This week, I led the AI Small Business Conference at @DuquesneSBDC with ~90 small biz leaders. No hype, just practical, responsible AI for real businesses. 🎉 More businesses need this to start, grow and sustain responsibly with AI.
🔔 At the conference I announced that my book "Generative AI for Small Business" drops in July! Sign up to be notified: https://forms.gle/1ep3qvphaaE1aw7g6
But don't keep trying to sell us on AGI. I'm concerned with stochastic being touted as better than deterministic software, the way we've just become comfortable with factoids and fake news. There's value to stochastic tools, but it's not the end-all-be-all.
I hope it's apparent that any stretch of the imagination of the term "artificial general intelligence" (AGI) is not what our current class of AI are when Skills are the best we've got. I think Skills are great. And I'm excited to see Anthropic release anthropics/skills on GitHub.
Fascinating, and it explains a lot about authoritarianism rising in countries around the world. -
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/world/americas/actually-democracy-dies-in-hr.html
Actually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
New research sheds light on how mediocre employees help would-be authoritarians maintain power.
"The people who make those decisions, the research suggests, are neither extremists nor victims. They are often just middling workers looking for a way to get ahead."
"It turns out that the kinds of career pressures familiar to employees everywhere — the desire to revive a stalled career or obtain a minor promotion — can be enough to incentivize lower- and midlevel officials to violate professional obligations, fundamental norms and even basic morality."
Fascinating, and it explains a lot about authoritarianism rising in countries around the world. -
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/world/americas/actually-democracy-dies-in-hr.htmlActually, Democracy Dies in H.R.
New research sheds light on how mediocre employees help would-be authoritarians maintain power.
"The people who make those decisions, the research suggests, are neither extremists nor victims. They are often just middling workers looking for a way to get ahead."
"It turns out that the kinds of career pressures familiar to employees everywhere — the desire to revive a stalled career or obtain a minor promotion — can be enough to incentivize lower- and midlevel officials to violate professional obligations, fundamental norms and even basic morality."
In all the years of owning the Pixel Watches (since the original Pixel Watch), I’ve recently had the most problems with the OS. Assistant/Gemini keeps resetting, display items are jumping off screen, erratic power usage. I hope these get fixed soon! 🫪
