I first heard Ethan Mollick on The Ezra Klein Show in April 2024 (“How Should I Be Using A.I. Right Now?”). He offered sensible, practical ways to use AI without the hype. Shortly after, I read Co-Intelligence and have followed his writing and talks since. In a recent interview with Sana Labs founder and CEO Joel Hellermark, Mollick argued that the traditional apprenticeship path is shifting in the AI era (around 28:00). That resonated with me. Here’s my summary of his argument—and what leaders can do about it.
What’s changing
- Juniors lean on AI to finish tasks—often without fully understanding the “why” behind the steps. They ship outputs but don’t accrue judgment.
- Seniors bypass juniors for speed—preferring AI for first drafts over delegating to a new hire who needs context, clearer instructions, and iterative correction.
Case in point: “deep research”
If you’re a senior team member who once asked an analyst or intern to explore a space, AI tools like Gemini or ChatGPT can now synthesize sources, outline options, and draft summaries faster than a human hand‑off. From the other perspective: if you’re the junior, generating multiple multi‑page explorations is now trivial: mostly mindless activity, without iterative feedback.
Why this matters
Judgment grows through cycles of repetitions and feedback: doing the work, making mistakes, and getting timely correction from someone who has already made those mistakes. When AI handles many first‑rung tasks, the natural loop that builds expertise gets disrupted. Unless we design those reps back in, we’ll get faster outputs but shallower benches.
What might be done
- No silent AI. Require juniors to submit prompt + reasoning. Coach the reasoning, not just the artifact.
- Explain‑back and red team. Ask juniors to explain why an AI output is plausible. Red teams are tasked with finding where it might fail and rewarded for identification of risks.
- Mentor prompts. Maintain a shared prompt library annotated with senior commentary—capturing not just what to ask, but how to think.
Going forward
Real skill building happens through deliberate, coached practice. Sports teams have done this explicitly for generations. Now with AI, other fields need to make expertise-building much more formal and intentional. Organizations that commit to coached practice will produce more true seniors, faster. Deliberate, coached practice is the new apprenticeship.