{"id":45094,"date":"2026-06-09T11:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T09:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strtgy.design\/articles\/fk-ai\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T10:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:23:15","slug":"fk-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strtgy.design\/en\/strtgy-notes-en\/fk-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"F**k AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Augmented Leadership\u2122 – Webinar June 17, 2026, 12:00 PM<\/strong> AI makes the problem of not having a strategy even more evident. Are you ready to lead strategy, team, and AI in the same direction?<\/strong> Register now<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n
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“Performance culture is showing its limits now that machines are overtaking us. […] We’re putting happiness in the waiting room, and we’ll return when we’re less busy.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Antonio Civita, TEDx Bassano del Grappa, 2026<\/p>\n\n

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\u25cf\u2191<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I’m writing to you only now because this weekend I gave my first TEDx in Bassano del Grappa. I talked about performance culture, how much we pursue it, and how it’s starting to crack now that machines are beating us on almost everything measurable. <\/p>\n\n

It was an incredible experience. I can’t wait for the sessions to go online. <\/p>\n\n

Then the adrenaline kicked in. In the car, on the way home, I remembered a behind-the-scenes video I’d seen, trying to release the tension. <\/p>\n\n

F***k AI!<\/h2>\n\n

Harvard, Class Day 2026.<\/strong> Thousands of graduates, families, professors, phones up. On stage is Ronny Chieng, comedian from The Daily Show. At one point, he abandons his written speech and says, “Fuck AI” three times. <\/p>\n\n

But what struck me (positively) was the reaction!<\/p>\n\n

Harvard, one of the places where Silicon Valley draws its brains, erupts in a roar, as if someone touches a raw nerve with thousands of people at once.<\/p>\n\n

The easy explanation is, kids hate AI.<\/p>\n\n

It’s a shame he’s not coming back.<\/p>\n\n

Because in the same weeks, on other stages, the opposite happened. At the University of Arizona, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, spoke about AI and was booed by the audience. <\/p>\n\n

Gloria Caulfield called AI the next industrial revolution in front of art and communications students, and took a swipe.<\/p>\n\n

Music industry executive Scott Borchetta said that AI is rewriting production and that we need to deal with it, and there were boos there too.<\/p>\n\n

And here one might say, look, they really hate AI.<\/p>\n\n

But then, on the same days, Steve Wozniak, Lisa Su, and Jensen Huang spoke about AI and were applauded. Same topic, same time, same audience, opposite reactions. <\/p>\n\n

So the divide is not between those in favor and those against AI.<\/p>\n\n

But between two different ways of talking to people.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

It wasn’t a vote on technology<\/h2>\n\n

I went to look up what they actually said, word for word.<\/p>\n\n

The boos repeated more or less the same pattern. Schmidt: AI will shape the world, it’s up to you to decide whether to shape it. Borchetta: Get over it, it’s a tool. Caulfield: It’s the next industrial revolution. Different words are circulating, the same message: AI is coming anyway, you adapt.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n

Those applauding turned the sentence the other way. Wozniak: You already have the intelligence, your own. Lisa Su, speaking to the MIT engineers, reminded them that the world doesn’t just need people capable of using powerful tools, but people capable of choosing what to use them for, and taking responsibility for that choice. <\/p>\n\n

The difference wasn’t technical. It was moral. <\/p>\n\n

Those who were booed spoke as if people were a cost that the machine must optimize. Those who were applauded spoke as if people were still the ones who decide what the machine should do. <\/p>\n\n

This is leadership. And if you lead people, this scene should keep you awake at night. <\/p>\n\n

Your people are giving you the same test<\/h2>\n\n

No one declares it. No one whistles in meetings. But when you announce AI in a company, they only have one question in mind: is this stuff meant to make me grow, or to get rid of me? <\/p>\n\n

The answer they perceive, not the one you write on the slide, decides how they will work from tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n

There is a reason behind it that is a century and a half old.<\/p>\n\n

For a long time, an unwritten pact held: if the company does well, the people will do better too; if the company automates, people will be moved to higher-skilled jobs. It wasn’t always true. But it was credible enough to maintain productivity, trust, and career progression. <\/p>\n\n

With AI, that pact is undermined, because for the first time, a technology can increase profits and lower the prospects of many people in the same movement.<\/p>\n\n

Not in the factory. In the office. <\/p>\n\n

Not in ten years. Now. <\/p>\n\n

The numbers should be treated with caution, but they all point in the same direction.<\/h2>\n\n

The Stanford Digital Economy Lab has measured a decline in entry-level hiring in the professions most exposed to AI since 2022, while senior roles have become more stable. Surveys of executives and young workers reveal the same tension: many managers expect AI to absorb some of the junior workforce, while many young people see AI as a direct threat to their opportunities. <\/p>\n\n

There’s no point in using this data as a prophecy. It’s enough to read it as a sign. <\/p>\n\n

When you tell someone at the beginning of their career, “Learn to use the tool that will make hiring you less necessary,” they don’t hear empowerment. They hear blackmail delivered in good manners. <\/p>\n\n

And here comes the part that really matters to those who manage a team.<\/p>\n\n

The same tool, in two different companies, produces two opposite outcomes.<\/p>\n\n

Those who believe that “AI is here to help me grow” try things, make suggestions, make mistakes without fear, and share what they discover.<\/p>\n\n

Those who believe that “AI is here to make me useless” keep their information, lower their heads, pretend to be enthusiastic, and wait to see where the axe will fall.<\/p>\n\n

It’s not the software that decides which of the two you end up with on your team. It’s the psychological contract you build when you introduce it, whether it’s AI or a performance tracking app. <\/p>\n\n

