Augment people
Aim at somebody becoming more capable, not at a task disappearing.
By the end of this lesson
- Name whose capacity increases and in what specific way
- Tell amplification apart from replacement in your own design
- Check that the person who gains capacity is the one who needed it
Watch
Episode B03
The video for this lesson has not been produced yet. The narration below is the same script, and it plays now.
Transcript
The best use of AI may not be replacing a person. It may be helping that person do something they could never do alone.
The third step of the BEACON Framework is: Augment People. Use technology to increase human capacity.
A teacher can personalize learning faster. A volunteer can organize hundreds of resources. A small business can compete with larger organizations. A caregiver can understand complicated information. A community leader can communicate more clearly.
Efficiency matters. But if every conversation about AI ends with: “How many people can we remove?” we are asking too small a question.
Ask instead: What could this person accomplish with better information? Better tools? Less repetitive work? And more time for the uniquely human parts of the job?
Choose one person whose work matters. Ask what task drains their energy. Use AI to reduce that burden—then protect the time they gain for judgment, creativity, relationships, and service.
The question is not only: “What can AI do instead of us?” Ask: What can people now do because AI exists?
When intelligence strengthens people instead of diminishing them, technology becomes augmentation.
The lesson
The question this step asks has a shape that is easy to answer badly. 'It saves time' is not an answer, because it does not say whose time, or what the time becomes. A design can save a great deal of time and leave everybody involved exactly as capable as they were.
The distinction that matters is between a tool that does the work and a tool that makes somebody able to do the work. A generated letter is the first. A short guide that means a volunteer can now write that kind of letter themselves is the second, and it keeps producing value after you have gone.
This is not an argument against automation. Plenty of things should simply be automated and nobody needs to become more capable at them. It is an argument for being clear which one you are doing, because the two produce very different situations a year later.
Check the direction of the gain as well. It is common to build something that makes the coordinator's job easier while the person the service exists for is unaffected. That may still be worth doing. It is not what this step is asking about.
Straight from the framework
A — step 3 of 6
Augment people
Whose capacity does this increase, and how?
The objective is amplification, not replacement.
Do this in the app
Put the lesson down somewhere real
Answer the third worksheet field, naming the person whose capacity increases and how.
Done when — Your answer names a person or role and a specific new ability, not a saved quantity.
/dashboard
Go further
Check yourself