Deprecated Human

Jess Lowry

The Deprecated Human Podcast is a weekly show exploring the growing gap between what the AI industry promises and what people actually experience. Examining how narratives about technological capability are reshaping work, value, and human potential. Each week, the show releases episodes centered on a central theme. Hosted by Jess Lowry, a design strategist with over two decades of experience applying human-centered design across organizations, the podcast brings in diverse voices to explore each topic from multiple perspectives.

  1. 4 days ago

    Beyond Titles: A Conversation with Mariel Sanchez

    What happens when your abilities extend far beyond the job title employers use to define you? Mariel Sanchez began her career in psychology before moving into technology as a research assistant at Meta Reality Labs. She went on to become a UX researcher, helping teams understand people, identify unmet needs, and make better decisions. After being laid off, Mariel spent more than nine months trying to return to the profession she had worked hard to build. She submitted approximately 60 applications a month, completed intensive interview processes, and used her savings while DoorDashing to pay her bills. Eventually, she decided to say a temporary goodbye to UX research and give an executive assistant role a genuine chance. Her honest LinkedIn post about that decision resonated with hundreds of people worldwide. In this episode, Mariel and Jess discuss the enormous unpaid effort required to search for work, the emotional consequences of rejection without feedback, and a hiring system optimized for familiar titles, linear careers, and exact previous experience. Mariel also reflects on what happens when we separate our abilities from our professional identities. The skills she developed through research—recognizing problems, finding gaps, organizing complexity and improving how people experience systems—can create value far beyond the technology industry. Beyond Titles is a conversation about surviving prolonged unemployment, questioning the promise of the linear career, and recognizing that leaving a profession does not mean leaving your capabilities behind. Podcast Guest: Mariel Sanchez  Mariel Sanchez is a UX Researcher in the greater Seattle Area with over 6 years of experience, and her passion for research has allowed her to work on a variety of topics. From academic research touching on substance use in Latinx youth to body tracking in the virtual world.  Today, however, she learns to fight the instinct to ask questions and find answers where there may not be any yet. Navigating a 9-month layoff, the impact of AI on her career, and an environment full of opinions on what the next few years will look like, she sits in the unknown where uncertainty, as it turns out, has its own kind of momentum. Connect with Mariel: ⁠Mariel Sanchez on LinkedIn⁠  ⁠ Check out Mariel’s work:  UX Research Portfolio: https://www.marielsr.com/ Post that led to 100s of outreach: https://lnkd.in/p/gHJdHPsc Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Socio-technical Systems Designer at ⁠⁠ENID Studio⁠⁠, a collective of practitioners that enable organizations to redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and human-centered digital transformation. Austin Women in Technology (AWT) mentor. Jess is also a founding member of Effective Immediately, a community for people building microbusinesses.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠⁠⁠Effective Immediately ⁠⁠⁠ Continue the Investigation Become a member at ⁠⁠DeprecatedHumanPodcast.com⁠⁠ Deprecated Human investigates how layoffs, AI, hiring technology, and changing workplace systems are redefining expertise, security, and human value. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on LinkedIn⁠⁠ Each edition connects the personal stories shared on the podcast with the larger forces changing how we work.  Subscribers receive: Research summaries and links to original sourcesKey insights from podcast conversationsEmerging signals affecting work and employmentPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly reports connecting findings from across the investigation This isn’t another hustle-culture newsletter about optimizing yourself for a broken system.

