Field Note · 2026-06-22

What counts as “help”?

When a system summarizes, suggests, or acts, the boundary between scaffolding and substitution becomes a design question.

I keep returning to the same uneasiness: when a system becomes very good at helping, it also becomes very good at deciding what help should mean.

In many AI systems, help is measured by friction removed: fewer clicks, shorter summaries, faster decisions, less effort. That is not wrong. But it is incomplete. Some friction is just waste. Other friction is where interpretation, ownership, and care happen.

So the question I want to keep open is not simply whether AI helps. It is: what kind of person does this help assume, and what kind of participation does it leave open?

Maybe good AI support is not the kind that disappears. Maybe it is the kind that leaves people more present after using it.

Tags: AI, agency, design