About this Episode: This is a Raw Memo edition of All Things Human. In the spirit of staying authentic and keeping the conversation moving, I’m skipping the studio polish and the theme music to bring you a thought exactly as it happened.

In this memo:

1. The "Type 3" Distraction: Why some public behaviors feel like a "system failure" rather than a simple annoyance.
2. Unclosed Loops: The psychological reason why we remember a rude encounter from 15 years ago.
3. Shared Scripts: How the lack of explicit rules in public spaces is changing the way we interact with one another.

The Goal of All Things Human: To explore the quiet rules of how we are with each other—even when those rules get broken.

#HumanExperience #PublicEtiquette #RawPodcast #SocialPsychology #HumanBehavior #AllThingsHuman

Have you ever had an automated system deny your loan, flag your social media post, or change your work schedule without explanation?

In this episode, we dive into the "talk of the town" in tech circles: AI Governance. What is AI Governance?. While it sounds like a dry topic for lawyers, it’s actually a deeply human issue that impacts our daily lives and livelihoods.

We explore the growing "accountability gap" where decisions are made instantly and at scale, yet no single human feels responsible for the outcome. From the workplace to customer support, we break down why the current lack of clear ownership is eroding trust—even when the technology is working exactly as designed.

Key topics covered in this episode:

1. The Black Box Effect: Why "the system flagged it" is becoming the ultimate shield against accountability.
2. Human Speed vs. AI Scale: How the transition from manual audits to instant, automated decisions has broken our traditional feedback loops.
3. Ethics vs. Accountability: Why having an "ethics team" isn't the same as having someone empowered to stop or reverse a system.
4. The Future of Trust: What leaders must do to bridge the gap between human responsibility and machine efficiency.

Join us as we pull back the curtain on AI governance and discuss why the most important question in tech today isn't "What can AI do?" but "Who is responsible when it does it?".

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #TechTrends #AIGovernance #EthicalAI #DigitalTrust #FutureOfWork

Many conversations about AI-driven job losses frame entrepreneurship as “freedom.” But what if you don’t want to start a business? In this episode, I talk honestly about why not everyone is wired to be a solopreneur—and why that matters as AI reshapes work.

This episode is for people who have been laid off or displaced and are quietly overwhelmed by the pressure to “figure it out” on their own. There's the idea that they can do that, armed with a bunch of AI tools. Even though it may be theoretically possible, I don't think this is an accurate portrayal of the situation people find themselves in. I share my own accidental path into solopreneurship, the support that made it possible, and why my experience doesn’t generalize to everyone.

I don’t offer a neat solution. Instead, I sit with the discomfort of a system that celebrates independence while ignoring uneven risk, caregiving realities, and psychological cost. There has to be more than one path forward. I cover some possibilties in my Substack substack.com/@adelewang

Q: What happens when AI layoffs push people into entrepreneurship? What if people don't want to be business owners?

A: Not everyone benefits from becoming a solopreneur. While some thrive with autonomy, others experience increased stress, financial insecurity, and emotional overload—especially when they didn’t choose this path.

I explore this topic more deeply on Substack, where I write longer essays on work, AI, and meaning. Visit me at substack.com/@adelewang

What Solopreneurs Need To Understand About the Attention Game

What is the Visibility Industrial Complex?

The Visibility Industrial Complex is a system where solopreneurs are pressured to remain constantly visible in order to be seen as credible, relevant, or legitimate — even when that visibility no longer leads to connection or meaningful work.

Because visibility practices have become a requirement rather than a tool, turning self-promotion into ongoing emotional labor.

Repeated exposure without relevance creates noise, not trust, and buyers disengage.

No. It’s a system problem driven by incentives that reward attention over alignment.

This episode is cultural critique exposing how the visibility-industrial complex has convinced an entire generation that being seen is survival. This conversation reveals the lore and accompanying machinery behind the pressure to be visible all the time, in order to be successful. The Visibility Industrial Complex is profitable, but not for many of the actual participants.

Take a look behind the curtain to notice who's profiting while business owners scramble for attention, validation, and relevance on platforms designed to extract, not serve.

