A lively team working together at computers with small robot companions, representing collaborative, hands-on lab learning.

HITM Labs

Hands-on learning that turns human authority, review, and escalation into a workflow teams can actually use.

HITM Labs is the teaching practice built around the Human in the Middle framework.

Through workshops, courses, and guided formats, I help students, companies, and organizations understand how to use AI without outsourcing judgment. The focus is practical: workflows, roles, boundaries, review points, and responsible use in real situations.

Why a lab instead of a lecture?

AI is easy to misunderstand at a distance. In a HITM Lab, participants work with real material and make the consequential choices themselves: what AI may touch, where review belongs, what evidence is sufficient, and who decides what ships.

Applied Lab

A sober, results-oriented format for teams that want direct language, disciplined implementation, and a clear connection to operational decisions.

Quest Lab

A more playful and lower-fear format that preserves the same standards. The tone changes; the responsibility model does not.

The teaching tools

HITM Blueprint Studio, Agentic Office, and Whetstone support the learning model. They are currently works in progress and are shown through screenshots and development notes on schmidtpabst.com until they are genuinely demo-ready.

What participants should leave with

  • A shared language for human and machine responsibilities.
  • A mapped workflow with explicit approval and escalation points.
  • A clearer understanding of where AI helps and where it should stop.
  • A reusable method rather than a collection of prompting tricks.

Discuss a Lab for your team.

Created as a useful experience

My background in UI/UX and design systems shapes how these labs are built.

  • How people enter the experience.
  • How confidence is built without false certainty.
  • Where confusion or fear usually appears.
  • How a workflow, exercise, or course module should feel from the participant side.
  • How structure can make learning more usable and even more enjoyable.

A good lab is not just informative. It is well-designed.

Applied Lab and Quest Lab

The executional framework stays the same. The difference is surface, rhythm, and participation design.

Click or tap either format card to compare tone, structure, and fit in more detail.

Both formats are serious. They simply create seriousness through different routes.

Exploration, with structure

I do not teach AI as if I have reached some final perfect state. I teach it as an active field of practice: fascinating, unstable, full of opportunity, and in need of better judgment.

The labs should make people feel invited into that exploration, but not abandoned inside it. Curiosity matters. So does structure.

Which format fits your team?