    Beyond Titles: A Conversation with Mariel Sanchez
  2. 1 Sept

    Collective Purpose: A Conversation with Andrew Baek

    What happens when the career you built can still provide an income but no longer reflects what you want your work to contribute? Andrew Baek is a Bay Area writer and filmmaker whose career has spanned educational technology, digital media, and nearly five years producing video at Uber. After becoming a father and then experiencing a layoff, Andrew began reconsidering how he defines success, which principles should guide his work, and where his creative abilities could be most useful. In this episode, Andrew and Jess discuss the difficulty of changing direction when employers continue to define candidates by their previous titles. Andrew describes feeling caught between returning to the work the market already recognizes and pursuing his growing interests in writing, researching political economy, and worker organizing. Their conversation explores the pressure to remain marketable, the exhaustion that can make working independently feel impossible, and the division between earning a living and doing work that provides a sense of purpose. They also consider how automated hiring systems reinforce outdated assumptions about linear careers at a time when more people are combining employment, contract work, independent projects and multiple sources of income. Andrew shares how his involvement with the Democratic Socialists of America and the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee has helped him move from private concern toward collective participation. He also reflects on how his experience in filmmaking and visual communication might eventually support political education, labor organizing and other forms of mission-driven work. Collective Purpose is a conversation about becoming a beginner again, redefining professional success and finding ways to bring our abilities, responsibilities and principles into closer alignment. Podcast Guest: Andrew Baek Andrew Baek is a writer and filmmaker based in the Bay Area, and a volunteer organizer for East Bay DSA and the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. Connect with Andrew: Andrew Baek on LinkedIn⁠   Check out Andrew’s latest work:  Film portfolio www.andrewbaek.com Articles www.moosebaek.com Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Socio-technical Systems Designer at ⁠ENID Studio⁠, a collective of practitioners that enable organizations to redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and human-centered digital transformation. Austin Women in Technology (AWT) mentor. Jess is also a founding member of Effective Immediately, a community for people building microbusinesses.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠⁠Effective Immediately ⁠⁠ Continue the Investigation Become a member at ⁠DeprecatedHumanPodcast.com⁠ Deprecated Human investigates how layoffs, AI, hiring technology, and changing workplace systems are redefining expertise, security, and human value. ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on LinkedIn⁠ Each edition connects the personal stories shared on the podcast with the larger forces changing how we work.  Subscribers receive: Research summaries and links to original sourcesKey insights from podcast conversationsEmerging signals affecting work and employmentPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly reports connecting findings from across the investigation This isn’t another hustle-culture newsletter about optimizing yourself for a broken system.

    Collective Purpose: A Conversation with Andrew Baek
  3. 24 Aug

    Moving Through: A Conversation with Lauren Blair

    What happens when the career you spent decades building is no longer the future you want, but the business waiting on the other side is not yet able to provide the security you need? In this episode, Lauren and Jess discuss the changing value of consulting, the personal cost of pursuing the corporate ladder, and what happens when someone accustomed to solving complex problems for global organizations must build every part of a small business herself. While still consulting, Lauren and her husband began building a family-owned trades business. Lauren’s 2025 layoff gave her the opportunity to focus exclusively on scaling her small business, but having an alternative path did not make the transition simple. Their conversation explores the realities hidden beneath polished entrepreneurship stories: generating demand, managing cash flow, making payroll, operating ethically, learning to sell, and accepting that greater control over your work does not necessarily produce greater ease. Lauren also reflects on how the transition has changed her family’s relationship with money, work and success—and why the systems that once appeared fixed have proven more malleable than she believed.  This is not a story about confidently leaving a corporate career to follow a dream. It is an honest account of living between employment and entrepreneurship, transferring hard-earned capabilities into an entirely different kind of business and continuing forward before the eventual outcome is clear. For Lauren, right now, the way out is through. Podcast Guest: Lauren Blair Lauren is an entrepreneur and small business owner living in Los Angeles. Her professional career spans more than 25 years in strategy, design, and technology, taking her from digital producer during the dot-com era to account director in digital marketing and, eventually, senior manager in Big Four technology consulting. Connect with Lauren: Lauren Blair on LinkedIn⁠   Looking for cleaning services in the LA area?  Check out:  www.thisisdreamclean.com www.proformwindowcleaning.com Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Socio-technical Systems Designer at ⁠ENID Studio⁠, a collective of practitioners that enable organizations to redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and human-centered digital transformation. She is also a member of Effective Immediately, a community for people building microbusinesses.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠⁠Effective Immediately ⁠⁠ Continue the Investigation Become a member at ⁠DeprecatedHumanPodcast.com⁠ Deprecated Human investigates how layoffs, AI, hiring technology, and changing workplace systems are redefining expertise, security, and human value. ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on LinkedIn⁠ Each edition connects the personal stories shared on the podcast with the larger forces changing how we work.  Subscribers receive: Research summaries and links to original sourcesKey insights from podcast conversationsEmerging signals affecting work and employmentPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly reports connecting findings from across the investigation This isn’t another hustle-culture newsletter about optimizing yourself for a broken system.

