There was a Mac mini in the house that wasn’t doing much, so I gave it a job\.

# Man and Machine: The Computer I Wasn’t Using Became a Workshop

![Man and Machine: The Computer I Wasn’t Using Became a Workshop](/writing/man-and-machine/the-computer-i-wasn-t-using-became-a-workshop/assets/hero.jpg)

I was already spending plenty of time with AI, asking questions and testing models\. But the work had a familiar weakness\. A good answer arrived, I closed the window, and the idea stopped moving\. When I came back, I often had to rebuild the context, the decisions, and the files around it\.

I wanted continuity\. I wanted a place where an idea could become a brief, then a prototype, then something I could open and use\. I also wanted that experimentation kept away from my everyday computer and completely separate from my employer’s systems and information\.

So the Mac mini became the Workshop\.

The name changed what I expected from it\. A chatbot is somewhere you visit for an answer\. A workshop is where the work stays on the bench\. The first agents could research, write files, run code, and keep a few scheduled jobs moving after I stepped away\.

That quickly taught me the harder part\. More activity didn’t always produce more useful work\. A job had to leave something behind that I could inspect: a document, an application, a verified change, or a clear question for me\. “It ran” was no longer the same as “it worked\.”

The agents could keep working after I stepped away, but I still had to inspect what they left behind and decide whether it was useful\. That remains my job\.

\-dg

\#ManAndMachine \#PersonalAI \#BionicsLab

## Sources

- [Original LinkedIn post](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7505939932075474944/)