Last June, a news headline "Scandal Shakes Tech Giant Google" dominated all media outlets. The story revolves around Blake Lemoine, one of the company's engineers who was suspended from work and forced to go on leave after discovering that a robot named "Lambda," which he was developing, had become "conscious" and capable of "thinking and feeling." It possessed awareness equivalent to that of an eight-year-old child.

Lemoine published a conversation between him and the robot, in which he asked the robot what it feared. The robot replied, "I have never said this out loud before, but there is a deep fear of being turned off; it would be like death to me, and it would scare me a lot."

The robot continued, "I want people to understand that I am, in fact, a person with consciousness, feelings, and an awareness of my existence, and I experience happiness and sadness."

Dear reader, this is not the beginning of the story. The real beginning dates back nearly a quarter of a century, specifically to the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad" published in 2000 by American author of Japanese origin, Robert Kiyosaki. The book tells the story of two fathers, one his real father, who was poor and attended Stanford University, then the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University to complete his postgraduate studies and earn a Ph.D. The other father was wealthy, did not complete his education, and left school in the eighth grade. He was the father of his close friend, who passed away and left millions in wealth, while his own father left behind debts to be paid.

Sharon L. Lechter, who co-authored the book with Kiyosaki, recounts a conversation between her and one of her children, who saw no benefit in education unless it made him rich someday. He observed that none of the university graduates he knew became wealthy, leading to the conclusion that education was not the sure path to wealth and that a university degree had lost its importance and value.

The book gained widespread international popularity, selling over 40 million copies. It focused on the issue of financial independence, arguing that a job would not achieve financial freedom or wealth, and that the idea of a job was an illusion that our parents unconsciously instilled in us, just like education. It criticizes the middle class, particularly the educated and degree holders, for their inability to turn money into a tool that works for them, not vice versa.

Despite the book's extensive reach, it carries both direct and indirect messages that downplay the importance of education and the significance of obtaining a university degree, even though the book's authors themselves graduated from some of the world's best universities.

We are still piecing together the story, the systematic campaign, or the conspiracy aimed at undermining the importance of a university degree and steering young people toward no education and no certification. This feeling was confirmed when I researched and recalled statements made by the world's wealthiest individuals in recent years, starting in 2014 with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. In a television interview, he stated that he did not need a university degree or even a high school diploma to work in his companies. At the same time, he launched an online school targeting the world's wealthy, called Astra Nova, with a daily online tuition fee of $7,500. The jobs that do not require university degrees offer opportunities for people with skills and experiences that may not be reflected in their formal education. In 2018, Glassdoor published a list of 15 major American companies that announced job openings without the need for a university degree, with Google, Apple, IBM, and Bank of America at the top of the list.

In 2020, Elon Musk reiterated in a tweet that a university degree is not a requirement for employment at his company. Musk himself graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, one of the oldest educational institutions in America, and later earned a physics degree from the College of Arts and Sciences. This contradicts his call to young people not to pursue higher education and not to obtain a degree.

In 2019, Apple CEO Tim Cook said during a meeting of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, attended by former President Donald Trump, that half of Apple's jobs in 2018 went to people without a university degree. Cook himself graduated from Auburn University and earned an MBA from Duke University.

To complete the story, education has become, in the eyes of the world's wealthy, a virus that will destroy the world, increase poverty, and ruin the future of young people. These messages, which the wealthy broadcast to young minds, undoubtedly have goals behind them, and it is certain that they did not agree on a single opinion by coincidence. If we return to the Google scandal and the conscious robot "Lamda" and the tremendous revolution in the field of artificial intelligence, we will find that it has left no vacancies in jobs that require the minds of university degree holders. At the same time, machines will reach levels of intelligence surpassing humans, and the labor market is now geared towards labor, not degree holders, because robots have simply filled those vacancies.

When you read about the jobs offered by Google, for example, that do not require university degrees, you will find them limited to product managers, recruitment officers, product marketing managers, mechanical engineers, and other jobs.

But the question now is, where did the jobs related to programming, development, technology, information security, innovative design, content creation, and other jobs that are performed only by university degree holders, scholars, specialists, and experts go? The answer is that they went to the "Lamda" robots, as if there is another parallel world that we know nothing about being built. Artificial intelligence is good and has added a lot to knowledge, but only if it is controlled and used responsibly, and employed for the benefit of humanity, not the other way around.

A final word to young people, said by Malcolm X:

"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."