I am so tired of AI.

The headlines, the rich white guys leading as if they won't gain (more) from it, the fantastical level of investment, the fear of job elimination, the work slop, I'm fatigued with all of it.

But also, I am fascinated by what is happening right now in every workplace in the land at an accelerated pace.

Last week, some of the most powerful people in the AI industry did something others had advised that was unexpected. They asked for a pause.

Dario Amodei wrote a long, serious open letter. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Demis Hassabis added their voices. The moment that prompted it was an AI-driven cyberattack, one that moved faster and with more damage than the humans around it could manage in real time. The people who built these systems looked at what they had made and said, out loud, that something needs to change.

I’m not here to litigate whether they’re right or whether the call for a slowdown is sincere. I want to talk about what I think this moment is actually revealing – and what it asks of those of us who lead people for a living.

What I’ve always believed

People are what make organizations work. Not processes, not platforms, not products. People. This has been the core of everything I’ve done for thirty-five years in this work, and it has never felt more urgent to say out loud than it does right now.

When I look at the AI conversation, I see a lot of focus on capability: what the tools can do, how fast they improve, how much they will reshape work. I see very little focus on the humans who are still, for now, the ones making the calls. The ones setting the direction. The ones whose judgment – formed by experience, by failure, by relationship, by care – is exactly what’s missing from even the most sophisticated AI output.

That judgment is not a given. You have to protect it.

What protecting your judgment looks like

Writer and strategist Helen Edwards at The Artificiality Institute offered an observation that’s stayed with me. She pointed out that what made cars capable of going fast wasn’t the engine. It was the invention of brakes. Brakes gave drivers the confidence to push the accelerator further. Speed without brakes isn’t capability – it’s just danger.

Human judgment is the brake system that AI currently lacks. And right now, many of us are being asked to step aside and let the acceleration continue without us.

I’m asking you not to do that.

Leadership without active agency isn’t leadership at all. It's abdication and its reckless.

What I want you to notice this week

Pay attention to where in your work you are still genuinely present. Where are you thinking, weighing, feeling the weight of a decision? And where have you started defaulting to whatever the tool generates first?

There’s no shame in the second category. The tools are fast, they’re plausible, and they reduce friction in ways that are genuinely appealing after a long day when you need to get sh*t done. But friction is often where the thinking lives. It’s where your perspective shows up. It’s where you, specifically, make something different than anyone else would have made it.

This slowdown moment is asking us to decide what we want to keep. What kind of leaders do we want to be when AI is everywhere, growing faster than we can assess it, and the people around us are looking to us to make sense of it?

That answer doesn’t come from a model. It comes from you.

I’d love to hear what you are choosing to keep.

With care,

Moe

P.S. Someone had to cancel her spot in The Back Half this week. This retreat for women in the Back Half of life starts October 10th in the Highlands of Scotland. This is your sign to join me. I can offer a hefty discount, but I have to know by Saturday this week. Reply HAGGIS if you are ready do this.