#attention economy #visibility culture #solopreneur #personal branding fatigue

Why performative networking is failing and how to reclaim real connection in the age of AI

If you’ve ever stood in a room of 50 people, clutching a coffee cup and waiting for a 29-second countdown to pitch your business to a room of people who aren’t actually listening, you’ve felt the "Chamber of Commerce" exhaustion. We have replaced real relationship-building with "Identity Flashcards"—a phenomenon I call Brand Warmth Simulation. In this episode, we dissect why this extractive style of networking is hollowing out our professional lives, the heavy cognitive cost of "performative vulnerability," and why the rise of AI is about to make these polished, hollow scripts even more obvious—and more avoidable.

We are living with a quiet internal split — and most of us feel it, but few can name it.

On one side of us is the part that uses AI, productivity tools, and digital systems to stay relevant, visible, and competitive.

On the other side is the part of us that longs for what feels real. Presence, trust, effort, and genuine human connection.

In this episode, Adele Wang explores the growing emotional and relational tension of these two parts of us in the AI era. People use these tools to be more productive, and so much content now “looks fine”. But feels off, and it's why trust is quietly eroding. Even business owners themselves feel uneasy when AI is used on them. Because they they feel the same tension about AI when they experience it while they also use it towards others.

In this episode:

• The invisible trust fracture that's happening

• Why people can sense when something wasn’t created by a real person

• The quiet exhaustion that comes from living inside algorithmic noise

• Why authenticity has become more valuable — and more fragile — than attention

This is not a tactical AI episode. It’s a human one.

#HumanInTheAIEra #TrustInATechWorld #DigitalExhaustion #AIAndHumanity #AuthenticityMatters

#ConsciousLeadership #TheHumanSideOfAI #FutureOfWork #ModernLife #MeaningInTheMachineAge

What is the one word that makes corporate leaders more squeamish than "taxes" or "sex"?

Power.

In the coaching and development world, people are allergic to the word. It sounds dirty. It sounds like corruption. So, the word got rebranded to "Empowerment" because that feels safe. It feels internal. It feels like yoga.

But in this episode, I argue that this semantic shift is actually dangerous. By confusing the feeling of empowerment with the physics of power, we are accidentally training a generation of leaders to be abrasive, isolated, and blind to their own impact.

We cover:

1. The Semantic Trap: Why we love "Empowerment" but hate "Power"—and why the distinction matters.
2. The "Jerks" Paradox: How standard coaching advice ("Don't care what people think") can turn a well-meaning leader into a toxic boss.
3. The Two Types of Power: The critical difference between Internal Agency (Self-Empowerment) and External Physics (Power Over resources and people).
4. The AI Factor: Why Artificial Intelligence is about to make this power dynamic even more volatile.

If you’ve ever wondered why so many "empowered" leaders seem to lack basic empathy, this episode unpacks the mechanism behind the behavior.

Note: My use of the term “brain damage” in the epsidoe was as a metaphor, not a literal sense of physical brain damage.

Key Quote: "We have a generation of leaders who think they are 'empowered,' but they are actually just abrasive because they don't understand the tool they are holding." #PowerDynamics #LeadershipPsychology #CorporateCulture #ExecutiveCoaching #AbrasiveLeadership #ThePowerTrap #NeuroscienceOfLeadership #EmpowermentTrap #FutureOfWork #AILeadership

Connect with Adele:

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/adele-wang/
2. https://substack.com/@adelewang

The irony of this was not lost on me. It's frankly embarassing to see this.

It's obvious, once you know how to look.

Maybe you can relate. Maybe you're already feeling that disembodied feeling when you encounter vanilla smooth AI-generated content. It looks fine. It looks great. But doesn't actually really say anything.

Why? Because there's no distinction. There's no point of view.

It's all just very smooth and vanilla.

The AI detector tool told me:

This article has extremely high probabilities of being AI-generated, or at the very least, heavily assembled using AI templates. Abrasive people often use AI to polish their tone because they know their natural voice is too aggressive for marketing.

We live in strange times.