    Moving Through: A Conversation with Lauren Blair
  4. 18 Aug

    Role Call: A Conversation with Laurie Stark

    What happens when hiring systems are designed to recognize one kind of candidate? After leaving her role as Director of Strategy and Analytics at Kickstarter, Laurie Stark applied to more than 100 jobs. She used AI to polish her cover letters, prepare for interview questions, and tried to package her nonlinear career into something hiring systems could easily categorize. It wasn’t working—and the person she was presenting to employers wasn’t authentic.  So Laurie used her background in strategy, analytics, design, media, and paid acquisition to build Role Call, a subscription job-matching service that searches more than 17,000 company websites for relevant opportunities. Unlike job platforms built around selling services to employers, Role Call works directly for its paying customers: job seekers. The service is now approaching 100 customers. Role Call is a job-matching platform for mid-level and senior knowledge workers in the United States. It scans the websites of over 18,000 companies and matches those jobs to job seekers based on a comprehensive candidate profile that goes beyond job titles and a simple list of skills. When there's a potential match, the seeker is notified, usually within a few hours of the job being posted. Laurie joins Jess to discuss: How hiring systems reward candidates whose careers are easiest to categorizeWhy major job platforms are designed around the needs of employersGhost jobs, misleading posting dates, and the emotional cost of applyingWhy multidisciplinary careers can be difficult to explain but valuable when building something newUsing AI to build a product without surrendering human judgmentThe less glamorous realities of becoming a solopreneurWhy slow, customer-supported growth can be better than venture capitalHow employed workers can preserve their options before a layoff happens This is a conversation about finding work, creating work, and recognizing the value of experience that a machine can’t replicate or understand.  Interested in trying Role Call?  Get 50% off your first month!  Check out: https://rolecall.careers  Use promo code: DEPRECATED Podcast Guest: Laurie Stark Laurie has spent more than 10 years working in tech, including recent stints at Kickstarter and Google. In 2026, she launched Role Call, a job-matching platform, as a solo founder. She lives in Los Angeles with her two cats. Connect with Laurie: Laurie Stark on LinkedIn   Need better job leads? Check out Role Call: https://rolecall.careers Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Socio-technical Systems Designer at ENID Studio, a collective of practitioners that enable organizations to redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and human-centered digital transformation. She is also a member of Effective Immediately, a community for people building microbusinesses.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠Effective Immediately ⁠ Continue the Investigation Become a member at DeprecatedHumanPodcast.com Deprecated Human investigates how layoffs, AI, hiring technology, and changing workplace systems are redefining expertise, security, and human value. ⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on LinkedIn Each edition connects the personal stories shared on the podcast with the larger forces changing how we work.  Subscribers receive: Research summaries and links to original sourcesKey insights from podcast conversationsEmerging signals affecting work and employmentPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly reports connecting findings from across the investigation This isn’t another hustle-culture newsletter about optimizing yourself for a broken system.

    Role Call: A Conversation with Laurie Stark
  5. 10 Aug

    Unknown Future: A Conversation with Allison Ryder

    What happens when you learn that your job is ending before you know what comes next? After nine years as Program Director for Research at MIT Sloan Management Review, Allison Ryder learned that the publication would be winding down—even though its work remains respected, valuable, and successful. With seven months of notice, Allison is navigating an unusual in-between: continuing to do meaningful work, helping her colleagues close an important chapter and searching for her next opportunity at the same time. In this episode, Allison and Jess discuss the illusion of institutional stability, the emotional reality of an unforeseen layoff, and the pressure to project confidence while still processing a loss. They also examine how applicant-tracking systems and AI reward exact titles and keywords, often overlooking multidisciplinary experience and transferable skills. Their conversation explores why professional relationships matter, how networking can help us evaluate opportunities rather than simply pursue referrals, and what it means to separate our identity from the organization that employs us. An unknown future is not necessarily a dangerous future. It is simply a future that has not taken shape yet. Podcast Guest: Allison Ryder  Allison connects people, ideas, and organizations and builds the programs that turn those connections into something real. She’s led AI research programs at MIT Sloan Management Review and produces the popular artificial intelligence podcast Me, Myself, and AI.   She’s now figuring out her next chapter: what kind of work she wants to do, where she can have the most impact, and how to translate a career that has never fit neatly into one box into the next opportunity. Connect with Allison: Allison Ryder on LinkedIn   Website: https://www.unmarketedproducts.com/about Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Socio-technical Systems Designer at ENID Studio, a collective of practitioners that enable organizations to redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and human-centered digital transformation. She is also a member of Effective Immediately, a community for people leaving, or thinking about leaving, corporate life to build something of their own.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠Effective Immediately ⁠ Continue the Investigation Become a member at DeprecatedHumanPodcast.com Deprecated Human investigates how layoffs, AI, hiring technology, and changing workplace systems are redefining expertise, security, and human value. Membership takes the conversation beyond the podcast. Connect with listeners navigating similar changes, access practical resources, and participate in a community built around mutual support—not professional performance. Your membership also helps keep the podcast independent and the broader investigation going. ⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on LinkedIn Each edition connects the personal stories shared on the podcast with the larger forces changing how we work.  Subscribers receive: Research summaries and links to original sourcesKey insights from podcast conversationsEmerging signals affecting work and employmentPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly reports connecting findings from across the investigation This isn’t another hustle-culture newsletter about optimizing yourself for a broken system. It is an ongoing research project examining how work, expertise, and human value are changing—and what we can do about it.

