In this episode, Eric talks with Paul Slater, author of The AI Ready Human, about what it actually takes to stay valuable as AI quietly reshapes how work gets done.

Paul has spent three decades at the intersection of humans and technology, from teaching people how to use their very first computers to writing more than twenty technical books at Microsoft. Today, his focus is on a harder question: what happens when technology changes faster than the human behaviors required to work well alongside it?

The conversation explores why many professionals assume they’re “fine” because they’re busy, experienced, or technically competent, and why that assumption is increasingly dangerous. Paul argues that the biggest risk isn’t sudden disruption, but gradual irrelevance: continuing to work the same way while the nature of value creation shifts underneath us.

At the center of the discussion is Paul’s framework for becoming an AI-ready human, built around seven foundational capabilities that compound over time, from basic readiness and control to resilience and adaptability. Rather than treating AI as a productivity hack, Paul reframes it as a forcing function that exposes weak habits, outdated mental models, and underdeveloped human skills.

They also examine how past eras of work masked these gaps through structure and standardization, why those buffers no longer exist, and what it means to treat adaptability as a trainable discipline rather than a personality trait.

This is a grounded, pragmatic conversation for people who sense that “keeping up” is no longer enough and want a clearer path to staying relevant in work that is changing whether they like it or not.

Topics Covered

• Why AI exposes weak human systems rather than replacing strong ones
• The danger of gradual irrelevance versus sudden disruption
• What “AI-ready” really means beyond tools and prompts
• Why adaptability is the most important capability going forward
• How past work structures hid gaps in organization, control, and resilience
• The seven human capabilities that compound in an AI-driven world
• Why most professionals underinvest in the skills that matter most
• Treating behavior change as practice, not inspiration

Episode Links

• Paul’s website: https://paulslater.ai/
• Paul’s newsletter and podcast, Humanity Working: https://www.humanityworking.net/
• Connect with Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-slater/
• Buy Paul’s book The AI-Ready Human: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GGF74215?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_AFHZ0PBDSACKZ2G27Z7H

For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com

Questions or guest ideas: [email protected]