AI replacing our colleagues, feeling lonelier than ever despite enforced physical presense at the office. What is going on with the workplace?

Caitlin sits down with Christine Armstrong, researcher, author, and founder of Armstrong & Partners, who has spent years doing something refreshingly unfashionable: actually asking people what's happening at work, instead of just theorizing about it. Christine is one of the world's top voices on the future of work, and she goes well beyond boardrooms and TED stages. She visits call centers in the north of England and local authority offices drowning in AI-generated letters to study the quiet erosion of the relationships that used to make work feel like it mattered.

The conversation moves through two tangled questions: what is AI actually doing to our working lives (as opposed to what we've been promised it will do) and why are we so lonely, even when we're technically surrounded by colleagues? There's a thread about the gap between what CEOs think their companies are doing with AI and what workers on the ground are experiencing. A thread about what happens when the "human" becomes the luxury tie, and a surprising riff on gossip.

Resources

Ben's Rec: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Caitlin's Rec: Better Offline podcast by Ed Zitron

Also mentioned:

• Armstrong & Partners — Christine's research and speaking consultancy
• The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane(ish) by Christine Armstrong (Bloomsbury, 2018)

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This episode of Simplify was produced by Caitlin Schiller, Ben Schuman-Stoler, and engineered by João Lucas in Berlin, Germany, for Kollo Media.

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