Why AI Feels "Safer" Than My Colleagues (And It’s Not Why You Think)

For this week’s newsletter, I’m hitting pause on the usual list of news and updates to share a thought piece that has been stuck in my head all week.

It started while listening to a recent episode of the Women Talkin’ ‘bout AI podcast, specifically their chat on “When Everyone Uses AI, What’s Real Anymore?”. The hosts, Kimberly Pace-Becker and Jessica Parker(two of my favorite thought leaders in my mind), touched on a fascinating idea: Why AI feels “safer” than people.

At first glance, that statement might seem dystopian and be sure to listen their thoughts as I am going to riff off the concept based on my week of experiences.

And then I looked at my desk calendar.

I saw this Peanuts strip yesterday, and it hit me. In the "old world" of work and school, Peppermint Patty is right. When you hit a wall and neither you nor your neighbor knows the answer, what do you do? You punt. You stop. You wait. You delay the project until an expert is available. And as I reflected on my own work this week, I realized that despite my constant experimenting and tinkering with AI and tech I still have the old habit of doing this very thing and Peanuts characters were right. And combining that with the podcast that is so good I can’t help but also think the hosts are right, but perhaps not for the reasons we usually assume. AI isn’t safer because it’s smarter or kinder. It’s safer because it protects the most fragile asset we have in the modern workplace: Flow State.

And I don’t think I realized how important this is and I don’t think I hear or read much about this either.

The Spreadsheet Dilemma

Here is the reality of my week: I had a vision for a tool I am creating to help districts. I knew exactly what I wanted it to do, I have the domain knowledge to help districts with their given requests of work, and I know the criteria for what is needed to do the job. But I didn’t have the technical skills to make the spreadsheet behave like I wanted it to in my head. I needed complex formulas and a bit of coding that was simply above my pay grade.

In the "punt" model, my next step would have been to reach out to a colleague. In the old mindset, my next step would have been to reach out to a colleague. I work with brilliant experts who could have solved this in five minutes. And I did indeed reach out to them and then later emailed them to let them know, nevermind, I figured it out.

But I didn’t call them or go to their office. I emailed and then rescinded. Why?

Because I know they are burying themselves under their own mountains of work. A recent report from Microsoft’s Work Trend Index highlights the “Infinite Workday,” revealing that the average employee is interrupted every two minutes. We are all trapped in a cycle of digital debt, constantly trying to claw back focus time.

I didn’t want to be one more notification ping on their screen. I didn’t want to be the “kid in class” waving my hand, waiting helplessly for an expert to come save me while my own momentum crashed to a halt.

The Safety of the Machine So, I didn't punt. I changed the script.

AI modified version of the Peanuts strip above using Google Gemini

So, I turned to AI. Because I didn’t want my work to bleed into my evenings and mornings like work used to do. I want to be human and have human experiences beyond work and am trying really hard to balance both worlds.

I went to Claude and explained my vision. I used natural language. I uploaded my messy diagrams, my templates, and my bad drawings sketched on computer paper along with screenshots of my terrible spreadsheet. And in real-time, we built it.

This is where the “safety” comes in.

• Safety from Guilt: I wasn’t breaking anyone else’s flow state.

• Safety from Judgment: I could ask “dumb” questions or iterate on half-baked ideas without feeling like I was wasting a human’s time.

• Safety of Momentum: I didn’t have to wait 24 hours for an email reply. I stayed in my own flow, solving the problem the moment it arose.

The New Definition of Upskilling

This experience shifted how I view “skills.” My upskill wasn’t spending three months taking a Spreadsheets 201 course. My upskill was learning how to articulate my vision clearly enough for the AI to execute it.

I didn’t need to know the syntax for the formula; I just needed to know what the formula needed to achieve.

The barrier to entry isn’t technical knowledge anymore; it’s the ability to think critically and communicate a vision.

The Takeaway

AI didn’t replace the human expert because the human wasn’t capable; it replaced the friction of accessing that expertise. It allowed me to remain a creator rather than a requester.

If we want to stay “real” in a world of AI, maybe we don’t need to compete on technical execution. We need to double down on the vision, the criteria, and the “why” and let the AI handle the "how" so we never have to punt again and get a little more of our flow state back.