Nerd Out

Education, Design and Philosophy

By Alyn Kinney

· Launched 4 years ago

The Mother Skill of the AI Era: Cognitive Task Analysis

Your SMEs forgot how they do their jobs. Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) extracts hidden knowledge and turns L&D pros into AI-enabled context engineers.

1 hr ago•Alyn Kinney

The Thin Line Between AI Strategy and AI Slop

Ditch the lazy AI workflows. Learn why stuffing PDFs into an LLM breeds cognitive debt, and how to build human guardrails for real workplace AI…

Jun 17•Alyn Kinney

Solving L&D’s 'Apprenticeship Problem' in an AI World

AI ate the entry level grunt work, breaking traditional apprenticeship. To build future leaders, we must design intentional, hands on learning systems.

Jun 10•Alyn Kinney

Most Popular

Welcome to Nerd Out!

Jan 25, 2023•Alyn Kinney

Compliance Isn't Training. It's Culture.

Sep 17, 2025•Alyn Kinney

Why AI Upskilling Is All Talk, No Training

Nov 12, 2025•Alyn Kinney

COGNITIVE DEBT

May 6•Alyn Kinney

Creating the conditions for learning

Jul 30, 2025•Alyn Kinney

Your Brain Consolidates at 20x Speed on Coffee Breaks

Oct 22, 2025•Alyn Kinney

LatestTopDiscussions

Systemic Failures, Shiny Shortcuts, and Other Delusions

From the history of Exercise Tiger to HBR’s AI reality check, stop paying the "cognitive debt" for broken systems. Fix the framework.

Jun 3•Alyn Kinney

Playing Chess with Tech: Apple, Google, and the AI Long Game

Google’s chess moves, Apple’s synthetic video coaches, and KPMG’s tax simulators. How AI is killing the junior grunt work and rewriting the L&D…

May 27•Alyn Kinney

Readme: Welcome to Nerd Out

Happy Wednesday!

May 20•Alyn Kinney

Why AI Needs Your Learning Degree

Master AI for Instructional Design using Google’s PARTS framework. Why human learning science is the key to AI strategy and workforce transformation.

May 13•Alyn Kinney

COGNITIVE DEBT

The Cost of Short-Term Thinking in the Age of AI

May 6•Alyn Kinney

Can You Pay Back the Debt? Relearning in the Age of Agents

Is your AI "productivity" just high-interest cognitive debt? Take the 15-question audit, see the METR study, and find out if your org is mentally…

Apr 29•Alyn Kinney

AI Can Build It, But It Can’t Care About It

Focus on the human "why" over AI "how." Discuss shifting from makers to managers, using empathy and workflow analysis to avoid automated "slop."

Apr 22•Alyn Kinney

Nerd Out

Education, Design and Philosophy