Brian Ssennoga

AI isn't taking your job. It's taking the job of whoever can't tell good advice from bad. In 2009 I helped bring a handheld data device into a rural Ugandan hospital. The man whose job was writing patient reports by hand asked me straight: am I finished? I gave him a technical answer. He needed a governance one. Nobody built him a bridge from the old job to the new one. He kept his job. Eventually someone taught him to supervise the tool instead of racing it. That gap — tool arrives, no plan for the person — is still the entire story. We just gave it a new name. Here's the data point that should be in every "AI will replace us" conversation right now: Columbia Business School ran a field experiment. 640 Kenyan entrepreneurs. Half got a GPT-4 WhatsApp business assistant. Half got standard training guides. Tracked for 2.5 months. Average effect: basically zero. But averages lie. Struggling businesses got ~10% WORSE with AI access. Thriving businesses got 15%+ BETTER with the exact same tool. Same input. Opposite outcomes. Why? Not different questions. The AI gave everyone similar advice. The split was whether the owner could tell good advice from generic advice, and adapt it. Strong owners adjusted it. Weak owners followed it blindly — straight into worse margins. Researcher's line, and it's the whole thesis: "You need expertise as a complement to AI access." A second study (Neuravox, smaller, exploratory — 76 experienced AI users) found something that lines up perfectly: how MUCH someone used AI barely mattered. What mattered was whether they kept verifying it, could explain the output in their own words, and stayed able to do the task without the tool. Put those together and you get the real mechanism: AI replaces the worker who has no scaffold for judgement while simultaneously upgrading the worker who has one. Same tool. Same moment. Two directions at once. AI's rising tide will not lift all boats. Some of those boats don't have a hull built to catch it. This is not a reason to panic. It's a reason to build the hull. Rwanda already is. National AI Policy, cabinet-approved 2023. Costed at $76.5M over 5 years — an actual budget line, not a communiqué. 5,000+ teachers trained in AI literacy nationwide by end of 2025. That's the coaching layer the Kenya study says closes the gap. Already running. In the region. What building the hull actually looks like: → Pair AI access with human coaching, not just distribution → Make people explain AI-assisted work in their own words, as policy → Run periodic "do it without the tool" checks before a skill quietly rots → Put decision authority in writing — who signs off, human vs AI None of this is theoretical. Some of the sharpest AI use cases on earth right now are not in San Francisco. Kenyan farmer points a phone at a cassava leaf → offline AI diagnoses the disease in seconds. No internet needed. Built for the actual constraint. Nigerian hospital records a newborn's cry → AI flags birth asphyxia early. Replaces a $20,000 blood gas analyzer most facilities will never own. Kenyan smallholder with no bank file → satellite imagery + ML scores their creditworthiness. Tens of thousands of farmers, funded. A farmer. A newborn. A loan application. Not demo-day theatre. Real bridges, already built. #AI didn't take anyone's job in those three stories. Someone built the bridge first. That's still the job. It's just not mine alone anymore, quietly, in one hospital. It's governance now. Worth doing properly.

As an avgeek, my heart goes out to Pilot Nathalia, her Captain, and her passengers, and their families.

Now Lisandro Martinez can eat his own words. @ManUtd

Things that hit differently in your 40s — add yours: 1. A phone call > a text 2. Sleep is a non-negotiable 3. You know who's actually in your corner What's on your list?

The African Union has drawn a continental blueprint for AI governance while Kenya shelves its AI Bill and South Africa rebuilds its policy. A Ugandan in Edmonton reads the gap through two ways of building a house.

Santos off. Tielemanns drops. Zirkzee on. @ManUtd

Jonah wasn't afraid of the whale — he was afraid of the forgiveness. Everyone knows Jonah got swallowed. Few people notice that he knew exactly what would happen if he went to Nineveh: God would forgive them. That's why he ran. The fish wasn't punishment — it was a rescue from drowning in his own bitterness. He got to Nineveh, preached the shortest sermon in the Bible, and the whole city repented. Then he sat outside and sulked. The book of Jonah ends with God asking him a question he never answers. The takeaway is clear. God's intention is for all to know his love, both insiders and outsiders alike. We are called to affirm his intention and communicate his concern and love to a world that so desperately needs it. For your family, friends, enemies, in-laws, neighbors, the tax man, the street Karen, the school bully, or whoever is on your mind right now : when you pray "God, deal with them" — are you ready for the answer to be "I already did"?

This @ManUtd - so many good parts, but the sum of them all, not yet clicking. Feel sad for all.

A vote can answer a question and still not close an argument. If referendums were sold as closure, the label would carry a warning. My reflection on Referendums, like today's.

Thanksgiving-weekend reflection on Alberta's Oct 19 referendum, from a non-voting temporary resident: ten dishes, a few undefined words, two readings of every number. Think of it as a Thanksgiving table. Voters hold the carving knife. Citizen eat first. Permanent residents have place cards. Guests like us pass the dishes. Ten dishes arrive, each on its own ballot, Question 10 first. Q10 is the grace: stay in Canada, or begin the legal process towards a binding separation vote? Q6-9 are side dishes that need "other willing provinces" to cook. Q1-5, immigration and eligibility, is the turkey. That's my seat. As fascinating as it is to see democracy in action, right before my own eyes, or as a placard at a red light stop sign, its also refreshing to reflect on this, without the fear of riling up any one in particular. So here's my reflection, not a recommendation. brianssennoga.ca/writing/001…

#LetsGoOilers - Levi held thru a 6 v 3 minute.... That's a man of the match performance. Winning this 5 - 2, what a comeback @EdmontonOilers

#LetsGoOilers 5-2 with McDavid getting in on the scores.

Evan Bouchard rescues this for @EdmontonOilers. Our Shot Master. 3-2. Much better period. #LetsGoOilers

2 for 2 power play! C'mon @EdmontonOilers - let's fix this. #LetsGoOilers

Now that is a woman who has landed on her feet, and found she is event taller on her knees. Appreciate you @IAMJUDITHHEARD and your testimony - as a father of daughters, both sides of your coin tell a very compelling story. Keep sharing - afterall, who in their right mind lights a candle and places it under a bowl?