In the surging currents of generative AI, our work-culture team talks with Olajumoke Fatoki. She says the future of work is human. We have much questions.

The world’s most powerful companies are pouring oceans of dollars into large language models and their data centers—and the rest of us tread water and hope for toeholds.

I feel giddy, and I’m not alone. A recent BCG report notes that worker’s moods about AI swing wildly: “The share of employees who feel positive about GenAI rises from 15% to 55% with strong leadership support.” Whoa. If the boss feels hopeful about AI, workers are more likely “to use it regularly, enjoy their jobs, and feel good about their careers.” (But 75% of workers aren’t getting this sort of senior leadership.)

I feel dread and anger and a lot of other unmanageable feelings, and I’m not alone in any of that either. When ChatGPT-5 dropped last week, users had a friggin’ melt down. Open AI had dialed back the model’s sycophancy—its tendency to suck up to users—with the result that some people missed GPT-4, yearning for its sweet-talking ways, like a football player missing a cheerleader girlfriend.

Sure, some soberminded users disliked GPT-5 for legitimate reasons: they had to revise their office workflows—again. That’s obnoxious.

But others seem to be asking, Why the heck isn’t ChatGPT5 calling me Man of the Year any more? (Read more here, especially about Kevin Roose’s idea for a Black Mirror episode about super intelligent suck-ups.)

I’m not sure if AI is a manageably rising tide or a friggin’ tsunami. And I’m wondering, what do managers and their teams need in this AI moment?

Here’s a start. We need courage. We need discernment. We need some humor. And we need a lot of stories about staying human when the current is strong and your toes just barely touch the sand.

We need an intergenerational Mode/Switch conversation.