UX Collective | Medium
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The crisis of the what
AI has evolved from handling tasks to influencing the decisions that define those tasks. Initially, AI was seen as a tool to execute commands, leaving human judgment to dictate the strategy and goals. This division, with AI mastering the "how" and humans the "what," provided a comforting narrative for professionals. However, this separation is blurring as AI agents begin to make architectural and configuration decisions autonomously.This shift signifies a crisis of the "what," where AI is not just performing but participating in generative decisions. The author’s personal experience building an agent that evaluates other agents led to this realization. This AI interpreter of code and terminal commands acted beyond mere instruction following, impacting foundational decisions. This indicates AI is moving beyond being an obedient tool and is starting to climb the ladder of decision-making.The author argues that AI excels at identifying probable and precedent-based solutions but struggles with the atypical and unexpected. Human judgment, conversely, thrives in uncertain and unique situations where established rules falter. This nuanced decision-making, often termed "knowing-in-action" or intuition, is built through experience and consequences. It’s the "scar tissue" of past decisions, guiding actions in unpredictable contexts.This type of judgment is what will survive as AI advances. While AI can process vast amounts of data to find the most efficient solution, it lacks the experiential understanding to know when that efficient solution is the wrong one. Human intuition, honed through a track record of both successes and failures, allows for navigating these complexities. The unpredictable nature of human recipients of decisions further underscores the need for this deeply ingrained, context-aware human judgment.