Human-Centered AI on Christa Burger

AI Loves a Pancake: Why Good AI Should Not Flatten Complex Work

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

AI has a tendency to turn complex situations into pancakes.

Flat. Neat. Easy to consume. Missing several load-bearing ingredients.

Sometimes that is fine.

Sometimes you need the pancake.

But serious work often has layers:

Operational
Financial
Human
Strategic
Ethical
Historical
Political
Timing-related

Good AI should help hold those layers without making the next action impossible.

That is the balance.

Clarity without flattening. Structure without pretending the situation is smaller than it is.

Margin Is the Metric for Useful AI

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I want to see more AI conversations include the word margin.

Not just time saved. Not just cost reduced. Not just output increased.

Margin.

Did this reduce decision fatigue?
Did it make the next right action clearer?
Did it prevent rework?
Did it improve trust?
Did it give someone enough capacity back to think?

That matters.

Speed without margin is just burnout with better tooling.

AI can absolutely help us move faster.

Automation Should Not Eat the Human

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Automation has a suspicious habit of becoming another thing to manage.

You automate the workflow.

Then you monitor the automation. Then troubleshoot the automation. Then explain the automation. Then build a dashboard for the automation. Then attend a meeting about the automation.

At this point, the automation has not saved time.

It has developed a small administrative ecosystem and started charging rent.

AI needs a better standard.

It should reduce load, not relocate it.

AI Should Protect Aliveness, Not Just Increase Output

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A lot of AI productivity advice seems to assume the goal is to become a more efficient toaster.

More output. More speed. More content. More emails. More dashboards. More lightly formatted urgency.

I am not interested.

The point of AI should not be to cram more sludge into the same calendar.

The point should be to create margin.

For better judgment. Better work. Better thinking. Better relationships. Better rest. Better stewardship.

How to Talk About AI Without the Hype (Or the Panic)

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve sat through an AI presentation in the last two years, you’ve probably experienced one of two things: breathless excitement about the coming transformation, or grave warnings about everything that could go wrong.

Both have their place. Neither, on its own, is particularly useful.

The conversation most organizations actually need is more grounded, more specific, and frankly more interesting. It starts not with what AI can do, but with what you are trying to do — and whether AI is actually the right tool for it.