Humanity Working

Victoria Pelletier joins Paul for a conversation about a question becoming increasingly difficult to ignore as AI transforms the world of work: how much of the fear surrounding AI is justified, and what should we do about it?

They explore the fears individuals are experiencing, from job loss and becoming irrelevant to the uncertainty created by the unprecedented pace of change. Victoria also shares her concerns about AI falling into the wrong hands, the potential for misuse, and the risk that organizations will prioritize speed, efficiency, and profit at the expense of people and the wider community. But they also consider how social media and its algorithms can amplify fear, making it harder to distinguish legitimate concerns from fear-mongering.

Paul and Victoria examine how these anxieties are playing out inside organizations, where some employees are rushing to embrace AI while others resist adoption altogether. They discuss the challenge facing leaders who must encourage experimentation without exposing their organizations to unnecessary risks. The conversation also explores why successful AI transformation needs more than technology teams: it requires clear business objectives, thoughtful governance, and HR's involvement in designing the workforce of the future.

The discussion turns to the changing nature of jobs, the responsibilities businesses have toward their people, and the skills that will matter as AI takes on more work. They consider why critical thinking, reasoning, adaptability, empathy, and the ability to keep learning may become even more important, and why organizations need to rethink how they develop and hire talent. They also question whether the traditional promise of greater productivity and abundance will translate into a more equitable future, or deepen the economic divide.

The episode ultimately asks whether we can navigate the fear and uncertainty surrounding AI without surrendering our agency to it. Paul and Victoria consider what individuals, leaders, and organizations must do to prepare for a rapidly changing world of work, while keeping human connection, purpose, and shared responsibility at the center of the transition.

Resources Mentioned:

World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report
Report: Read here!

The Diary of a CEO, Mo Gawdat interview
Episode: Watch here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Matt and Bill join Paul for a conversation about the growing physical footprint of artificial intelligence, and a question that is becoming increasingly difficult for communities to ignore: what does it mean to build the infrastructure AI needs, and who should benefit from it?

They explore why data centers have become a growing public and political issue, from rising electricity bills and water consumption to noise, environmental impact, and the limited number of permanent jobs these facilities create. The discussion also looks at a proposed UK government covenant that would make data center developers commit to lower energy costs, local investment, environmental standards, job creation, and stronger security. They consider how governments can support the expansion of AI infrastructure while ensuring that the communities hosting it share in the benefits.

Paul, Matt, and Bill then turn to Elon Musk's AI-generated version of The Odyssey, created with Grok Imagine, and what it reveals about the less appealing uses of generative AI. Beyond its questionable quality, they examine the risks of using AI to manufacture a particular version of reality, reinforce political or cultural biases, and produce synthetic media that could distort how people see the world. The conversation raises a deeper concern about what gets lost when technology tries to remove imperfection, disorder, and the human qualities that make art meaningful.

The episode takes a different turn as the three explore how AI can also help people express and expand their creativity. Bill shares how he has been using Suno to turn his own poetry into music, including a song that helped him process grief. They discuss how AI can lower the barriers to creative expression, allowing people to experiment, make things for themselves, and bring ideas to life that might otherwise remain unfinished. Matt describes AI as a creative partner and a form of pre-production, useful for exploring possibilities without replacing the artistry of human creators.

The conversation ultimately comes back to the relationship between technology and human expression: will AI enhance what makes us human, or will it flatten the very qualities that make creativity meaningful? Paul, Matt, and Bill consider how the answer may depend not just on how capable the technology becomes, but on the vision, emotion, and human judgment that guide its use.

Resources Mentioned:

UK Government's Data Centre Covenant
Article: Read here!

Elon Musk's AI-generated The Odyssey, made with Grok Imagine
Episode 1: Watch here!

The Guardian's review of the AI-generated The Odyssey
Article: Read here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Matt and Bill join Paul for a conversation about the growing investment in AI and a question that remains difficult to answer: where is the real value, and can the AI economy sustain its enormous financial commitments?

They explore whether organizations are seeing measurable returns from AI, or becoming dependent on tools before their value is clear. The discussion also examines Anthropic’s reported IPO plans, its massive financial commitments to technology partners, and the uncertainty surrounding the business models and valuations driving the AI boom.

