For the majority of last week, my son Foster and I traveled from our Massachusetts home to Ft. Myers Florida where he will be starting his first post-college job. We also needed to deliver a car to Florida and taking to the highway was our best option.

Despite the exhausting twenty-four-hours of driving, we both enjoyed our extended one-on-one conversations that covered many topics including childhood experiences, music, sports, politics, and multiple subjects in between.

During the second day of travel, Foster introduced me to comedian and podcaster, Joe Rogan of The Joe Rogan Experience. We listened to several episodes, but our favorite by far was Joe's recent interview of the renaissance man and genius, Elon Musk.

During the Musk interview, a main topic of conversation was artificial intelligence and what the future may hold for the human race. In more definite terms, will the ascent of A.I. powered robots eventually spell the demise of the human race?

I am sure that you will agree that this is a terrifying topic.

Then as we drove along, I thought about the current job search process. In today's recruitment world and due to resume-weeding speed requirements, H.R. robots and their mechanized A.I. brains have become the career advancement gatekeepers.

Job descriptions no longer include physical addresses, phone numbers or personal email addresses. Applicants are instructed to insert their neutralized resume packages into a virtual mailbox. Occasionally, a generic email is received confirming receipt. In many cases, this message is followed-up by a minimal yet direct rejection email stating that the sender is not a "match," but that the submitted data will be stored for potential future use.

To the resume author, it's all about including the desired phrases, keywords and hot topics. Correspondence must be sculpted to satisfy the narrow-minded scope of the mechanized human resources department's sausage grinder. This robot-driven process includes total disregard to valuable nuances that if uncovered by a human, human resources professionals may move a candidate to the next step in the hiring process.

And for those showing gray hair, despite years of invaluable experience, all indications of age must be carefully scrubbed, and twentieth-century dates erased.

The podcast discussion of the impending robot invasion made me a bit queasy. Then as we continued our journey, I realized concerning today's job application process, we humans have already turned over the reins. –Doug.