AI, Detroit, and the jobs in between.
Technically Speaking is an intelligence publication tracking how artificial intelligence is reshaping work — not in aggregate, but at the ground level, in the industries and cities where the consequences land first.
Detroit is the lens. The city has watched entire categories of work get built, scaled, and restructured before. That history makes it one of the most useful places in the country to watch what AI is actually doing to jobs, wages, and opportunity — not what it promises to do.
What we cover
Every week, the newsletter pulls the signals that matter from the noise: which roles are being created, which are being compressed, what the hiring data actually shows, and what workers and employers are doing about it. The goal isn't to forecast doom or hype. It's to help you read the terrain before it shifts under you.
The podcast goes deeper on one signal each week — same source material, different format. Built for a commute, not a conference room.
Who writes it
Ash Crockett is a Detroit-based writer and researcher focused on workforce transformation, economic mobility, and the practical implications of AI adoption. Technically Speaking started as a way to track what was actually happening on the ground — and turned into a weekly discipline.
The format
The newsletter runs every Thursday. Each issue has a signal, a readout, a terrain analysis, and a closing observation. No roundups, no listicles, no affiliate links. The Built Different Playbook is a companion resource — a running guide to the roles, skills, and moves worth watching as the landscape shifts.
Between Thursday issues, the signal feed posts daily briefs Mon–Wed and Friday — shorter dispatches of the most relevant items from that day's research.
The layer stack (L1–L6)
The AI stack runs six layers, bottom to top. Every signal gets tagged with the layer or layers it touches. Intersection items — those spanning two or more layers — carry the most structural weight because they indicate technology moving from one part of the system into another.
| Layer | What it covers |
|---|---|
| L1 · Hardware | Chips, GPUs, AI accelerators, semiconductor supply chains, chip fabrication, CHIPS Act, compute geopolitics. The physical foundation everything else runs on. |
| L2 · Infrastructure | Data centers, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), energy and cooling systems, networking, Stargate-scale campus investments, Michigan data center builds. |
| L3 · Frameworks | Developer libraries, MLOps tooling, training infrastructure, data engineering platforms (PyTorch, Hugging Face, LangChain). The layer where models get built and deployed. |
| L4 · Models | Large language models, vision models, multimodal systems, model fine-tuning, evaluation, benchmarking. The AI capability layer itself. |
| L5 · Services | AI-as-a-service APIs, enterprise AI platform procurement, model API providers. Where capability becomes a product organizations buy. |
| L6 · Applications | End-user products, workforce tools, AI embedded in operations, manufacturing and logistics AI, consumer AI. The layer workers and employers encounter directly. |
Detroit opportunity concentrates most strongly at L1 (hardware and manufacturing transfer), L2 (infrastructure investment landing in Michigan), and L6 (AI embedded in legacy industries). L3, L4, and L5 items carry a lower near-term local jobs signal unless a direct Michigan angle is present.
Detroit signal strength
Every signal also gets rated on how directly it connects to Detroit and Michigan. This is separate from the layer score — a national L6 item and a Michigan-specific L6 item both touch the same layer, but they land differently here.
| Level | Score | What qualifies |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | 2 pts | Event, company, hire, expansion, or policy happening in the Detroit metro or Michigan. Something you can act on locally, now. |
| Indirect | 1 pt | National or global signal with clear Detroit implications — affects the Big Three, Michigan supply chain, UAW, MEDC, or regional workforce in a traceable way. |
| National only | 0 pts | No meaningful Detroit angle. Useful as context for understanding the broader shift, but doesn't travel locally in a way that changes decisions here. |
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