The Friction We Can't Afford to Lose

One of the more surprising things I've noticed over the last couple of years is that my enthusiasm for artificial intelligence has been growing at exactly the same time as my concern about some of its unintended consequences.

At first, this felt contradictory.

The technology keeps getting better. Tasks that once required hours now take minutes. Information that previously demanded research, expertise or access can often be retrieved almost instantly. Every few months, another capability appears that would have seemed extraordinary not long ago.

By any reasonable measure, this is progress.

Yet the same developments that make me optimistic about AI also make me increasingly curious about what skills will become genuinely valuable in a world where intelligence itself is becoming abundant.

Part of the reason is personal.

Like many parents, I occasionally find myself thinking about the kind of adult I hope my daughter becomes. Curiosity would probably sit near the top of the list. So would judgement, adaptability and the ability to navigate unfamiliar situations without becoming paralysed by uncertainty.

None of these qualities seem particularly controversial.

What I find less obvious is where they come from.

For most of my life, I would have answered that question without much hesitation. Experience, perhaps. Education. Good role models. A certain amount of trial and error.

Today I'm less sure.

Not because those things no longer matter, but because I increasingly wonder whether many of the capabilities we value most are built through experiences that modern technology is systematically trying to remove.

Take curiosity.

We often talk about it as if it were a trait, something a person either possesses or lacks. Yet when I think about the most curious people I've met, what stands out is not their ability to find answers. It is their willingness to remain uncomfortable without them.

The process usually begins with a question, followed by uncertainty, confusion and, occasionally, frustration. Curiosity is what keeps someone moving despite that discomfort.

Remove the discomfort entirely and something interesting happens. The answer remains readily available, but it is less obvious whether the curiosity that produced it survives intact.

The same thought occurred to me recently while using AI.

Like most people, I've been amazed by its ability to retrieve, organise and connect information. It can often produce in seconds what would previously have taken hours. Sometimes the results are genuinely impressive.

Occasionally, however, I notice something else.

The answer is perfectly plausible. The reasoning appears coherent and the conclusion sounds convincing. Yet something feels slightly off. Not obviously wrong, just incomplete in a way that is difficult to identify at first glance.

What is interesting is that this tends to happen most often in domains I know particularly well.

In subjects where I have only superficial knowledge, the answer usually feels excellent. In subjects where I have spent years accumulating experience, I sometimes find myself questioning conclusions that, on the surface, appear entirely reasonable.

For a while, I assumed this was simply a limitation of the technology.

Increasingly, I suspect something else may be happening.

The gap is not always informational. In many cases the information is already there. The difference seems to lie in how that information is interpreted, prioritised and ultimately applied.

Some of the wisest people I have worked with were not distinguished by the amount of knowledge they possessed. In many cases they were surrounded by people who knew more, had deeper technical expertise or could recall facts with greater precision.

What made them valuable was something harder to define. They seemed unusually good at recognising what mattered.

A discussion could contain dozens of variables, competing opinions and plausible explanations. Most people would leave with a more sophisticated understanding of the problem. They would leave with a clearer view of the decision.

The distinction may sound subtle, but in practice it rarely is.

Looking back, I can think of many occasions where the critical insight was not hidden. It was simply buried beneath a large amount of information that appeared equally important.

Wisdom, at least in those situations, seemed less concerned with finding answers than with identifying which questions deserved attention in the first place.

Most of the people I would describe as wise have accumulated a certain amount of scar tissue along the way. They have made mistakes. They have misjudged situations. They have discovered, usually the hard way, that reality is less interested in our theories than in our results.

The process is rarely pleasant and, unfortunately, it is also difficult to shortcut.

Which is why I sometimes wonder whether we are focusing on the wrong side of the AI debate.

Much of the discussion revolves around what the technology can do for us. A less discussed question is what happens when we no longer need to do certain things ourselves.

The distinction matters because many activities serve two purposes simultaneously. They produce an outcome, but they also develop capability.

Writing helps us communicate ideas, but it also forces us to confront weaknesses in our own thinking. Research helps us gather information, yet part of its value lies in learning how to evaluate sources, challenge assumptions and distinguish signal from noise. The same is true of problem solving. The answer matters, but so does the judgement developed along the way.

Once viewed through that lens, friction starts to look slightly different. Some forms merely consume time, while others play an important role in developing capability.

Most parents understand this intuitively. Few would argue that a child benefits from unnecessary struggle. Equally few would argue that a child benefits from never having to struggle at all.

The challenge lies somewhere in between.

For most of human history, that challenge solved itself. Frustration, uncertainty and failure arrived uninvited. They were simply part of life.

Today we possess technologies capable of removing many of those experiences, often for entirely legitimate reasons. The benefits are real. Yet it is worth asking whether some of the qualities we value most emerge from those experiences rather than despite them.

This may also explain why I find the language of replacement somewhat misleading.

When automobiles replaced horses, they eliminated the need for millions of people to ride. Yet they did not eliminate the qualities associated with horsemanship. Those qualities simply ceased to be necessary.

I sometimes wonder whether something similar may happen with judgement.

Not because AI will replace it, but because fewer situations may require people to develop it.

Which brings me back to where I started.

Like many parents, I hope my daughter grows up curious, adaptable and capable of thinking for herself. None of those qualities depend on a shortage of information. If anything, they may become more important as information becomes abundant.

What I find myself questioning is where those qualities come from in the first place.

The more I think about it, the less convinced I become that they can be downloaded, delegated or generated on demand. Most seem to emerge through direct engagement with the world, through situations that require judgement, persistence and adaptation, and through experiences that are occasionally frustrating precisely because they do not offer immediate answers.

For most of human history, those experiences arrived uninvited. They were simply part of life. Today we possess technologies capable of removing many of them, often for entirely legitimate reasons. The benefits are real, but it is worth asking whether some forms of friction play a more important role than we usually acknowledge.

Perhaps the most important question raised by AI has less to do with what the technology will become capable of doing and more to do with whether we will continue creating the conditions that allow human judgement to develop alongside it.

The most interesting question was never whether horses would disappear.

The more interesting question was what became valuable once they were no longer necessary.

I sometimes wonder whether future generations will ask a remarkably similar question about judgement.