Judgment – Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership

We call it Artificial Intelligence, but large language models don’t think, reason, or understand in human terms.

A more accurate description might be Artificial Idea Iteration since these tools dramatically compress the cycles of research, drafting, testing, and revision.

SpaceX didn’t transform spaceflight by having perfect ideas. They collapsed the time between ideas and reality. Failing fast, learning quickly, and iterating relentlessly.

AI creates the same dynamic for knowledge work, letting us move from intuition to articulation to revision in hours instead of weeks.

Engineers rely on wind tunnels to test aircraft designs before committing real materials and lives. AI does this for thinking.

Iteration itself isn’t new. What’s new is the scale for iteration that we now have at our fingertips. We can explore multiple paths, abandon weak directions quickly, and refine promising ones without the time, coordination, and risk that once kept ideas locked in our heads.

When iteration becomes inexpensive, we can take more intellectual risks and shift from trying to always be right to trying to always get better.

It’s ironic that as iteration is becoming cheaper and faster with AI tools, human judgment becomes more valuable. Someone still needs to know what’s worth developing, what deserves refinement, and when something is complete rather than exhausted.

The intelligence was never in the machine. AI simply gives us the capacity to develop ideas, test them against reality, and learn from the results at a scale and speed we’ve never had before.

Iteration at scale changes what’s possible. Judgment determines what’s worth pursuing.

Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash – when SpaceX proposed the idea of landing and reusing their rocket boosters after each launch, the idea seemed impossible. Now it’s happening about 3 times per week…and they’re just getting started.

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Should a new home construction project be judged when only its blueprint exists? How about when the site has been prepared? What about when the materials like wood, rebar, and electrical conduit are delivered?

Should we wait to judge the home build until the framing is complete? Should we wait until the walls and roof are added? Or, wait until all the windows are installed? What about the paint and other finishing touches on the house? Should you wait for those to be completed?

Can you judge the success of the home build before it’s finished?

When making chocolate chip cookies, do you judge the success of the cookies while mixing the ingredients? How about when the chocolate chips are poured into the batter?

What if the recipe called for real butter, but you only have that non-diary butter substitute that’s supposed to be healthier than butter? Are your cookies doomed at that point? Should you call-off the project and declare it a failure?

Assuming you’ve made it past the butter/non-dairy butter issue, is it right to judge the cookies after they’re spooned out onto the cookie sheet, but not yet baked?

Just before placing those filled cookie sheets into the preheated oven, is that the time to re-evaluate the entire cookie-making process to determine if it’s failing? Should you call a meeting to discuss whether the cooking temperature listed in the recipe is the correct one for your cookies?

Houses and cookies are obvious examples of “projects” that have a lot of moving parts. They build from a set of raw ingredients, mixed with time and effort, into a completed item.

What about less obvious events in our lives? When’s the right time to judge these for success or failure (using whatever measures you’ve chosen)?