For the record, I'm not the Joe in Ryan M Craver 's new piece. But I think most
By Joeshelerud · October 30, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
For the record, I'm not the Joe in Ryan M Craver's new piece.
But I think most of us have been in that meeting.
Ryan asks a fair question: is AI making us dumb? The research he pulls together isn't comforting. In one study of 26,811 students, homework scores rose 18% while closed-book exam scores fell 20% within six months.
Better output. Less learning.
The thing is, I don't think this is a tool problem. It's a workflow problem.
Getting AI into the hands of the people doing the work is the easy part. The harder part is deciding which jobs we hand over and which ones we keep on purpose.
Some are worth handing over:
- pulling the data
- formatting the deck
- the rough first draft
The reasoning behind a recommendation isn't one of them.
Ryan's rule (human in the front seat, AI in the back seat with ideas) is about the most practical guardrail I've seen put this simply.
Agency folks, what are you making your teams do the slow way, on purpose?