Essays on technology, leadership, and what it means to stay human in systems that keep trying to abstract us away.
Start Here
New to HumanWORKS? These four pieces give you a good sense of the territory.
The Curse of Competence
Why being exceptionally good at something can trap you — and what to do about it.
The Architecture of Hype
Why the AI revolution is being built on foundations of exquisitely capitalised nonsense.
Did You Choose to Click This Link?
A systems thinker’s guide to AGI, consciousness, and the illusion of agency.
The Authenticity Industrial Complex
How ‘being yourself’ became another performance metric — and why it makes everyone worse at both.
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Every piece published on HumanWORKS, newest first. Essays on AI, leadership, professional pathology, and what it means to stay human in systems that keep trying to abstract us away.
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The Cost Of Counting – Losing The Apple Watch And Trying To Not Lose My Mind In AI Cost Calculations
Ten days ago I did something that, for a person who describes himself as a metrics driven autistic with a chronic pain condition and a relationship with sleep that could generously be described as “complicated,” might have seemed genuinely unfathomable. I took my Apple Watch off. Not just to jump in the shower. Not because… Read more
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The architecture of hype: why the AI revolution is being built on foundations of exquisitely capitalised nonsense
What happens when you pour several hundred billion dollars into something before anyone’s worked out what it’s actually for? You get the AI sector in 2026. I’ve written a new piece exploring what I’m calling the Architecture of Hype – the structural dynamics behind why the current AI moment feels less like the dawn of… Read more
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You aren’t reading enough, and you definitely aren’t thinking enough – so read and think about this
I’m reading Henry Fairlie this weekend. Bite the Hand That Feeds You – collected essays from one of the sharpest provocateurs the English language produced, and a man whose photograph on the cover alone – cigarette in hand, glasses slightly askew, typewriter lurking in the foreground like an accomplice – communicates something about the relationship… Read more
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The Age Ban as Confession: Why Our Response to Social Media Proves We’re Already Lost
There’s a particular species of policy announcement that functions less as solution and more as an indirect-but-inadvertent confession. The UK’s proposed ban on social media access for under-16s belongs to this category – not because protecting children from psychological exploitation is wrong, but because the measure’s spectacular inadequacy reveals something far darker about our collective… Read more
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Did You Choose to Click This Link? A Systems Thinker’s Guide to AGI, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Agency
Let me start this conversation with a question – what made you choose to click the link that led you here? I ask this as the thoughts that you create as a result will help inform a few things about how you navigate the article itself, your views about AGI, and potentially about the existential… Read more
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Effective Interview Techniques: Think Beyond Recall
Have you ever sat through an interview where someone treated your ability to recall the SSH port number as some profound indicator of professional competence? If you’re an engineer with any breadth of experience, you’ll recognise this particular form of intellectual theatre – the worst interviews I’ve attended invariably focus on the recall of specific… Read more
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The Curse of Competence: Why Excellence Makes You a Hostage to Your Own Skills
Let’s talk about probably the most perverse reward system ever devised outside of experimental psychology labs: the modern workplace’s response to demonstrated competence. It goes something like this: You solve a problem effectively. People notice. They bring you more similar problems. You solve those too. Congratulations! You’ve now been rewarded with a permanent problem-solving role… Read more
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The Power Paradox: Why Those Most Eager to Lead Should Probably Be Locked in the Office Supplies Cupboard
Let’s discuss a serious issue that has plagued human societies since approximately fifteen minutes after we climbed down from the trees and someone declared themselves “Chief Banana Distributor” – namely, that the people most desperate to be in charge are precisely the ones who should be kept as far away from power as humanly possible,… Read more
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The Authenticity Industrial Complex: How ‘Being Yourself’ Became Another Performance Metric
So after last week’s entry into my newsletter where I awoke the somewhat more sarcastic part of my writing personality, I wanted to discuss a different topic on a similar theme. So, let’s talk about the most exquisite corporate magic trick of recent time: the transmutation of “just be yourself” into “perform your carefully calibrated… Read more
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The Uncomfortable Utility of Feeling Like a Fraud: Why Your Imposter Syndrome Might Actually Be Doing You a Solid
Look, we need to have a deeply uncomfortable conversation about that persistent feeling that you’re somehow faking it whilst everyone else in the room has their proverbial shit neatly packed into labelled containers with colour-coded lids. You know the one. That low-grade psychic hum that whispers “they’re going to find you out any minute now”… Read more
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