Let’s Womansplain
▶ WATCH: MARA ON SHIRLEY CHISHOLM, 35 SECONDS
You can use AI to get something done and still have serious reservations about what it's doing to work. The question is how much say you get in the bargain.
If a tool helps you finish a task faster, does your day get easier? Or does your workload grow? It matters whether learning to use it feels like your decision or another expectation someone else has set.
Here are four ideas to take into your week, followed by a way to find people to figure this out with.
INSIDE THE EPISODE
Four things for you to take away
01 · Using it more doesn't mean liking it more. Research Mara contributed to with Linda Lin and Clare Mehta at Emmanuel College found that workplace AI use increased over a year, while respondents' attitudes toward it became less favorable. The same study found people using AI for work gained self-esteem over that year, compared with people who weren't. Those trends can coexist. Mara's hopeful reading is that people may be becoming more careful about what they use and what it means for them. Greater adoption alone doesn't tell us whether people welcome the change. Mara on the findings →
02 · Getting access isn't the whole invitation. In a Danish study, women were 16 percentage points less likely than men in the same occupation to have used ChatGPT for work. The wider research points to differences in encouragement and training, as well as concerns about being judged for using AI. A useful question for a workplace rollout: who's getting the support to learn this? The research →
03 · Choice, mastery, company. Logan’s obsession thanks to her independent study in 2025 researching self-determination theory mapped onto AI adoption: psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan's theory describes three needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Think having a choice, feeling yourself get better, and feeling connected to other people. That gives you something concrete to look for in how you learn AI. A project you choose, with people you can ask questions, can give you more room to experiment. Logan's study → · The theory →
04 · Infrastructure can be built differently. Infomaniak built a data center beneath a Geneva housing co-op that sends its waste heat into the district heating network. At full capacity, the company says its heat output would be equivalent to heating 6,000 energy-efficient homes. That's a model worth asking about when the next data center gets proposed. We've decided one in three news stories we bring to the show should be good news. This is the kind we mean. How it works →
No one's going to invite you into this shit.
And that is a bad reason not to use it.
WHO DO YOU TALK TO ABOUT THIS STUFF?
An AI book club. No reading required.
Start one with a couple of friends. Someone brings something they tried, or a question they haven't figured out. You talk. It can be useful. It can be an existential bitch session. Both count.
You pick who's in it and what you talk about. That's a small place where you get more say.
We put together a short guide to getting the first one together, including the text to send. Logan's has been going for a year and is up to 70 people.
If someone comes to mind, send them this:
Want to have an AI book club? No actual books. We could listen to something and talk about it, or show each other whatever weird thing we've been trying. I'd like someone to figure this stuff out with.
If you start one, reply and tell us it exists. We want to know how it goes.
LISTEN
Listen to the episode
Want to hear us work through these ideas? Episode 25, Bring a Folding Chair, is a 49-minute conversation between the two of us, Logan Currie and Mara Bolis.
Short on time? The Geneva story starts at 9:50, the research introduction at 20:21, motivation and finding people to learn with at 35:27, and Shirley Chisholm at 45:15.
A few more references from the conversation:
From Future of Work to Future of Workers
A year-long qualitative study of AI-assisted cancer-treatment planning. Clinicians describe faster workflows alongside concerns about skill erosion, including the phrase "intuition rust." Read it →
The EU tech sovereignty package
Proposed June 3, 2026: a Chips Act 2.0, a Cloud and AI Development Act, and an open source strategy. The Commission's own framing is that the EU relies on non-EU countries for more than 80% of key digital products, services and infrastructure. It's the policy weather around the Geneva data center. What's in it →
Shirley Chisholm
The first Black woman elected to Congress, in 1968, and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. Her folding-chair advice gave this episode its name. Her story →
NEXT EPISODE · THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
Dr. Ifeoma Ajunwa
Author of The Quantified Worker. She joins us to talk about technology and workers' rights.
WRITTEN BY
Logan Currie & Mara Bolis
Women, work, and the messy middle of AI.
P.S. This is our first recap email. After today, these will land on Sunday nights, with something to take into your week.
