Everyone's waiting for those dramatic AGI moments—robots running corporations, AI solving climate change, ChatGPT becoming our new overlord.

But while we’re watching for world-changing breakthroughs, the real AI disruption has already arrived.

And it’s quietly trashing something far more ordinary:

Hiring.

If you’ve read The Atlantic, The New York Times, Ars Technica, or Derek Thompson’s newsletter, you’ll know this isn’t just a blip — it’s a systemic failure in motion.

We’ve managed to break one of the most basic business processes — person applies for job, company hires person — using the most advanced technology in human history.

Welcome to the World's Dumbest Arms Race

Forget nuclear weapons. The real arms race is happening on LinkedIn, and it's between:

While we're here trying to figure out load shedding schedules and whether Eskom will keep the lights on long enough to submit a job application, our colleagues in the "developed" world have managed to create a hiring system so broken that even the machines are confused.

Here is where we stand:

Students now fire off 300 to 1,000 applications a year (thanks ChatGPT and Silicon Valley) — up from 20, two decades ago.

The beautiful irony? 

We invented AI to make work easier. Instead, we've created a system where robots are competing against robots while humans watch from the sidelines like confused spectators at a chess match between two calculators.

The Collapse of Trust:

Remember when résumés were supposed to represent, you know, actual experience? Adorable.

Everyone is using AI to reverse-engineer job descriptions and cram them into templated résumés. Employers, in turn, are getting thousands of documents that feel... eerily familiar.

The Process:

1. Job seeker uploads job description to ChatGPT

2. ChatGPT extracts every buzzword known to corporate humanity

3. AI weaves keywords into résumé that sounds like management consultant fever dream

4. Multiply by 500 applications

5. HR person's soul dies a little more

We're now at the point where AI-generated résumés are so sophisticated that they're being rejected by AI screening tools for being "too perfect." Even the machines think this is getting ridiculous.

All our traditional “trust signals” — the things that used to separate real effort from fake — are collapsing under the weight of automation. The system isn’t just broken; it’s lost its language for recognising talent.

The US has managed to completely undermine their own academic credentials.

American Interview Theatre: A Tragedy in 3 Acts

The modern hiring process is no longer a conversation. It’s a performance — where everyone is reading lines written by AI.

The Cast:

• Candidate: Coached by ChatGPT, answers pre-written by AI, probably googling "how to look thoughtful" in real-time

• Interviewer: Using AI-generated questions, referring to AI-written job descriptions, taking notes that will be fed into AI evaluation systems

• The Ghost in the Machine: Various AI tools orchestrating this elaborate dance of synthetic human interaction

Sample Exchanges:

 The Nuclear Option: When AI fights AI

Here's where it gets truly spectacular. The AI arms race has reached MAD (Mutually Assured Disruption):

The Endgame: We're rapidly approaching a future where:

Who is Actually Winning This Arms Race?

The Real Losers:

• Everyone else

• The concept of authentic human connection

• People who thought having skills mattered

• Anyone who still believes in meritocracy

How to Win the Unwinnable Game

Remember: In a world full of artificial intelligence, being genuinely human becomes the ultimate competitive advantage.Since we can't stop this beautiful chaos, here's how to navigate it:

The Moral of This Very Stupid Story

We're living through the most absurd transformation in workplace history. AI systems are fighting other AI systems while humans stand on the sidelines wondering if they're still relevant.

The old rules don't apply anymore. Traditional hiring, performance reviews, and corporate structures are being completely rewritten by artificial intelligence that's getting smarter every day.

The good news?

This system is now so absurd, it’s hard not to notice.
And humans, to our credit, are pretty good at fixing the messes we make — especially once we’ve had a good laugh (or cry) about them.

The bad news?

By the time we fix hiring, AI will have already moved on to break something else.

And the honest truth?

In five years, we’ll either look back at this as the moment we learned to collaborate with AI — Or as the moment AI learned to collaborate with itself… and left us off the calendar invite.

Place your bets.
The house always wins.
And these days, the house runs on algorithms.

Want to embrace AI?

👉 Schedule a free consultation and let’s get started.

If you forget everything else, remember this…