an Emmy. So proud to have been an executive producer on this piece and what a ride it was!

Another piece I executive produced, Masters of Light, won the Crystal Owl for Best Single-Player Game at the European XR Awards and was nominated for the Unity Awards for the Best Social Impact Project.

Working with Virti, I led workshops and directed VR pieces for Amazon, Houston Methodist, GLP Learning, Intermountain Health, Frontier Communications, and the Calgary Flames, among others. I also spoke at several conferences, including SXSW, the Scandinavian Creative AI Summit, Learning Technologies, and Augmented World Expo.

I continued teaching with CalTech, New Mexico State University, and the Fast Future Executive, and co-authored a chapter in the Fast Future Blur book, which was released on Wiley this spring.

In non-work related goals, I ran five marathons and one ultra-marathon, visited eight new countries, read 87 books, saw lots of art and ate at a ton of great restaurants. I spent lots of time with friends enjoying everything the New York has to offer.

So what's on tap for 2025? Hopefully, more of the same -- I'm always looking for projects to advise and produce and new clients for Virti to help. I'm also looking for speaking gigs, teaching opportunities, and I think might be the year I finally turn that book proposal I've been noodling on forever into something real.

I'd love to hear what your highlights were, personally, professionally, and in terms of headsets, immersive content, and bots. Happy holidays, happy new year, and here's to an exciting 2025!

Can AI Help Us Finally Focus?

Back in the day, many people followed the same career trajectory -- finish formal schooling, get a job at a company, and move up through the ranks, eventually retiring with a gold watch and pension. But nowadays, with the exception of a few industries, our career paths include zigs and zags and detours and upskilling and reskilling and even switching industries. And for many of us, there are no guides to how to get ahead and get to a place of security.

What this looks like, at least for some of us, is trying to do everything. I feel like I've thrown so much spaghetti at various walls that I could feed a major Italian city for a week, and while some of it has stuck, plenty of it hasn't -- and that leaves me frustrated and tired and on the verge of burnout at times. The other major issue is that many industries operate on a scarcity model, and people gatekeep information about how they rose through the ranks and just give vague advice to new folks.

The system is clearly broken, and all of the spreadsheets to organize our goals can't save us. But can AI? Imagine if you could feed five profiles into an AI and have it spit back a step by step look where you are falling short and give you a guide to catching up. Want a certain role or opportunity? AI could tell you not just where to look but exactly who to target.

Right now, many of us are operating on a "spray and pray" model. We try to do everything and reach everyone just to give ourselves a sense of forward movement. But when you really look at it, most of it adds up to nothing but busywork. Not to mention the amount of busywork most of us are already doing that takes us out of our zones of genius -- and this goes double for many women, who have to not just do all their work-related busywork but also remember Aunt Sue's birthday and little Timmy's dentist appointment.

But can smart new models solve this? An AI could scrape my calendar and put together a list of possible cards and gifts for Aunt Sue -- all I have to do is hit "accept" and type a quick personalized message. AI could control my schedule and just send me a calendar note to make sure to take the kids to the dentist -- and AI could also monitor if my partner is splitting the work with me.

And rather than having fifty meetings, forty-nine of which go nowhere, AI can help me target exactly who to speak with, and how to reach them. Buyers won't be spammed with useless offers and sellers will have more success.

We live in an age of information overload, and what we really need to simplify and strip things down. If AI can help us laser in, that will leave us all better off.

Are Human Powered Robots The Solution We've Been Searching For?

Every time someone presents a humanoid robot prototype, one of the first comments is almost always something to the effect of "it's just a robot powered by a human in a VR headset!" But while this is normally presented as a "gotcha!" the concept is actually extremely powerful, and could solve a whole host of problems while creating new jobs at scale.

Here in the US, for example, copious amounts of digital ink has been spilled about the issues many young men are having gaining and keeping employment. Traditionally "male" jobs have been outsourced, and for reasons far too complicated to enumerate here, men have not gone to work in female-coded fields. So what is left is a swathe of the population left adrift and angry. But if there's anything that is a common thread among many of them, it's that many of them are tech-savvy and especially interested in video games. Hence, a solution.

These new robots, powered by humans, can create jobs that can be done anywhere -- a huge boon for people in rural areas with limited job opportunities. The user could power a robot delivery vehicle, for instance -- there are already food delivery robots in LA, and they could be scaled to any dense urban area. The robots could be programmed to only go a certain speed and stay on sidewalks (unlike IRL delivery drivers in NYC) and if a robot gets hit by a bus, it's a little bit of a bummer, but obviously nowhere near as awful as a human getting hit.

Robots can clean houses and office buildings as well -- humans who had those jobs can now work from a comfy chair in a home or office space, as opposed to putting stress and strain on their actual bodies. Robots can pick shelves in warehouses and pack and load trucks, all powered by people.

This model can even be the full realization of gig work -- a college student with a few hours in between classes can pop on a headset and make some deliveries and a few extra bucks. The current labor shortage we face will be solved because these tasks can be done by someone anywhere in the world, allowing people in underserved countries to earn a living and rise into the middle class.

We are a ways off from this becoming a reality, but it could be here sooner than you think. And as weird as it might be at first, eventually we'll all be working alongside human powered robots.