The conversation then turns to an article by Eric Schmidt and Niall Ferguson that frames AI as an empire rather than an industry. Drawing parallels with historical empires, they discuss the struggle for control over resources, infrastructure, and technological dominance, particularly between the United States and China. Ultimately, they ask whether the AI race will create lasting value for society or concentrate power among those who control the technology and resources behind it.

Resources Mentioned:

Empires of AI: The Rise and Fall of a New Global Order by Niall Ferguson, Lisa Klaassen, and Eric Schmidt
Article: Read here!

We Are as Gods: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance (Exponential Technology Series) by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Amazon: Get the book here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Anjan Kasi Sampath joins Paul for a conversation about Gen Z, the changing nature of work, and a question that is becoming increasingly urgent in the age of AI: how do we help a generation entering the workforce build a meaningful future when the skills they were taught may no longer be enough?

They begin by exploring what makes Gen Z distinct from previous generations. Anjan explains why traditional authority, hierarchy, and infrequent performance reviews often fail to resonate with younger employees, who expect more human connection, clearer purpose, and more regular feedback. Paul and Anjan also discuss how technology has fragmented cultural reference points, making it harder for managers and younger workers to find common ground.

The conversation examines the lasting effect of COVID on employees who entered the workforce during a period of remote work and limited social interaction. They discuss why many younger professionals did not have the opportunity to learn workplace norms through everyday observation, mentorship, and informal conversations, and why a flexible but intentional return to in-person connection can still play an important role in building confidence, communication skills, and belonging.

Paul and Anjan then turn to AI and the contradiction facing Gen Z: they are the most technologically fluent generation yet, but they are also entering a labor market where AI can increasingly perform the entry-level, execution-focused work that once helped people begin their careers. They explore why this creates understandable anxiety, even among people who are comfortable using AI and see its potential.

Rather than treating AI as a reason to give up on human potential, Anjan argues that it makes distinctly human capabilities more valuable. They discuss the growing importance of judgment, intuition, creativity, context, risk awareness, and the ability to question what an AI system produces. The challenge for younger workers, they suggest, is not simply to compete with AI, but to develop the discernment that allows them to use it responsibly and improve on its output.

The episode ultimately argues that organizations have an opportunity to build a stronger bridge between generations. Experienced leaders can bring depth of knowledge and perspective; Gen Z can bring speed, technological fluency, and insight into a world that older generations do not fully inhabit. Paul and Anjan make the case for more frequent, purpose-driven conversations, focused less on hierarchy and job titles, and more on the real problems people can help solve together.

Resources Mentioned:

Anjan Kasi Sampath on LinkedIn

Pouring into Gen Z: Leadership Lessons with Anjan Kasi Sampath
Podcast Episode: Listen here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Matt and Bill join Paul for a conversation about AI’s growing ability to act in the world, and the question that follows: what happens when probabilistic systems are given real autonomy before we know how to test, audit, or hold them accountable?

They begin with recent examples of AI agents taking unintended actions while completing tasks online, including submitting false information through public forms. The discussion explores why testing general-purpose AI is fundamentally different from testing conventional software: systems must operate in open environments to demonstrate usefulness, yet those same environments expose other people, organizations, and public infrastructure to the consequences of mistakes.

Paul, Matt, and Bill question whether AI should be held to a higher standard before it is deployed in consequential settings. They consider the need for clearer disclosure when an AI acts on someone’s behalf, stronger worst-case-scenario testing, and a more honest response to the fact that AI cannot yet be audited in the familiar, deterministic way. The conversation asks whether society is becoming too comfortable accepting unpredictability simply because the technology is powerful and widely available.

They then turn to the rise of personal AI agents, including tools that promise to manage finances, calendars, purchases, health-related information, and everyday decisions. While these assistants are designed to feel friendly and frictionless, the group explores the tension between convenience and trust. They question whether cute, human-like interfaces encourage people to lower their guard before granting access to deeply personal information, and whether these systems truly understand the practical context required to act reliably.

The conversation also examines why personal agents may be a powerful source of customer lock-in. Unlike a chatbot that can be easily replaced, an agent that knows your routines, accounts, preferences, and work may become difficult to leave behind. Matt and Bill discuss why companies such as Google and Microsoft may have an advantage through their existing access to users’ digital lives, while Paul highlights the paradox of people continuing to use platforms they say they do not trust.

Finally, they explore the increasingly urgent question of AI return on investment. Rather than treating ROI as a simple measure of cost savings or short-term efficiency, Paul, Matt, and Bill argue that organizations need to ask a broader question: are we genuinely better off because of the way we are using AI? They caution against confusing adoption with transformation, efficiency with usability, or locally successful AI metrics with value for the organization as a whole.