    Unknown Future: A Conversation with Allison Ryder
  6. 4 Aug

    Collective Power: A Conversation with Simone Robutti — Part 2

    What would you say or do differently if you stopped organizing your life around the judgment of a future employer? In Part 2 of Jess’s conversation with former programmer and Tech Workers Coalition organizer Simone Robutti, they examine the fear that keeps many experienced workers silent. Simone calls it “the HR in your head”: the internalized belief that speaking openly, challenging harmful decisions, or expressing your values could make you unemployable. Their conversation moves from credentialism and professional insecurity to offshoring, international labor solidarity, and the role unions can play in shaping how AI enters the workplace. Together, they challenge the idea that worker displacement is an inevitable consequence of technology—and ask what becomes possible when workers recognize how much power they already hold. Episode Resources: https://techworkerscoalition.org  https://architecturesofchange.xyz https://organizing4power.org  https://www.iww.org  https://workerorganizing.org  https://utaw.tech  https://data-workers.org  https://uniglobalunion.org  https://makeamazonpay.com  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain  Socialist cowboys in the Texas ‘Fence Cutting Wars’ https://www.notechforapartheid.com  https://kickstarterunited.org  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Professionals%27_Union  https://www.cwu.org/press_release/google-ai-workers-to-enter-union-recognition-talks/  Podcast Guest: Simone Robutti  Simone worked as a software engineer for several years before quitting the industry and becoming engaged in political and labor organizing full-time. He is an active organizer in Tech Workers Coalition and Cables of Resistance. Professionally, he performs digital investigations against workplace surveillance in Reversing.works, teaches political practices under the name Architectures of Change, and consults democratic workplaces on organization development and process design. He is also part of the artistic collective Reincantamento, writing about techno-magic, political activation, and political mysticism. Connect with Simone Robutti on LinkedIn  Simone’s personal website: https://robutti.me   Reversing Works: https://reversing.works   Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Socio-technical Systems Designer at ENID Studio, a collective of practitioners that enable organizations to redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and human-centered digital transformation. She is also a member of Effective Immediately, a community for people leaving, or thinking about leaving, corporate life to build something of their own.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠Effective Immediately ⁠ Subscribe to Deprecated Human Deprecated Human is an ongoing investigation into what happens when human value is quietly redefined. The newsletter goes deeper. Subscribers receive: Research summaries and source materialKey insights from podcast episodesEmerging signals and trendsPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly findings reports from the broader investigation This isn't another hustle culture newsletter. It's a research project focused on understanding how work, expertise, and human value are changing—and what we can do about it. ⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on LinkedIn

