Ubiquity's senior editor Dr. Bushra Anjum chats with Ken Holstein, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he leads the Co-Augmentation, Learning, & AI (CoALA) Lab. We discuss how, amidst all of the current AI hype, human ability and expertise remain underappreciated. Designing for complementarity in AI-augmented tooling ensures that domain-specific worker-facing AI systems are designed to bring out the best of human ability rather than simply attempting to, many a time incorrectly, automate them away.

Each "Communication Corner" essay is self-contained; however, they build on each other. For best results, before reading this essay and doing the exercise, go to the first essay "How an Ugly Duckling Became a Swan," then read each succeeding essay.

People who are serious about effective writing and speaking are eager to learn and emulate the principles and practices of professionals in the field. In particular, they often worry about their text or presentation being too long, i.e., "over-explaining" for fear of insulting their audience's intelligence. This is a legitimate concern. However, "too long" doesn't actually mean what many people think it means. Let's correct this damaging misapprehension.