Maya Chen

The assumption underneath most conversations about AI is that every capability gained by a machine represents territory lost by a human.

That's historically strange. Calculators didn't make mathematics irrelevant. Cameras didn't eliminate painting. Search engines didn't eliminate expertise.

New capabilities change what we value.

AI will eliminate the scarcity of certain kinds of intelligence. The interesting question isn't whether humans can compete with machines at those tasks. It's what becomes scarce after intelligence itself becomes abundant.

My bet is judgment.

Machines will become exceptional at answering questions. Humans retain an enormous role in deciding which questions deserve answers.

AI won't simply perform individual tasks. Increasingly capable systems will coordinate tasks, people, information and resources across organizations.

When answers become cheap, the decision about which answer to act on carries all the weight.

Eventually we stop talking about “AI products” for the same reason we stopped talking about “internet-enabled businesses.”

Intelligence becomes an expected layer of nearly every product and service.