Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

Working Up header image 4

Deskilling or I Forgot What I Was Doing

September 4th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips It seems that when we stop doing something, we forget how to do it, sort of. I recently read reports of AI causing “deskilling.” (pronounced de-skilling, not des-killing) It seems that some folks were using AI tools to do something they used to do all the time. After a few months, one […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Knowledge · Learning · Remember · Tools

Bunny Rabbits on Trampolines: That’s Entertainment!

August 25th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips One again, our world plunges into debate about … bunny rabbits on trampolines. Are those bunny rabbits bouncing on a trampoline real? Oh no, they aren’t. AI generated that video. Who is the dastardly person who perpetrated that hoax on us all? We need to find a villain and do what it […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Culture · Fun · Music · Video

AI, Education, Teaching, and Learning

August 4th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips AI has upended large parts of the education system. What to do? Back to basics. Decide what is important to learn and teach that. Teachers give an assignment. Students use one of these chattering bots to write the answer. Task done. No learning, but the task is done so move on. This […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Education · Learning · Programming · Requirements · Teaching · Technology

New Tools, Modified Techniques

July 28th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips New tools sometimes allow us to modify the techniques we use. The new tools don’t require modification, but allow it. These kids today, these engineers and scientists under 30, they just … well, they just do things differently. They have new tools (and I have new tools). They work the way the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Problems · Solutions · Technology · Tools · Word · Work

Time to Write About AI Agents

July 21st, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips AI agents are all the rage. Really? Of course these things are old news. OpenAI released the ChatGPT Agent recently. Wow! Great stuff! Okay, it is pretty good stuff. Here is a prompt in plain, everyday English. When something happens, do something. Here are instructions in plain, everyday English. Do that complex […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Data Science · History · Technology

AI,Jobs, and Poor Decisions

July 17th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Replace people with AI? Cut human jobs? Deciders at companies are deciding these things. It is unfortunate, but deciders at companies have a history of choosing poorly. Replace people and their jobs with AI. Think of the benefits. Save money. Better the bottom line. And remove some of those pesky people whose […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Change · Choose · Decide · General Systems Thinking · Jobs · Management · People · Systems

Chatbot Analysis and Longer Written Pieces

June 19th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Chatbots can answer questions about written pieces. They can be good tools for feedback. I was recently testing several different chatbots to understand which performed better. I fed a 200-page document I wrote into each chatbot and asked them questions. There were several questions which all the chatbots failed to answer. The […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Mistakes · Tools · Writing

Better Human Writing and AI-Produced Writing

June 16th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips To use AI to write reports requires a person who can write well. Let’s use AI to write our reports or essays or deep research or whatever AI will write for us now. That’s not cheating, that’s using good tools … some disagree violently with that statement. The AI tools are quite […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Communication · Computing · Tools · Writing

A Deeper Test of Writing Using a Chatbot

June 12th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A chatbot can be used to check a longer piece of writing for content. I was recently testing chatbots to determine if they could pull information from long pieces of writing. I attached an autobiography that was more than 200 pages long. I then asked the chatbots what seemed like obvious questions. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Learning · Machine Learning · Review · Testing · Writing

Don’t Be That Person

May 29th, 2025 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips AI tools are here. They don’t do everything, but they boost productivity. Use the tools. I am old enough to remember a time in the late 1980s when word processors appeared. There were many older managers who were accustomed to writing in cursive on yellow pads with pencils and handing those to […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Adapting · Artificial Intelligence · Choose · Create · Learning · Tools · Work