Recently, I got about twenty AI-generated pitches to appear on my podcast. I know they were AI-generated because the formatting was essentially identical: call out a previous episode, make a flying leap to try to connect it to the person being pitched, close with a promise to share it with an inflated-follower-count audience.
Sometimes they appeared to come from the person being pitched, sometimes from an agency. But they all had one thing in common: the person was not even remotely a fit for my show.
I’m actually not all that surprised that people used AI to pitch me. And it wasn’t overly burdensome, since once I categorized a few of them as spam, Gmail reliably identified the rest; AI fighting AI until there is no ozone left appears to be the future of the internet.
What fascinates me is what happened when I started calling people out publicly.
Why do that? Because this all gets grim quite quickly if we decide that no one is responsible for the actions of the AI agents they create. A company is accountable for its employees, at least when they are working on its behalf. And agents are just 24/7 employees that do nothing but work for us.
At one end of the reaction spectrum were folks who did nothing. They didn’t comment or DM, they just left themselves tagged and moved on. And if you think about it, that’s the intellectually pure response if you actually believe there is nothing wrong with using AI to spam people. No crime, no apology.
To the right of that were the guilty silent: people who immediately untagged themselves but otherwise said and did nothing. This one is a little confusing to me, since they seemingly thought it was wrong enough to be embarrassed but not wrong enough to apologize for.
Next were the private responders. They sent me DMs, usually asking for more information, which I happily forwarded. One person insisted that the person sending it was a real PR person and asked how I knew it was AI-generated; when I sent him other examples with the same format, he promptly stopped responding.
Beyond that was the very pissed off and that really was an n of 1. She wrote a scathing comment, saying that she is a behavioral scientist (she doesn’t seem to have ever used the term before and precisely zero of her LinkedIn entries mention it), that it wasn’t AI (it absolutely was), and how dare I call her out (see aforementioned “you’re responsible for what your agent does). Then she immediately deleted her comment and untagged me (although strangely didn’t block me, which would have seemed the more sensible move).
And finally, two folks publicly responded, which I naturally think is the right thing to do. They took responsibility, said they would adjust it so others didn’t get spam, and we had a lovely moment of reconciliation. Done and dusted.
For me, the two ends of the spectrum make perfect sense. It is like running a red light: if you don’t think it is wrong, you’ve got nothing to apologize for, and if you do think it is a problem, you have to hold yourself accountable.
But people are going to live and die in the messy middle. Employees make mistakes and companies answer for them: legally and ethically, with brand and revenue. Each of us is about to experience the same, as we offload work to agents, and while the personal legal and ethical standards are still coalescing, our personal brand and revenue are on the line.
Because what I know is this: I’m much more likely to work with folks at the endpoints than I am with the folks in the middle. In cases where AI usage is appropriate, I want folks who are willing to use it. In cases where it goes wrong, I want folks willing to change course. And while my opinion of someone might not matter to them, my dollars probably do; our most powerful role in AI will always be that of the consumer.
Jennifer Doleac argues that giving first-time, nonviolent offenders a second chance often reduces future crime more effectively than harsh punishment. The article challenges the “broken windows” philosophy—the idea that aggressively prosecuting minor crimes prevents more serious offenses—and instead presents evidence showing that criminal records can trap people in cycles of unemployment, instability, and repeat offending.
The article begins with debates around fare evasion in cities like New York City and San Francisco, where some officials argue that cracking down on small offenses helps prevent larger crimes. Others counter that criminalizing poverty-related behavior can do more harm than good. Doleac revisits the legacy of “broken windows policing,” popularized during the era of Rudy Giuliani, and questions whether harsher punishment for low-level crimes actually improves public safety.
To answer this, the article examines research conducted in Suffolk County. Researchers analyzed misdemeanor cases that were randomly assigned to different prosecutors, some harsher and some more lenient. They found that when first-time, nonviolent defendants had their cases dismissed instead of prosecuted, future criminal charges dropped dramatically—by more than 50 percent. Rather than encouraging crime, leniency appeared to help people avoid the long-term damage caused by a criminal record, such as difficulty finding jobs or housing.
The article also explores felony diversion programs in Texas, where first-time offenders could avoid convictions through deferred adjudication. Studies showed similar results: people given second chances were significantly less likely to commit future crimes and more likely to maintain stable employment and income. Doleac argues that the real harm often comes not from the initial offense itself, but from the lasting consequences of a criminal record.
Ultimately, the article concludes that leniency does not mean an absence of accountability. Arrests, court appearances, and probation already impose consequences. But adding a permanent criminal record can create barriers that push people toward further instability and crime. According to Doleac, evidence increasingly suggests that using criminal records more sparingly—especially for first-time, nonviolent offenders—can make both individuals and communities safer.
👉 Read the full piece here
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