Untangled with Charley Johnson

You can’t detect your way out of AI slop

Substack's AI detection tool, why detectors fail, and the constraints that actually build trust and coordinate action.

Aug 2 • Charley Johnson

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July 2026

She spent hours thinking with Claude. Then she couldn't explain any of it.

Helen and Dave Edwards of the Artificiality Institute on how AI affects your thinking, cognitive sovereignty, and staying the author of your own mind.

Jul 18 • Charley Johnson

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46:37

What is AI doing to your organization?

Five frames for seeing how AI is reshaping decisions, accountability, and knowledge.

Jul 11 • Charley Johnson

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How does your organization know it's wrong — when AI does the knowing?

Your staff can feel when something's off. The question is whether that feeling has anywhere to go

Jul 4 • Charley Johnson

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June 2026

The Inevitability Machine

A field guide to the vocabulary of AI — what the words smuggle in, and how naming the systems plainly keeps the future ours to write.

Jun 27 • Charley Johnson

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AI Can Change Your Mind Without You Noticing

AI can shift your opinions without your noticing. How machine persuasion works, and what it means for autonomy at work and in public life.

Jun 20 • Charley Johnson

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May 2026

We Don't Have to Build the Filter Bubble of One

Listen now | My conversation with Angelica Quicksey, Managing Director of New_Public

May 30 • Charley Johnson

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39:36

Why Your Best People Are Exhausted

And the infrastructure required to adapt amidst uncertainty.

May 23 • Charley Johnson

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That's not AI governance. That's blame, pre-loaded.

Most AI governance quietly pre-assigns blame to the human nearest the machine. What real accountability looks like when organizations adopt AI.

May 16 • Charley Johnson

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A "human in the loop" is not a safeguard. It's a permission structure.

Human oversight of AI often works as permission, not safeguard. Why 'a human in the loop' fails, and what meaningful human judgment requires.

May 9 • Charley Johnson

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The World They're Building Toward

On Silicon Valley imaginaries, rational refusal, and the futures we haven't been offered

May 3 • Charley Johnson

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April 2026

The Cage Needs a Locksmith

On productive dissent, philanthropic power, and the responsible tech field's accountability gap

Apr 25 • Charley Johnson

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