    Collective Power: A Conversation with Simone Robutti — Part 2
  7. 4 Aug

    Collective Power: A Conversation with Simone Robutti — Part 1

    Tech workers were taught to see themselves as individual innovators—not as workers with shared interests and collective power. In Part 1 of this conversation, Jess speaks with former programmer and Tech Workers Coalition organizer Simone Robutti about why that distinction matters. They explore how layoffs, ethical concerns, and the harmful uses of technology are driving more tech workers to organize. Simone explains what a union actually is, how worker-led organizing differs from treating a union as a service, and why collective action does not have to begin with a formal institution. This episode is about moving beyond individual solutions to systemic problems, and recognizing that workers can have a voice not only in how they are treated, but also in what they are asked to build. Episode Resources: https://techworkerscoalition.org  https://architecturesofchange.xyz https://organizing4power.org  https://www.iww.org  https://workerorganizing.org  https://utaw.tech  https://data-workers.org  https://uniglobalunion.org  https://makeamazonpay.com  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain  Socialist cowboys in the Texas ‘Fence Cutting Wars’ https://www.notechforapartheid.com  https://kickstarterunited.org  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Professionals%27_Union  https://www.cwu.org/press_release/google-ai-workers-to-enter-union-recognition-talks/  Podcast Guest: Simone Robutti  Simone worked as a software engineer for several years before quitting the industry and becoming engaged in political and labor organizing full-time. He is an active organizer in Tech Workers Coalition and Cables of Resistance. Professionally, he performs digital investigations against workplace surveillance in Reversing.works, teaches political practices under the name Architectures of Change, and consults democratic workplaces on organization development and process design. He is also part of the artistic collective Reincantamento, writing about techno-magic, political activation, and political mysticism. Connect with Simone Robutti on LinkedIn  Simone’s website: https://robutti.me   Reversing Works: https://reversing.works   Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Socio-technical Systems Designer at ENID Studio, a collective of practitioners that enable organizations to redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and human-centered digital transformation. She is also a member of Effective Immediately, a community for people leaving corporate life to build something of their own.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠Effective Immediately ⁠ Subscribe to Deprecated Human Deprecated Human is an ongoing investigation into what happens when human value is quietly redefined. The newsletter goes deeper. Subscribers receive: Research summaries and source materialKey insights from podcast episodesEmerging signals and trendsPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly findings reports from the broader investigation This isn't another hustle culture newsletter. It's a research project focused on understanding how work, expertise, and human value are changing—and what we can do about it. ⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on LinkedIn

    Collective Power: A Conversation with Simone Robutti — Part 1
  8. 28 Jul

    Creative Exit: A Conversation with Pal Moore

    After more than two decades in motion design and advertising, Pal Moore began asking a difficult question: Why keep trying to return to an industry that never made room for all of who he was? In this episode, Pal joins Jess to talk about the challenges of being a multidisciplinary creative in a workplace that rewards narrow specialization, the ageism he encountered after being laid off, and the grief of letting go of a professional identity. They also explore AI’s impact on creative work, what younger generations lose when experienced practitioners disappear, and why knowing a human being is behind a piece of art still matters. Now pursuing addiction counseling, Pal’s creative exit is not an abandonment of his past—it is a move toward work that feels more human, useful, and meaningful. Podcast Guest: Pal Moore Pal Moore is a recovering ad man, lifelong musician, and multidisciplinary creative originally from Jackson, Mississippi, now living in Austin. Over more than two decades in design and advertising, he built a career spanning motion graphics, animation, art direction, and education—creating work for brands including YETI, Whataburger, Brooks, and Costa, while also teaching the next generation of motion designers at Austin Community College. Music remains his greatest creative passion, whether he is writing songs, performing, collecting records, or disappearing into some new corner of musical history. In 2026, Pal began a new chapter, leaving the advertising world to pursue a career in addiction counseling—and rethinking what it means to build a life around work that feels genuinely meaningful. Connect with Pal: ⁠⁠Pal Moore LinkedIn⁠⁠ Podcast Host: Jess Lowry Jessica Lowry is the Founder and Principal Human Systems Designer at ENID Studio, a consultancy that helps organizations redesign work, services, and governance for an AI-enabled future through participatory design and socio-technical systems thinking. She is also a member of Effective Immediately, a community for people leaving, or thinking about leaving, corporate life to build something of their own.  Members get honest feedback, business fundamentals, and access to people a few steps ahead while they validate their idea, land first customers, and build the foundation. Connect with Jess: ⁠⁠Jess Lowry LinkedIn⁠⁠ Join Jess at ⁠Effective Immediately ⁠ Subscribe to Deprecated Human Deprecated Human is an ongoing investigation into what happens when human value is quietly redefined. The newsletter goes deeper. Subscribers receive: Research summaries and source materialKey insights from podcast episodesEmerging signals and trendsPractical recommendations for individuals and organizationsMonthly findings reports from the broader investigation This isn't another productivity newsletter. It's a research project focused on understanding how work, expertise, and human value are changing—and what we can do about it. ⁠⁠Subscribe to the Deprecated Human Newsletter on Beehiiv⁠⁠

    Creative Exit: A Conversation with Pal Moore

About

The Deprecated Human Podcast is a weekly show exploring the growing gap between what the AI industry promises and what people actually experience. Examining how narratives about technological capability are reshaping work, value, and human potential. Each week, the show releases episodes centered on a central theme. Hosted by Jess Lowry, a design strategist with over two decades of experience applying human-centered design across organizations, the podcast brings in diverse voices to explore each topic from multiple perspectives.