October 16, 2026
THE DAILY McLUHAN DIALOGUES™ • McDialogues™ Understanding the Grammars of Electric Culture and Propaganda Science An Exploration of Technology Ecology as an Anchor in a Sea of Change and Tactical Training in Counter-Propaganda Science by Nelson S. Thall . Former Director/Chief Archivist, Marshall McLuhan Center On Global Communications, Ross, Ca. and McLuhan Media Scientist, Former President/Director, Marshall McLuhan Centre On Global Communications, Toronto, Canada.
EVERYBODY HAS BASICALLY DISAPPEARED
The Job Interview in the Age of Mass Man
A Student of Technology asks:
A comedian recently sent an AI version of himself into an interview conducted by an AI recruiter. It was a stunt, but the two machines negotiated his salary, scheduled another interview without him, and eventually became trapped thanking one another and saying goodbye. What happens when neither the employer nor applicant has to show up?
Nelson S. Thall replies:
The job interview was never merely an exchange of information. It was an encounter between two human beings making judgments through speech, tone, hesitation, appearance, temperament and intuition. Now their technological extensions can conduct the exchange while the people themselves disappear. Information continues to move, so the interview appears to survive. What disappears is the encounter.
And look at the reversal. A technology introduced to speed hiring produced another interview instead of a decision, then left two machines politely thanking each other when there was nobody left who needed to be thanked. One machine performs the applicant while the other postpones judgment. The human being becomes the content moving between them. At the speed of light we become discarnate, extended beyond the limits of the body. In losing touch with our carnal selves, we also lose our sense of individual identity. Mass Man emerges, and the image society once had of itself begins to disappear. The AI interview does not create that condition. It simply makes it visible: the people are electronically present everywhere in the process, while their embodied selves have vanished from the encounter.
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Source: Brandon Vigliarolo, “Chaos ensues when AI interviewer meets AI interviewee,” The Register, October 14, 2026.
All intellectual property contained herein was conceived, originated and authored exclusively by Nelson S. Thall. Artificial intelligence, aka a pseudo-conscious machine (PCM), was not employed. We hired a stenographer. All rights of authorship and ownership vest entirely and exclusively with Nelson S. Thall.
© 2026 Nelson S. Thall. All Rights Reserved.
I can be reached at: nelson@themediumisthemessage.com