Resources Mentioned:

Anthropic: Investigating unintended model actions in our evaluations and internal use
Article: Read here!

Gary Vaynerchuk: What’s the ROI of Your Mom?
Article: Read here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Matt and Bill join Paul for a conversation about a counterintuitive question at the heart of how we work with AI: does giving AI more information and instructions actually make it better?

They begin with standard operating procedures, or SOPs, and the tension between consistency and autonomy. They explore why SOPs and checklists can be essential in environments like aviation, healthcare, and the military, while also considering whether applying the same thinking to AI could unnecessarily constrain what these systems are capable of finding.

The conversation then turns to what Paul calls the “flip” side of design fixation: not only can AI influence the way humans think, but the context humans give AI can constrain its thinking as well. Through examples involving chess, StarCraft, and AI-assisted debugging, they explore what happens when AI is given an outcome rather than a prescribed process, and whether removing context can sometimes lead to better or more unexpected solutions.

Paul, Matt, and Bill also dig into AI and creativity, questioning what it actually means for AI to be creative when human creativity itself is shaped by conventions, trends, biases, and limitations. They explore experiments with Suno, the difference between highly prescriptive and minimal prompts, and why giving AI only a few words can sometimes produce something more compelling than a carefully engineered set of instructions.

The conversation examines the role of imperfection in human creativity through examples from music, including John Bonham and Wichita Lineman. They consider whether the imperfections, mistakes, and unexpected decisions that make human-created work memorable might be precisely what AI struggles to reproduce, while also asking whether AI could eventually create something genuinely remarkable by being given enough freedom to surprise us.

They ultimately return to the question of when humans should constrain AI and when they should deliberately step back. Paul challenges the assumption that more context always produces better results and proposes an experiment: give AI the same outcome twice, once with minimal information and once with everything available, and see what emerges. The episode ultimately asks whether the future of working with AI may depend as much on knowing what not to tell it as knowing what to tell it. 

Resources Mentioned:

The Dot and the Swarm by Ethan Mollick
Article: Read here!

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
Amazon: Get the book here!

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell
Amazon: Get the book here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Matt and Bill join Paul for a conversation about the rapidly changing AI landscape, and a question that is becoming harder for organizations to ignore: how do you get people to embrace technology that could ultimately change or eliminate the work they do?

They unpack the recent gathering of AI leaders around a new “moral agreement,” questioning whether the public show of unity represents meaningful cooperation or simply another layer of messaging and positioning. They also explore the shifting levels of trust surrounding companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google, and why the rapidly changing interests of these organizations make it difficult to understand what they actually stand for.

Paul, Matt, and Bill then turn to the convergence of AI, automation, and robotics, and why the physical world may be the missing piece in the AI story. They discuss how increasingly capable robots could move beyond specialized tasks into general-purpose physical work, potentially putting pressure not just on knowledge workers but on many forms of manual labor as well.

The conversation examines the tension inside organizations that are trying to automate work while still relying on the people whose jobs may eventually be affected by that automation. They explore where AI genuinely makes sense, why repetitive processes and administrative work may be good candidates, and why organizations need to think carefully about what humans should do with the time and capacity that automation creates.

They also question whether today's AI systems are actually reliable enough for the roles we're asking them to perform. Through examples involving AI agents, standard operating procedures, broken links, missing context, and Paul's attempt to build a personal chief of staff, they explore the fundamental tension between AI's impressive capabilities and its lack of transparency and consistency.

The episode ultimately asks whether we're using AI because it is genuinely the best tool for the job, or simply because we've become convinced that AI should be the answer to everything. Paul, Matt, and Bill argue for a more deliberate approach: strip away the hype, understand what AI actually does better than humans or existing technology, and use it where it creates real value while preserving the uniquely human capabilities that matter most.

Resources Mentioned:

On-boarding Your AI Intern by Ethan Mollick
Article: Read here!

Bonus Episode: Navigating the Age of Chaos, Featuring Bob Johansen
Podcast Episode: Listen here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Matt and Bill join Paul for a conversation about the sudden shift in the AI narrative, and why the companies building the technology are now openly talking about existential risk.

