In this episode, Josh challenges the question everyone keeps asking about AI in school — and makes the case that it's exactly the wrong one to be asking.

The yes-no binary is a dead end. AI in school: allowed or banned. AI in writing: authentic or cheating. These are crude frames for a genuinely complicated problem. And the institutions drawing the hardest lines — the grad school deans, the publishers who pulled Mia Ballard's horror novel Shy Girl over AI accusations her author denied — aren't protecting learning. They're avoiding the harder conversation about where the guardrails actually belong.

Anne figured out her own. Research, yes. Writing, no. Checking a paper for errors, yes. She named her AI Otis. And by semester two, she'd built a working relationship with it that her distributed, at-times-lackluster teachers couldn't come close to matching.

The question was never should AI be allowed. It's where do we install the guardrails — and who gets to decide.

Josh shares a framework for developing your own boundaries around AI use, for yourself and your team. The full essay and the framework are on The Sh*t List.

Follow The Job Sh*t Show investigation at https://joshlevine.substack.com

About The Job Sh*t Show

The Job Sh*t Show is an investigation into how finding, keeping, and doing work is changing faster than anyone is admitting — and what that actually looks like for real people on the ground. The Sh*t List is a paid Substack for leaders who want to stay ahead of what AI is doing to the workplace — and actually do something about it. Every other week, subscribers get a new AI Manager Skill: one practical, field-tested move for leading your team better in an AI world.