No Joke: That Art History or Medieval History Degree Is in Demand
April 1, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Reports of college graduates having difficulty finding a job continue to reach my Walmart pressed wood desk. The desk may have more value than some of the reports I have seen about [a] the money to be made running a home business with Shopify as the backend, [b] the ease with which one can vibe code an app and rake in the dough, or [c] how a person living in mom’s basement can create a money spinning blog on Substack-type services.
Ring any bells.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
As a dinobaby, I want to point out that for every van life millionaire on YouTube, college graduates and even people with some mileage on their odometer are finding the hunt for a full time job challenging. Tales of unanswered emails, AI interviews that go dark, and free webinars pitched on LinkedIn — None delivers the job.
But there is hope because an expert often finds a silver lining behind the economies unsettled by war, inflation, and fragmentation of traditional business practices. One example of this sunny side up approach to work appears in “You Thought the Generalist Was Dead — In the Vibe Work Era, They’re More Important Than Ever.”
The write up asserts:
Most people simply didn’t have access to the expertise required to do highly cross-functional work.
That is true. It is also true that most people don’t “know” AI. Most people are not in the top one percent of IQ test takers. And most people are not Type A workaholics. That’s why work and other social structures are like medieval organizations. The king and his cohorts are at the top, and the surfs are toward the bottom. In the middle is an odd ball group of boundary players like the husband and wife in the thatched hut who sew the queen’s ball gowns. Stratification is the name of the game again.
The write up poses a rhetorical question:
One of the biggest challenges of working with AI is identifying hallucinations. The term was coined, I assume, not as a cute way to refer to factual errors, but as quite an apt way of describing the conviction that AI exhibits in its erroneous answers. We humans have a clear bias toward confident people, which probably explains the number of smart people getting burned after taking ChatGPT at face value. And if experts can get fooled by an overconfident AI, how can generalists hope to harness the power of AI without making the same mistake?
Even Google needs humanoids to figure out what videos are AI slop. The firm’s much-hyped smart software cannot at this time perform this task. Ask this question? “Will Google hire unemployed people to identify AI sloppy videos?” The answer is, “Are you nuts?” Google wants people to volunteer their time. Does that sound like a job?
The write up continues:
The generalist becomes the trust layer.
Ah, ha. The hook in the story appears. That degree in music theory has value in an AI world. Do I believe this assertion? Nope.
Now the capstone to this assertion that one’s expertise and Ph.D. thesis about the structure of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” will land you that job at McKinsey, the Bank of America, or Toyota:
The emerging, AI-empowered generalist is defined by curiosity, adaptability, and the ability to evaluate the work AI produces. They can span multiple functions, not because they’re experts in each one, but because AI gives them access to specialist-level expertise. Most importantly, this new generation of generalists knows when and how to apply their human judgment and critical thinking. That’s the real determining factor for turning vibes into something reliable, sustainable, and viable in the long run.
I think this essay is a ray-of-sunshine effort. For that reason, some may find that a job awaits. As a dinobaby, my view is that the US faces a number of challenges. These include degrees with little knowledge value other than learning how to write and do research, presumably without the help of smart software. With companies looking for people who can sell, generate revenue, cut costs, and open doors because of family connections — The idea that a robot HR person will hire a human strikes me as a long shot.
We are back in the 7th century. Family, wealth, and social standing matter more than recognizing an authentic Fabergé egg. Content marketing is a thriving business. So are “don’t worry. Be happy” write ups.
Stephen E Arnold, April 1, 2026
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