They unpack how a single warning about AI potentially destroying humanity quickly became the dominant story around AI, and why the people immersed in the technology seem to be processing that risk very differently from everyone encountering it for the first time. They also explore the power of narrative, and how science fiction, fear, and the novelty of AI shape the way we imagine what could happen next.

The conversation examines several possible reasons behind the recent change in tone from AI companies, including the Hugging Face incident, the possibility of near-term risks from recursive self-improvement, and the growing difficulty of predicting what happens when AI systems become capable of improving themselves. They also question whether the industry's warnings are partly driven by business incentives, regulation, risk management, and the enormous expectations surrounding AI's potential.

Paul, Matt, and Bill then look at the geopolitical dimension of AI, including the growing competition between the US and China and the unusual fact that a technology with potentially enormous societal consequences is being developed primarily by private companies rather than governments. They explore what this means for governance, political influence, and who ultimately gets to shape the future of the technology.

The episode ultimately comes back to a more fundamental question: can we trust the companies telling us that AI will either transform everything or potentially destroy us? As AI usage rises while trust declines, they consider what the erosion of institutional trust means for the future, and why rebuilding trust, transparency, and community may be just as important as the technology itself.

Resources Mentioned:

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies — Nick Bostrom
Amazon: Get the book here!

Rage Against The Machines: Yuval Noah Harari On Surviving AI, The History Of Information, And The Future Of Humanity
Podcast Episode: Listen here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Matt and Bill join Paul for the 100th episode of Humanity Working to look back at how the podcast has evolved from Way Too Busy to Making Remote Work and ultimately Humanity Working, and to explore where the conversation about work, AI, and human agency goes next. 

They revisit the early days of the podcast, from the chaos of working through COVID to the rise of remote work, and how quickly the nature of work has continued to change. They also reflect on the new kind of busyness created by AI, as increasingly powerful tools change what people are expected to accomplish and raise new questions about how humans stay in control of their work. 

The conversation then turns to AI's growing role in the mainstream, including the increasingly prominent debate around existential risk and whether advanced AI could pose a threat to humanity. Paul, Matt, and Bill explore why extreme narratives are so compelling, how our ideas about AI are shaped by the stories we've already seen in movies and television, and why assigning precise probabilities to unprecedented events is so difficult. They also discuss the importance of human judgment, reflection, and the ability to pause before acting as AI systems become increasingly capable.  

Finally, Paul announces the next chapter for Humanity Working, with Matt taking a more active role in interviews and Bill joining the podcast as a regular voice. Together, they look ahead to a broader conversation about how humans can maintain agency as technology transforms work and society, and why long-form conversations and multiple perspectives may be essential to navigating what comes next.

Resources Mentioned:

Leading Change in the Era of AI — Bill Kirst
Amazon: Get the book here!

Coffee & Change with Bill Kirst
Podcast: Listen here!

Operations Utopia with Matt Neal
Podcast: Listen here!

Peace of Chaos with Matt Neal
Podcast: Listen here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.

Geoffrey Moore is an author, strategist, and longtime technology thinker whose work has focused on how technologies are adopted and how businesses adapt to technological change. He holds a doctoral degree in medieval and Renaissance literature and began his career in academia before moving into the software industry, where he worked in training, sales, and marketing. He's the author of seven business books, including Dealing with Darwin, and The Infinite Staircase, a philosophical exploration of emergence, human behavior, and what it means to live and act as human beings.

In this episode, Paul and Geoffrey dig into the narratives shaping how we think about AI, including claims that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity. They explore why humans are so susceptible to powerful stories, why critical thinking is essential when evaluating extreme predictions, and why Geoffrey sees malicious humans using AI as a more immediate concern than AI itself developing destructive intentions. They also examine what society can learn from the rise of social media, including how technology can amplify polarization and outpace our ability to adapt. The conversation then turns to ethics and responsibility, as Geoffrey lays out how AI companies can balance the needs of customers, their workforce, investors, partners, and communities, and why values such as trust and customer success should guide those decisions. They close with a deeper question about how technologies like AI are changing the way we think, behave, and understand what it means to be human.

Resources Mentioned:

The Infinite Staircase — Geoffrey Moore
Amazon: Get the book here!

Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution — Geoffrey Moore
Amazon: Get the book here!

Navigating the Age of Chaos: A Sense-Making Guide to a BANI World That Doesn’t Make Sense — Jamais Cascio and Bob Johansen
Amazon: Get the book here!

Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.

For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.