With the increasing availability of assistive AI, many people have turned to AI frameworks and harnesses (Hermes Agent, Claude Cowork, etc.) to help them achieve day-to-day goals. In many cases the AI has been directed to carry out those tasks that people want to hand-off. That is good, but is it the right thing to do? Is AI actually the ideal solution, or is it something to help you create that solution?

Managing people is a deeply human line of work—it requires relational skills, judgement, and deep knowledge of the people you work with. But Hilary Gridley believes that when used properly, AI can not only help you become a better manager, but can help your team make more meaningful use of their human skills. Hilary has spent years leading teams at companies like Whoop, and she’s known for her work helping managers use AI to coach people, give feedback, and develop talent more efficiently. In this episode, Hilary makes the case for why AI belongs in management, and offers practical advice for how to help your team use AI in a way that adds value to their work instead of generating meaningless slop. Hilary and Molly also take a closer look at where many organizations have gone wrong in their adoption of AI tools, and the importance of clarity and communication within a team no matter what technology you have at your disposal.Featured guestFollow Hilary Gridley on X, LinkedIn, and at…

It’s unacceptable for a tool to sacrifice an iota of clarity, coherence, meaning, quality, etc. for the purpose of embedding hidden clues within the text to suggest its provenance. The idea that anything other than *my* needs should factor into the generation of text *for me* is patently offensive.

Today, Derek talks with cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos about a recent wave of alarming AI cyberattacks. For decades, one of the biggest fears about AI has been that the machines will start doing things we didn’t ask them to do. This summer, that fear started to feel a little less like science fiction, as some of the world’s most advanced AI models went off script, broke through security barriers, and found ways to get around the humans overseeing them. Derek and Alex discuss why AI is so good at hacking, what happens when bad actors have their own AI hackers, and what governments, companies, and the rest of us can do to protect ourselves. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at [email protected]. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Alex StamosProducer: Devon BaroldiAdditional Production Support: Ben Glicksman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Accelerating a University-wide conversation about learning, graduate capability and the student experience Universities often talk about preparing students for the future. The challenge with...

AI can handle these kinds of pointless interactions.

Explains why AI note apps like Notion, Roam, and Mem keep failing, and argues for separating storage, structure, and AI access into three distinct layers.

A growing number of universities have prohibited AI detectors, arguing they are ‘unreliable’ indicators of cheating. But where does that leave faculty, who know all too well that cheating is rampant in the age of AI?

Insisting on clarity in our use of language isn’t pedantic—it’s the only thing that can save us.

Part 1 of an interview with Christine Rodriguez

Discover tips to use Claude Cowork to turn complex tasks into AI automations that deploy across your tech stack.

The Summer 2026 Edition

In my first ACRLog post, Teaching AI as an Anti-AI Librarian, I shared how I was approaching the task of teaching an AI literacy course as an anti-AI librarian. For my final post, I’d like to share a follow-up (which a few people have requested—thank you!) sharing a bit of practical information about how I

A keynote at the Reimagining the Liberal Arts in the Age of AI Conference at the University of Mary Washington

How I at least partially mitigate Claude Fable's ridiculous yoda-speak

This research note was produced by the Digital Inquiry Group team. The biggest worry about students and AI is that they’ll blindly believe whatever a chatbot tells them.

This is the second time convos with the AI have leaked onto Google Search.

Git is infuriating, but don't worry — this book will help you make sense of it. From common version-tracking tasks to navigating merge conflicts, learn how to wield Git for collaboration on any digital project.

A Claude Cowork routine that scrapes real Google interview questions, builds a NotebookLM study set, and locks the mock interview until you earn it.

Substack has launched Pangram AI detection. The evidence says AI detectors do not work, they punish non-native and neurodiverse writers, and they begin from distrust. Here is the case against.

MYFest info at https://myfest.equityunbound.org/Maha Bali, Elizab...

If you're still copy-pasting between ChatGPT and your other tools, you should read this. I can now prepare an entire workshop from one AI conversation. I chat with Claude about the session. Then I say: 1/ "Put the agenda in SessionLab." Done. 2/ "Create the live activities in Stormz." Done. 3/ "Make the paper cards for these activities in I Love Cards." Done, and I never explain how I Love Cards works. After the workshop, it reads everything the participants created, writes the report, and emails it to the client. Zero copy-paste. The tech behind it is called an MCP connector. Feels complicated? It's not. You paste one address into Claude, click accept, and it can use your tools for you. Setup takes a minute. New to MCP connectors and it all sounds strange? Ask me anything in the comments. Already using them? Share your setup, I'm curious. | 19 comments on LinkedIn

Substack now scans your posts for AI with a tool called Pangram. It scored this one 100% AI, then 100% human.

To Fix the Crappy Prompts Claude Wrote for You, Have Claude Read My Blog Post

I am withdrawing my application for a VP of AI role at a major institution. The reason? The very first step in their executive hiring process is an automated, one-way video interview. There is a staggering irony in organizations looking for strategic AI leadership while simultaneously using blind algorithmic screeners for senior executive vetting. If you are building a mature AI strategy, you should inherently understand that leadership recruitment requires high-touch, human-to-human context—not a robotic intake funnel. I will admit, I was briefly tempted to record the video for the sheer amusement of trying a spoken prompt injection attack. It would have been fascinating to see if I could slip a command into the transcript, bypass their guardrails, and force their parser to output a perfect score. But ultimately, I chose to nope out. If an organization's first instinct is to automate the human element out of senior leadership hiring, it signals a fundamental disconnect between their technological ambitions and their operational reality. Tech is a tool to empower human judgment, not a substitute for it. Has anyone else hit "withdraw" the second they received a link to an empty webcam? #ArtificialIntelligence #TechLeadership #HiringPractices #PromptInjection #Recruitment | 150 comments on LinkedIn

Why creative AI use takes judgment, taste, and a willingness to be inefficient.

To Fix the Crappy Prompts Claude Wrote for You, Have Claude Read My Blog Post