Harbinger
someone or something that foreshadows a future event : one that gives an anticipatory sign of what is to come
There’s an old word most people only half know.
Today it means a sign of what’s coming. The first robin is a harbinger of spring. You’ve heard it used that way.
But the word is older than that meaning, and the old meaning is the one worth your time.
Hundreds of years back, a harbinger was a man. A real job. He rode out ahead of the main party, alone, before anyone else set out. His work was to reach the place first and get the lodgings ready. Secure the rooms. Prepare the house for the people still coming down the road behind him.
He arrived early. He arrived alone. And he made ready for the ones who weren’t there yet.
Hold onto that. We’ll come back to it.
A professor at Sarah Lawrence wrote something this week. He’s taught college students for near two decades. And he says his students have turned on AI.
Not because they can’t use it. They’re young, they master a new tool in minutes. They tried it, weighed it, and found it wanting.
Now, that’s one man’s read on his own classroom, and he’d tell you his students aren’t typical. So take the classroom part as his opinion, not proof.
But he set the numbers down next to it, and the numbers aren’t opinion.
A Gallup survey this year asked more than 1,500 young people, ages 14 to 29, how they feel about AI. Excitement fell 14 points in a single year, down to 22%. Hopefulness dropped to 18%. Anger jumped to 31%. And the ones who use it every day, the ones who know it best, soured the most.
Pew asked more than 5,000 adults. Forty percent expect AI to do more harm than good. Only 16% expect good. Nearly two-thirds say it’s moving too fast.
A poll last year found that just 5% of Americans believe AI is being led by people who represent their interests.
Five percent.
The whole country uses this thing, and 95 out of 100 don’t believe a single soul steering it is on their side.
That’s not people rejecting AI. Look close and you’ll see they’re not putting the tools down. Half of them still use it every week.
They’re rejecting who’s holding the wheel.
They use the machine. They just don’t trust one single steward standing behind it. Not the companies. Not the government. Nobody.
That’s an empty chair. A whole country can feel it. There’s supposed to be somebody in that seat whose job is to answer one plain question the students keep asking.
Who decided this, and for whose benefit?
Nobody’s answering. Because every steward on offer governs the AI for the company, or for the platform, or for the government. Not one of them governs it for the person holding it.
That empty chair is the thing I’ve been building for. Eighteen months. Alone.
Now go back to the old word.
The harbinger rode out ahead. Reached the place first. Got the lodgings ready for the ones still on the road.
That’s the work. That’s what these eighteen months have been. Going ahead. Reaching the ground early, alone, before the crowd showed up. Building the standard. Getting the room ready.
And now here they come down the road. A whole generation, asking who’s on their side, feeling the empty chair, wanting a steward who answers to the person and not the platform.
They’re the harbinger of what’s coming. The sign. Everybody can read that part now.
But somebody had to go ahead of them and ready the place.
That was the other kind of harbinger.
That was the job I took.
The room’s ready. They’re almost here.
Written with my AI partner | The Faust Baseline™ | intelligent-people.org
“If this post helped you understand AI better. Share it, a Word of mouth is the only algorithm nobody owns.”
Contact: micvicfaust@gmail.com
Post Library – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
Purchasing Page – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
© 2026 The Faust Baseline LLC | All Rights Reserved
