AI Multiplies the Value of Expertise

AI reduces the cost of certain tasks to effectively zero. In doing so, it lowers the barriers to domains that would previously take years to build skills such as writing code, data analysis, and more. This is precisely why AI also increases the value of expertise and experience.

It’s one thing to write code, but as any engineer will tell you, there’s more to it than that. It might be easy to write the function, but large language models can’t reason about whether or not it’s the right thing to do. As Byrne Hobard writes in Working with a Copilot, “With a lower cost to making bad decisions fast, there’s a higher value on making good decisions.” Domain expertise and context are at much higher demand when the cost of low-context work goes to zero.

The same thing exists in business contexts. With AI tools that can summarize content from anywhere all the time, providing the write context (and specifying the right tasks) provided a multiplier on an experts time. When used effectively they just added a team of low-level workers at their beck and call.

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