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.
Bosses think AI will boost productivity — but it’s actually deskilling workers, a professor says
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Books
The Work of Being (in progress)
A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.
The Practice of Work (in progress)
Practical essays on how work actually gets done.
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