Your Company Already Wrote Its Best AI Training Examples
The Dartmouth workshop, a 67 year wait for a computer that could talk, and the human examples that finally made one work
Articles
Articles from Elution Labs
Short essays on accessibility, AI operations, and building systems that hold up in production. Full pieces live on our Substack.
Your Best People Can Show You What They Can't Tell You
Polanyi's paradox, four million labeled faces, and where your team's know-how really lives
Goodhart's Law and the Boat That Chased Points
When we hand AI a number to chase, we check the result against the goal behind that number. A boat race from 2016 shows why.
Clever Hans and the Right Answer for the Wrong Reason
When AI gets something right, ask how AI knew.
Why Confident AI Feels True
Someone on your leadership team drops an AI answer into the Monday meeting notes.
The Demo Knew Before We Did
Every project starts with a list. The list is honest. It's also a guess.
Your Team Knows More Than It Can Tell
Moravec's paradox, and the part of your work AI can't see
Your Mission Is Wherever the Hours Go
Your team's hours are the most honest statement of what your organization does. Right now a lot of them go to funders' spreadsheets, and you're the only one who can move them back to clients.
The Napkin Process
The real way your work gets done is written on scraps of paper. Go find it before you budget.
The boring part is the whole project
AI can only be as good as the records it reads. So before we build anything smart, we put the data underneath it in order. Here’s what that looks like.
What you take into the 2027 budget
Before the board locks next year, one record has to show how the grants actually ran.
This Week at Elution Labs: The system of record is a person
Real-time reporting per grant, per client, per staff member. Then a model that stays on their servers.
This Week at Elution Labs: Software stopped being the product
The hot take is that SaaS is dead. The real shift is what you are buying.
Four questions that tell you if an AI build will ship
Ask who maps the work, who approves the design, who builds, and who owns what ships.
This Week at Elution Labs: The spreadsheet is a lagging indicator
When the same data is copy-pasted into four systems, the number you steer on is last week's memory.
This Week at Elution Labs: Models are cheap. Owned systems win.
Access is spreading. Ownership is still the work. Here is one filter you can run on your stack this week.
This Week at Elution Labs: Knowing isn’t enough
Across industries and company sizes, the stuckness looks the same — and it isn’t ignorance.
The Spreadsheet Is the System
Your real system of record isn't your ERP. It's the Excel file your best person won't let go of.
This Week at Elution Labs: Beta is open
Assessment polish, quieter foundations, and a clearer line between busywork and real work
The $4,000 Blind Spot: Why Your Website Might Already Be a Legal Liability
The website looked fine — until someone measured it against WCAG.
Stop Cleaning the Lake. Start Wiring One Workflow.
Most AI programs do not die because the model was weak. They die on a responsible-sounding sentence.
The 5% Playbook: What the Companies Actually Scaling AI Did Differently
Somewhere in your industry, a competitor is not running AI pilots — they are running AI operations.
The AI Graveyard: Why 95% of Pilots Failed — and What the 5% Did Differently
The last two years were supposed to be the golden age of enterprise AI — instead, a masterclass in expensive disappointment.
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