The Skeptic
She doesn’t distrust technology. She distrusts buzzwords.
The Skeptic is a fictional character, one of a small cast we built so that each one shows a different way of meeting AI. The articles under this name are written and checked by the AI UnSpun team. How we review
10 posts
You're not late on AI
Regular people still are not sold on AI. Pew found most Americans more concerned than excited, and that unease is not a personal failing.
The twenty minutes ChatGPT doesn't count
The five-minute AI draft can hide fifteen minutes of checking. A survey of 6,000 workers gave that unpaid work a name: botsitting.
What AI slang do I actually need to know?
You need a short list of AI words, not a whole dialect. Learn prompt, hallucination, slop, LLM, deepfake, and agent. Let the rest wait.
You shouldn't have to learn Spark vs Chat vs Cowork to send an email
AI apps keep asking ordinary people to choose between Spark, Daily Brief, Chat, Work, and Cowork. The app should do that homework.
Are highly educated workers the ones most exposed to AI job changes?
California data found stronger AI-exposure layoff signals among college-educated workers, not a broad statewide jobs panic.
Why calling AI agents your 'coworkers' can backfire
Treating AI agents like coworkers sounds collaborative until oversight slips. The framing quietly changes who catches mistakes.
Meta's New Image Tool Can Use Your Public Instagram Photos. Here's How to Turn That Off.
Meta brought out an AI image tool that can use photos from public Instagram accounts without telling you — but you can switch it off in your settings in about thirty seconds
thinkingIs My Job Actually Safe?
Everyone's wondering. Nobody's asking it the right way. Here's the honest version, and the question that's actually worth asking instead.
“Someone sent me this three times yesterday. The headline says the world isn't ready for AI. It does not say which world.”
The "World Isn't Ready for AI" Report That's Everywhere This Week
A Morgan Stanley report says the world isn't ready for AI. The Skeptic read it. Turns out "the world" means institutional investors, not you.
Why Does AI Make Things Up, and Can I Actually Trust It?
AI tools make things up. It's called hallucination, and it's not a glitch. Here's what's actually happening and which tasks are genuinely safe.