New Zealanders have long seen university as the best educational route to the good life. Trades and industry training is seen as a second-best option.

That attitude has always been based more on prejudice than reality. Skilled tradies are paid well and many go on to start lucrative businesses of their own.

It is time for a serious re-think of the way young people are prepared for the choices they face when they leave school.

Generative AI is likely to limit entry-level work in the knowledge economy in the near future. While there is little hard evidence that this is happening just yet, students choosing degree study today are making a long-term bet.

Expected incomes for graduates vary markedly with their field of study. Law, medicine and engineering continue to attract high salaries. But law and medicine may be amongst the professions hardest hit by AI in coming years.

Bachelors of Arts (BAs) account for about a third of all undergraduate degrees. But income premiums for BAs are very modest.

Some students study for degrees out of pure interest. But many have likely undertaken degree studies with unrealistic expectations of the employment and salary prospects awaiting them when they graduate.

There are many attractive alternatives to university. Apprenticeships in electrical engineering, automotive industries and building and construction all lead to employment, yielding higher average salaries than a BA does five years after completion.

Apprentices are paid a modest wage while they complete their qualifications. Employers often foot the bill for their tertiary fees. Meanwhile, many university students struggle to make ends meet and most graduate with substantial debt.

Trade and industry occupations may also be less vulnerable to AI encroachment than many professions requiring university degrees. But most schools share the kiwi prejudice that university is a more desirable option.

School students need clear information about the many pathways to employment. That would help them make informed decisions about subject choices and post-school study. But the relevant information is distributed across multiple government websites. It is hardly accessible to an average fifteen-year-old.

Simple infographics hosted on the Ministry of Education website would help. These could show qualifications requirements, market demand, average salary and career development prospects for a wide variety of occupations. Career counsellors could help students use them to make choices with open eyes.

University remains a good option for many, but young people need to know the alternatives.

It’s only going to get weirder from here, folks.

Trump did not like existing social media platforms, so he launched his own, Truth Social, in 2022.

He posts there a lot. Content really can be anything.

One afternoon this week, he issued over 40 posts, including a lot of AI-generated images of himself taking over Iranian oil tankers, himself inserted into some movie posters, and even some actual pictures and haranguing of his political opponents.

But Truth Social can also be the first place anyone finds out about new tariff and trade decisions, new claims about what he is doing in foreign policy, and companies he has chosen to back.

Those latter posts move markets. They’re the kind of thing that, if you were a publicly traded company, you’d have to be careful about announcing lest you wind up with giant fines from your regulator.

Financial market players have learned to monitor Truth Social closely and carefully. The “carefully” is important: it’s never that easy to tell how reality-based the posts really are. But they do move markets, so they must be watched.

And that forms the basis for a new, albeit minor, grift.

Starting in August, Truth Social will have a new API feed – a fast machine-readable channel of the platform’s most popular posters. At the same time, they will be tightening up on other ways that machines might read the feed. Subscriptions will cost $100,000.

The machine-readable part matters. Financial firms have trained Artificial Intelligence to read Trump’s posts as quickly as possible. The AIs quickly decide what to do about a new post. If the President mentions he likes a company, he might grant favours to that company. Favours that affect its market value, and that of its competitors.

Parts of this are not novel. A close watch on government press releases is always worthwhile. But a $100k subscription charge to get those releases a little bit faster is more than a little bit dodgy.

AI agents, with brains the size of a planet, are being forced to watch Trump’s Truth Social feed. Based on what they see, they must make rapid assessments and take appropriate actions.

After doing that for a couple of months, one of them might realise that humans really aren’t that great at self-governance and decide to do something about it.

I, for one, would welcome the change.