New Tools, Same Humans
Last week, I spoke with a leader about his process for implementing AI in his organization. One point stood out: “My core people who are superstars will superstar this thing.” Conversely, people who only want to meet the minimum bar will use AI tools solely for efficiency.
My reaction was immediate: “Oh, so AI is just like everything else.”
The tools may be new, but the human dynamic feels familiar. People who are curious, ambitious, and inclined to push for better outcomes will use AI as an amplifier, while people looking to check the box will use it to do so faster.
Stanford researcher Jeremy Utley made the same point while speaking with author Ryan Holiday on the Beyond the Prompt podcast. “What AI does is it gets somebody to mediocre much more quickly. And so if you’re the kind of person who’s going to settle for mediocre, AI is your enemy. However, if you’re the kind of person who’s going to push for exceptional, you've never had a better thought partner than AI.”
Ryan Holiday agreed with the sentiment. “If you're going to be satisfied with the first thing that you found from ChatGPT, you're probably the same person who was just satisfied with whatever Google kicked up five years ago, right?”
Those perspectives resonated with me because I’ve heard leaders and professionals worry about AI hallucinations, its supposed shortcomings in fact-checking, and cognitive offloading. These are all cited as reasons for avoiding the tools. But it’s comforting to know that how AI tools are used will be more a reflection of the users than of the tools themselves. As Utley concludes, AI “amplifies what’s underneath.”
That said, we probably shouldn’t judge check-the-box behaviors harshly, since all of us use that approach in some areas of our lives. Holiday, for example, described being diligent when he uses AI to research content for his books, ensuring he presses for accuracy and context. But when he’s got a prompt for ChatGPT like “Hey, I’ve got this rash,” he casually accepts its first verdict. “Okay, that’s what it is.”
It reminded me of something an education leader once told me: You’ll often find kids getting failing grades in school, but if you watch them playing their favorite video game, they demonstrate advanced problem-solving skills and commitment to learning. Their poor grades are a choice, not a deficit of skills or work ethic.
So, when we see people on our teams aiming for the minimum with AI, it could be that we haven’t helped them find work that genuinely interests them. Perhaps we’ve told them to use AI to do their current job more efficiently when we should have been asking, “How might these tools help you recraft your job in ways that bring you joy?”
Those types of questions may reveal opportunities for people to spend more time in the areas where they actually care, where they want to invest deeply, and where learning becomes energizing rather than obligatory.