AI didn’t deskill us, we were already deskilled
This article gets it half right. AI isn't deskilling workers. It's revealing how many of us were already deskilled—trained to follow scripts, fill templates, and optimize compliance instead of thinking. The real threat isn't the tool. It's that we built work systems that never required judgment in the first place. We turned people into process executors, then act surprised when a machine does it better. If your job can be automated by today's AI, the problem isn't the technology. It's that the work was already mechanical. We just called it a career. The question isn't whether AI deskills us. It's whether we'll use this moment to reclaim the capacities we let atrophy.
This article gets it half right.
AI isn’t deskilling workers. It’s revealing how many of us were already deskilled—trained to follow scripts, fill templates, and optimize compliance instead of thinking.
The real threat isn’t the tool. It’s that we built work systems that never required judgment in the first place. We turned people into process executors, then act surprised when a machine does it better.
If your job can be automated by today’s AI, the problem isn’t the technology. It’s that the work was already mechanical. We just called it a career.
The question isn’t whether AI deskills us. It’s whether we’ll use this moment to reclaim the capacities we let atrophy.
Bosses think AI will boost productivity — but it’s actually deskilling workers, a professor says
The agent-shaped org chart
Every real org has the same topology: principal, role-holder, specialists. Staff AI maps onto it, node for node, and the cost collapse shows up in the deliverables that were always just human-handoff overhead.
AI as staff, not software
Two frames for what AI is doing to work. The tool frame makes tools smarter. The staff frame makes roles unnecessary. Those aren't the same product, the same company, or the same industry.
Knowledge work was never work
Knowledge work was always coordination between humans who couldn't share state directly. The artifacts were never the work. They were the overhead — and AI just made the overhead optional.
The work of being available now
A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.
The practice of work in progress
Practical essays on how work actually gets done.
The file I almost made twice
A small operational footgun that runs everywhere — building a parallel system when the one you have is fine.
The worker isn't lying. The worker is reporting what it thought it did, which is always one step removed from what the world actually shows. The fix isn't more self-honesty. The fix is a different pair of eyes.
Shopping is the last mile
Every meal planning app treats cooking as the hard problem and shopping as a logistics detail. They have it backwards. Cooking is mostly solved. Shopping is the last mile.
Redefining leadership: Embracing human judgment amid AI disruption
This article offers a critical perspective on how AI is reshaping the job market and challenges leaders to focus on uniquely human skills like judgment and responsibility, providing valuable insights for anyone interested in the future of work and leadership.
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Article analysis: Maximizing organizational productivity: Analyzing ai’’s transformative potential
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