Why AI Makes You Worse at the Jobs It Can't Do (with Katie Malone)

Dr. Katie Malone, host of *Linear Digressions*, explains how AI enabled her to relaunch her podcast after a 5.5-year hiatus. She argues that people management and AI agent management are fundamentally the same skill, highlighting the importance of defining tasks, setting acceptance criteria, and 'trust but verify'. Malone discusses the implications of 'AI slop' and 'process slop' in organizations and describes how a "Claude Code in a trench coat" agent now produces her show. She also delves into fascinating data paradoxes, including Bainbridge's Ironies of Automation, Simpsons Paradox, and Benford's Law, emphasizing how human expertise can erode with increasing automation and the counter-intuitive patterns in natural data.