the human sandwich
How this term is used
In the episode with Natalia Quintero, Every's Head of Consulting, the conversation explores how a non-technical operator works hands-on with Codex — treating it like an AI employee rather than a one-off prompt machine [^9a401cc8-2a6d-59fa-9f7a-9bd9c861dc19@0]. In that context, the human sandwich describes the pattern where a person's judgment sits around AI work: the human frames the task and sets direction at the start, the AI carries out the bulk of the building, and the human reviews, corrects, and integrates the result at the end. It connects directly to the episode's larger theme that loops, not single prompts, are reshaping knowledge work [^9a401cc8-2a6d-59fa-9f7a-9bd9c861dc19@0].
- The human starts and ends the loop; the AI does the middle of the work.- It frames AI as an AI employee to be managed, not a tool to be prompted once.- It pairs naturally with the episode's focus on working in loops.