Chieng’s point wasn’t to hate AI<\/h2>\n\n

I’ll go back to Ronny Chieng for a moment, because his point is more interesting than the slogan.<\/p>\n\n

He didn’t say, “If you use AI for scientific research, you’re the problem.” He said the opposite. The problem arises when you use language models to bypass the mental work that shapes you. <\/p>\n\n

He called it cognitive debt<\/strong> .<\/p>\n\n

The expression is precise, because it shifts the focus from the time you save to the time you waste without realizing it.<\/p>\n\n

If you use AI to avoid mechanical work, fine. If you use it to avoid the thought that was supposed to make you grow, you’re doing something else entirely. You’re cutting weight from the gym and then wondering why the muscles don’t grow. <\/p>\n\n

Bill Maher said it more bluntly: AI used badly is a lobotomy with a monthly subscription.<\/p>\n\n

Fast and stupid?<\/h2>\n\n

If we automated _<\/strong> _______________<\/strong> , which skill would we stop training?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

A former Concorde pilot explained this to me years ago. I asked him how much automation there was in the cabin, and he told me that, under normal conditions, a plane could almost fly itself. So I asked him why he continued with hundreds of hours of training and manual piloting. He answered with disarming simplicity: so as not to forget how to do it. When something goes wrong, automation is no longer enough. If you haven’t continued to train your control, judgment, and composure, regaining control becomes very dangerous. <\/p>\n\n

Certain tasks should be automated without nostalgia. Copying data from one system to another. Tracing a meeting. Preparing variations of a previously agreed-upon text. There’s nothing to defend there. <\/p>\n\n

Other activities seem slow because they are teaching you something.<\/p>\n\n

Writing a proposal helps you understand the client. Summing up trains you to separate signal from noise. Preparing a presentation forces you to organize a thesis. Responding to a sensitive email trains you to read the human context, not just the words. <\/p>\n\n

Companies that use AI only to produce more will become faster and dumber at the same time.<\/p>\n\n

Faster, because they will have more documents, more emails, more analytics, more code, more content.<\/p>\n\n

Dumber, because there will be fewer and fewer people able to understand whether all that stuff makes sense.<\/p>\n\n

Scarcity won’t be the output. It will be the judgment. <\/p>\n\n

And judgment is not established, it is trained.<\/p>\n\n

To be written on the blackboard<\/h2>\n\n
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When AI reduces the cost of production, it increases the value of the strategy<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

When production is cheap, choosing what is worth producing becomes the most important job.<\/p>\n\n

When writing is cheap, knowing what’s worth saying becomes crucial.<\/p>\n\n

When everyone can appear competent, true competence becomes rarer.<\/p>\n\n

When distraction is cheap, it becomes more dangerous.<\/p>\n\n

I agree with Ronny Chieng: the contest of the next few years will not be man versus machine but between people with substance versus people who feign substance.<\/p>\n\n

AI amplifies the leadership it finds<\/h2>\n\n

Unfortunately, AI, despite what the ads on self-help apps say, does not correct weak leadership but amplifies it.<\/p>\n\n

Inserted into a confused company, it produces confusion more quickly.<\/p>\n\n

Inserted where there are cracked processes, and you can’t help but crack yourself too.<\/p>\n\n

If management avoids difficult conversations, AI failure becomes the most effective excuse ever invented to postpone them further.<\/p>\n\n

How long will you continue to ask yourself “what tools do we buy?”<\/p>\n\n

And when will you start asking yourself what decisions we need to learn to make better, before AI multiplies busy-work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m on the side of AI. I work with it every day. I use it, study it, and implement it into corporate systems. <\/p>\n\n

This is precisely why I am not satisfied with enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n

Those roars and whistles aren’t against technology. They’re against a leadership that talks about the future without caring about those who will inhabit that future. <\/p>\n\n

People are asking for clearer direction, not (even) better tools.<\/p>\n\n

They demand to know whether AI will serve to liberate their intelligence or compress their dignity.<\/p>\n\n

We have to talk about it on June 17th<\/h2>\n\n

No list of tools. Everyone already talks about them, too much, and almost always in the wrong way, as if simply downloading the app, paying for the subscription, and chatting with a bot were enough to transform an organization. <\/p>\n\n

On the 17th, we’ll talk about Augmented Leadership, or how to give AI the strategic context it needs to be truly useful in your business.<\/p>\n\n

How do you lead an organization when the quality of decisions, rather than the quantity of output, becomes what makes the difference?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Augmented Leadership\u2122 – Business Strategy with AI and OKRs<\/a><\/p>\n\n

If you’d like to delve deeper into the story behind this reflection, below you’ll find links to the videos cited and the full transcript of Ronny Chieng’s speech at Harvard.<\/p>\n\n

ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS \u25cf\u2191<\/p>\n\n

Antonio<\/p>\n\n

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F***k AI: all videos<\/h2>\n\n

If you are looking for videos about anti AI backlash in universities<\/h3>\n\n

I’ve collected the videos mentioned in this newsletter here: Ronny Chieng’s speech at Harvard Class Day 2026 with the “fuck AI” line; Eric Schmidt booed at the University of Arizona while speaking about artificial intelligence; Gloria Caulfield criticized at UCF for calling AI the next industrial revolution; Scott Borchetta booed at MTSU; Steve Wozniak speaking about “actual intelligence;” Lisa Su speaking at the MIT Class of 2026; and Jensen Huang at Carnegie Mellon University. If you were looking for one of these videos to understand why students and leaders are reacting so differently to AI, you’ll find the direct links below, and above, my reading on the real issue: not the technology, but leadership. <\/p>\n\n

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