Like everyone, I’ve been thinking a lot about how and where AI fits into my common workflows. I came across something this morning that made me pause and reflect. It’s a thread about how the Pentagon is using an AI-powered targeting system for military strikes. Technically, they have a “human in the loop” requirement, but the reality is:
“When the system produces 1,000 targets in 24 hours, ‘human in the loop’ becomes a rubber stamp. Chatham House researchers flagged the mechanism: AI accelerates tempo so much there’s less time for reflection.”
It got me thinking about the future of my own team’s AI use. There are many ways that AI can be leveraged effectively, especially in the work we’re doing. Auditing codebases for inconsistencies. Converting CSS variables to DTCG format. Delivering proper guidance and guardrails for AI-assisted code. That said… we need to be careful not to accelerate the tempo so much that we lose the ability to reflect, especially on the things that desperately need introspection.
Finding the balance there will be critical.