The research behind AI BURRO
How people adapt to AI at work.
Edgar Peña’s AI workforce research examines how professionals learn and adapt as their work changes. Explore his 26-interview thesis and practical 2027 companion, with the findings and their limits explained below.
The original study
Replaced by Someone More Clever: How Mindset Determines Your Future in AI is Edgar Octavio Peña’s May 2026 Honors College thesis at California State University, Los Angeles.
The study used qualitative thematic analysis of 26 professional interviews. Its themes include growth, entrepreneurial and human-value mindsets. The interviews provide accounts of professional experience; they do not establish a representative estimate of job losses or an individual replacement-risk score.
The thesis is the founder’s academic work. AI BURRO does not claim university endorsement of the product.
Meet the researcher and explore the study’s contextThree themes you can put to work
The summaries below paraphrase Chapter 5 of the thesis. The questions are AI BURRO’s practical application of those themes, not interview quotations or a validated readiness assessment.
| Theme and source | What the interviews described | A practical question |
|---|---|---|
| Growth mindset · p. 38 | Experimentation, learning from errors and revising familiar workflows. | Which small AI experiment could you test, review and improve this week? |
| Entrepreneurial mindset · pp. 38–39 | Connecting tools and redesigning tasks into repeatable workflows. | Which recurring task needs clear inputs, a repeatable process and a checked output? |
| Human-value mindset · p. 39 | Verifying outputs, setting automation boundaries and keeping people accountable. | Where must a person check quality, context and consequences before the work is used? |
Source: Edgar Peña, Replaced by Someone More Clever, May 2026, section 5.1, printed pages 38–39 (PDF pages 47–48 in the research collection). Section 5.3, printed page 41, explains the study’s limits: these qualitative themes came from 26 West Coast professional interviews and are not a universal or predictive measure of readiness or job loss.
Read the full thesis and its research methodsTwo resources. Different purposes.
The original thesis
Replaced by Someone More Clever
A 57-page thesis drawing on 26 professional interviews, exploring how people learn and adapt to AI.
Edgar’s perspective
What My Thesis Means to Me in 2027
A 30-page guide with Edgar’s practical interpretation, career reflection prompts, and worksheets for planning your next steps.
The 2027 companion presents Edgar’s interpretation and career exercises. It is distinct from the original interview study and is not a new research dataset or a guarantee about future employment.
Get the free researchMake the research useful
Start with one task in your profession. Identify where AI can assist, what you must still check, and what evidence would demonstrate progress. Our public guides provide practical worksheets and link to the external research they discuss.