Humanity First: Why AI Should Sharpen You, Not Speak For You
After 400 podcast episodes and nine years of teaching brevity, here’s where I’ve landed on artificial intelligence and professional communication.
The first episode of the Just Saying podcast dropped on February 9, 2017. And this month, I recorded Episode 400.
A number like that deserves a moment of reflection. A lot has changed in nine years. But the one thing that hasn’t is why the podcast exists in the first place.
It began as a request, not a strategy.
I was teaching a class at The BRIEF Lab in Southern Pines. One of the participants, a member of the special operations community, asked me why I didn’t do a podcast.
I didn’t understand the question at first. I knew what podcasts were. I listened to them. What I didn’t see was the need.
He explained it plainly. The course mattered to him. A podcast would be one more way to sustain the skill after the class ended.
That’s the same reason BRIEF (the book) exists. I designed the course first. The book came in 2014, and it was written to sustain what people learned in the room. The request came directly from the people in the class: You should write a book.
So I made a few decisions early about the podcast and never moved off them:
- Keep it short. I teach brevity. A 90-minute podcast on being concise doesn’t hold up.
- Keep it just me and you. I tried guests. I tried co-hosts. Neither worked as well as a direct conversation.
- Keep it unsponsored. No free sports car. No coffee deal. It’s fine.
What motivates me is meeting people at courses in DC, in Chicago, and next month in Europe, who tell me they listen to every episode.
Professionalism is well-informed judgment.
Today, AI changes how we communicate at a profound level. So I sat with it. I used quiet time to think about what my actual perspective is as the owner of The BRIEF Lab and the author of these books.
Here’s what I wrote:
I’ve always believed that professionalism is ultimately about well-informed judgment. It means seeing clearly, thinking logically and reasonably, and taking responsibility for what you say and do. No technology tool or artificial intelligence can replace that.
That’s the whole thing in three sentences. Seeing clearly. Thinking reasonably. Owning the outcome.
Notice what’s missing. Speed isn’t in there. Volume isn’t in there. Output isn’t in there.
The real risk isn’t the technology. It’s the noise.
There’s a term making the rounds now: AI Slop. Like garbage.
Garbage in, garbage out. If you ask generic questions, or write generic prompts, and let the tool do all of the work, it responds in kind. And when someone reads what comes back, it doesn’t sound like you. It sounds like everyone and no one.
It’s beige. It reminds me of a paint color I came across a while ago called Agreeable Gray. It goes with everything. It isn’t distinctive. It isn’t authentic. It isn’t real.
That’s a problem, and it’s not a small one. AI can enhance the value of clear communication, but it can also generate an enormous amount of noise, faster than any of us have ever been able to generate it before.
My “humanity first” philosophy, in four lines.
In all our instruction at The BRIEF Lab and The Quiet Workplace, we maintain a humanity-first approach. It comes down to four statements:
- I think.
- I communicate.
- I decide.
- I own the outcome.
The technology can support you, challenge you, and sharpen you. It never replaces you and it never communicates for you.
We don’t hand over our humanity. We embrace it more intentionally than ever.
Make AI make you better.
AI is powerful. It should make you powerful. It should make you better. Never absent. Never weaker.
If you want to develop that judgment in your organization, start with the training. Our BRIEF Communication with AI course teaches professionals how to think, write, and speak with clarity when the tools appear to be doing it for you. We work with Fortune 500 companies and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, and the frameworks hold up in both rooms.
Bring us in, or start with the podcast. Either way, keep the judgment where it belongs.
Joseph McCormack first shared these ideas in the Just Saying podcast Ep. 400: My “humanity first” AI philosophy