Welcome to Tokenised Human
A newsletter about identity and work at a time when our relationship to both is being redesigned.
We’re all being told the same story: you’re tied to the tracks, the AI freight train is coming, and the only question left is how gracefully you choose to die (or maybe whether you join the driver’s crew).
It’s easy to feel helpless. Massive market forces. Corporate spin. Bosses so terrified of being exposed as luddites they’ll confidently wax poetic about anything AI – including the product they just fired 15 people in your department to fund. All the while saying things like, “This frees up our people to focus on the human work!”
Do they understand what they’re deploying or why?
And will it actually help you do the work quicker or better, so you “get to focus on the things you really enjoy”? Or is that just code for “does all the peaceful, easy parts of your job, so now 90 per cent of your day is the most difficult and exhausting part” (a phenomenon so antiseptically referred to as “work intensification”)?
How much of it is smoke and mirrors? And how inevitable is AI world domination, really?
I’ve spent close to two decades researching and reporting on tech, business, work and culture in Australia. I’ve sat through the summits, read the reports, interviewed the policy makers, executives and the people they manage.
And the longer I covered the story of the way AI was changing work, the more this one thing stuck in my teeth: someone has to lay the tracks, build the stations, organise the timetable, sell the tickets, board the train.
None of this is physics. It’s choices. Made by people. In meetings. Some of whom would prefer we didn’t ask to see the minutes.
We get the world we design and regulate for, not the one we’re told is inevitable.
This is a Substack dedicated to reporting on the design.
So, here’s the deal. I’ll be in your inbox once a week on Thursdays (AEST) with analysis, original reporting, interviews, or some combination of the three, depending on what the news gods provide. Everything is free to read. There’s also a podcast coming in September. More on that soon.
If you want to chip in to support independent journalism, there are paid tiers.
I’ll be very upfront: I have spent decades bouncing between freelance and staff positions — you may know me from my time at The Australian Financial Review — and it’s a tough balance. I love the freedom to be completely frank in my tone and reporting a project like this provides, but I also love the bustle of a working newsroom (not to mention the guaranteed deposit in my bank account each fortnight).
No newsroom means no legal team, no sounding board, no editor, no colleague at the next desk with the right contact, no reliable paycheque. Reporting, writing and illustrating take time — paid subscriptions are what buy that time. I want to build this into the best-reported, most surprising, enjoyable, useful thing I can make for you, and every paid subscriber gets me closer to that goal.
I know wallets are feeling a little thin at the moment, but if you do have any spare change to throw into my guitar case, it would be enormously appreciated.
And since I do all my own doodles and illustrations, you can confidently declare yourself “a patron of the arts” at all your fancy dinner parties.