Artificial or Intelligent?

AI may soon render facts obsolete. Not because they cease to exist, but because, increasingly, they don’t hold the power they once did.

First, we stopped remembering. Search engines could answer any fleeting curiosity. Then came algorithmic echo chambers with customized news cycles, so we stopped questioning. Now, with AI, we may stop understanding altogether.

If we take the phrase "artificial intelligence” literally, as meaning intelligence that is not real but artificial, then maybe we open a new way of considering what it means for the future.

AI is shrinking the space between knowledge and information. So rather than generating new and better results, it may blur the essential distinction between the two—and that would, of course, be a loss from which we might never recover.

AI can pull up every answer. But not every answer matters. If you can surface any factoid in seconds, whether it’s right or wrong, do you ever really know it?

In very general terms, we are being trained to trust the confident voice of a machine, regardless of whether it’s right. And in doing so, we risk replacing discernment with dependence and facts with convenience.

But reality isn’t going anywhere. If someone stands on a skyscraper and says, “I believe I can fly,” I’m still betting on gravity every single time.

Leaders can no longer assume facts will speak for themselves or that truth will hold on its own. They must take deliberate action to ground their organizations (and themselves) in what is real.

Because facts are going to bend more than they ever have, and it’s up to today’s leaders to make sure the truth doesn’t break in the process.