I'm about as pro-AI as you can be, but this is becoming a pet peeve of mine (and I'm not alone). That's why I love the AI;DR acronym as my new solution for ignoring the walls of slop.
AI;DR is still TL;DR...the wall of text, now pretending to be from me. If we AI;DR we pretty soon won't have much to read. I do miss the thinking-writing loop, but editing-curating is a must, otherwise we cease to be human.
Concur. I’ve been noticing a related phenomenon with AI: the gap between what someone can produce and what they actually understand is getting much wider.
Someone can now generate a very sophisticated-looking strategy, technical spec, or analysis in a few minutes. It uses all the right terminology, anticipates a bunch of edge cases, and sounds like it came from an expert. But the person sending it may not really understand the assumptions behind it, know which parts actually matter, or have any sense of how difficult it would be to execute.
I think of it as borrowed competence AI gives you access to the language and output of expertise without necessarily giving you the underlying mental model. And because the output looks smart, it’s easy to feel like the thinking behind it must be equally solid.
It also has a funny way of turning uncertainty into certainty. Someone starts with a vague thought like, “we should probably make sure we’re collecting the right data,” and AI turns that into a highly specific 15-point technical requirement. Suddenly all the hesitation and ambiguity that was present in the original thought is gone.
AI absolutely makes people more capable. But I think we’re going to have to get much better at separating the sophistication of the output from the sophistication of the person’s actual understanding of it.
People have a website for this: https://dontpastetheai.com
Outstanding. I didn't know that, but will use that from here on out!
I love this. Great acronym.
AI;DR is still TL;DR...the wall of text, now pretending to be from me. If we AI;DR we pretty soon won't have much to read. I do miss the thinking-writing loop, but editing-curating is a must, otherwise we cease to be human.
Thank you for voicing this!
Concur. I’ve been noticing a related phenomenon with AI: the gap between what someone can produce and what they actually understand is getting much wider.
Someone can now generate a very sophisticated-looking strategy, technical spec, or analysis in a few minutes. It uses all the right terminology, anticipates a bunch of edge cases, and sounds like it came from an expert. But the person sending it may not really understand the assumptions behind it, know which parts actually matter, or have any sense of how difficult it would be to execute.
I think of it as borrowed competence AI gives you access to the language and output of expertise without necessarily giving you the underlying mental model. And because the output looks smart, it’s easy to feel like the thinking behind it must be equally solid.
It also has a funny way of turning uncertainty into certainty. Someone starts with a vague thought like, “we should probably make sure we’re collecting the right data,” and AI turns that into a highly specific 15-point technical requirement. Suddenly all the hesitation and ambiguity that was present in the original thought is gone.
AI absolutely makes people more capable. But I think we’re going to have to get much better at separating the sophistication of the output from the sophistication of the person’s actual understanding of it.
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