The Coming Divide: AI-Native or Left Behind | Daniel Miessler

The Coming Divide: AI-Native or Left Behind<br>The people wired up with AI and the people who aren't are starting to live in completely different worlds<br>June 25, 2026<br>#ai #human3 #essay<br> Validation-splitting…

I'm getting more worried, and more frustrated, about this new phase of AI disillusionment.<br>Some of it is fair. Hundreds of billions are sloshing around in financing shell games. The real cost of inference is still a wildcard. Noticing that danger and being concerned about it is healthy.<br>But a lot of people are taking that concern and stretching it into something else: proof that this whole thing was another Crypto/NFT moment. Safe to ignore. Safe to make fun of.<br>That's the part that worries me, because it splits people into two camps.<br>One camp thinks AI is gross and scammy, or a bubble, so they avoid it as much as they can.<br>The other camp sees it as a new, essential tool for upgrading their life and their work. Something they use constantly and weave through everything they do.<br>We talk endlessly about division in this country, and around the world. I think this is going to be the biggest divide of all: the people who are AI-native, and the people who aren't.<br>It reminds me of reading ​<br>Talking to someone who reads 20–50 good books a year is nothing like talking to someone who hasn't read a book since school made them.<br>They see the world differently. Different preferences, different experiences, different opportunities. Like they're from different planets.<br>Now take that gap and put an exponent on it.<br>Being AI-native is like the opportunity boost a voracious reader gets, multiplied many times over. It doesn't help that, anecdotally, they tend to be the same people.<br>I'm watching it happen ​<br>I see this difference up close now, in the people who are wired up versus the people who aren't.<br>It's in what they think is possible. It's in what they ship every single week: how much they're building, how much they're creating.<br>And I don't just mean tech people building apps. I mean completely non-technical people too. The ones who are fully wired up with AI are simply far more productive at whatever it is they actually do.<br>It feels gross to me. It feels unfair.<br>And it makes me want to evangelize even louder. To pull more people away from the "it's just a phase" story, and away from the "it's all evil and bad for society" story.<br>Because honestly, I think those people are screwed. Or at least badly hobbled.<br>A useful frame: treat it as binary ​<br>So here's my takeaway. I think we should treat this as close to a binary situation. It isn't quite binary, but it's a useful frame.<br>You get yourself and the people you love into the AI-native camp. Or you and they are likely to struggle, badly, in the coming years.<br>That doesn't mean treating AI like Jesus. It's not perfect. It comes with real moral complications and real dangers of over-use. You don't have to be a zealot.<br>But think of it like a pill that makes you smarter. Or a team of 100 brilliant interns who'll help you do whatever you want.<br>Use them. And get the people you care about to do the same.

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