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Chapter 5. Five levels of new usefulness

Practicum page for Chapter 5 of When Intelligence Became Cheap. Version: 2026-06-11. Working Practicum address: https://cheap-intelligence.vercel.app/.

Why this page exists

Your usefulness level belongs to a task, not to your job title. The same person can follow instructions when preparing a tax return, validate someone else's report, and own the outcome in a client project.

This page turns the chapter into action. Choose one task from your week, identify its current level, and plan one move upward.

What to do in 40 minutes

  1. Complete the My usefulness level worksheet.
  2. Open your profession and read "The levels ladder in this role": the same five levels in the language of your own work, with a note on where people usually get stuck.
  3. Fill in the One move to +1 level plan for one task.
  4. If you need the evidence base, open Levels Watch.
  5. If you are a manager or founder, choose 2 or 3 team tasks and repeat the diagnosis for each one.

Who this is for

Role Main question Artifact
Specialist Where am I only producing output faster, and where do I already verify or own the outcome? self-check + a +1 plan
Manager Who am I paying to execute, and who am I paying to verify, run the process, and carry risk? a map of team levels
Founder Which tasks can agents handle, and where does the business need a person who owns the result? a plan for redistributing work

How to use this without fooling yourself

  • Diagnose the task, not the person.
  • Do not treat a level as a law of pay. It maps a kind of usefulness and does not promise job security.
  • Do not aim to "jump to level five." Start with one level, one task, and one quarter.
  • Do not submit unchecked work. If an AI-assisted task has not passed its quality criteria, you have not moved up. You have fallen into self-automation.
Chapter 5. Five levels of new usefulness