[Reprise] Inside the Black Box: Thoughts on Judgement, Intuition, Synthesis & Artificial Intelligence

 [Originally published in 2023, in this article I try to provide some much-needed perspective on AI (artificial intelligence). Enjoy!]

Your Inner "Wisdom Filter" & Decision-Making

[Note: This article was inspired by a comment from a Facebook friend, one of the smartest people I know, after I posted a link to a news article about the potential for AI systems to attain singularity with humanity very soon. She said, "... as a writer and artist, I am not convinced that the divine spirit that informs great writers and artists can be replicated by computers." This comment poked at me for days, irritating and causing me to abandon the half-written article I had been working on. There is an old saying that sometimes writers write to figure out what they are actually thinking. Below is my response to my friend's comment, in which I have begun to figure out what I think about AI's place in our world. - MG]

Why You Can "Trust Your Gut" 

A few years back, when I was teaching project management (PM) for new project managers, I encouraged them to overcome their decision-making doubts and "analysis paralysis" by showing them a graphical depiction of why their so-called "gut decisions" or intuitions were actually grounded in their many valuable life experiences. (See diagram above.) I later captured the matching narrative in a podcast then an essay which became the chapter Why You Should Trust Your Judgement (Your "Inner Wisdom" Filter) in my book Worth Sharing: Essays & Tools to Help Project Managers & Their Teams.  

Here's a quick summary: 

"... Your intuitions, “gut feelings,” and hunches are derived from, and ultimately grounded in, your unique life experiences, both good and bad. And because of this, they have behind them the solid proof of your reality. To illustrate how all these experiences come together to generate solid, trustworthy judgments, I present to you the analogy of the common kitchen strainer... Your inner voice (i.e., your judgment) operates pretty much like that kitchen strainer! Let’s say you have to make a difficult decision and don’t have time to think about it. All sorts of possibilities and pertinent facts and constraints and outcomes rattle around in your brain. Your “internal strainer” is activated to deal with this. The wires in your strainer are made up of a vast set of unique experiences that you’ve acquired over your lifetime. Successes, failures, joys, miseries, and all sorts of life events combine to form this internal screening mechanism.... when all the possible solutions and issues related to a problem are dumped into that strainer, the good stuff — a unique and powerful judgment — emerges. It’s a judgment that’s automatically informed by all of your life experiences. And, as such, it’s powerful and trustworthy!" -  from Why You Should Trust Your Judgement (Your "Inner Wisdom" Filter)

 

Reflections on the Pelican

 

(This month's article is resurrected from the archives. If you find yourself seeking relief from the heat alongside an ocean somewhere, chances are you'll see this "funny old bird" soaring or waddling near the waves. A while back I published these musings on this wonderful creature. Enjoy!)

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I guess I've always had a mild obsession with pelicans. Living a few miles from the ocean and wetlands most of my adult life, I've had the chance to see pelicans in all shapes and sizes -- brown and gray and even the occasional white ones.

Once I spot them, I can't take my eyes off them. They soar the updrafts like modern-day pterodactyls, giant wings motionless and outstretched, heads tucked in, long necks disappearing completely. Or they adopt the same glide posture to skim blazingly fast along the water, just inches from the surface, hitch-hiking on an ocean breeze.

Every once in a while they explode out of their not-a-single-muscle-moving form to morph into a dive-bombing fishing machine. I watch in awe as they knife into the water and rocket back to the surface with a live fish flopping around inside that tough, but paper-thin, pouch beneath their beak.

Fish captured (mission accomplished!), they shake the water from their wings, then fold themselves into a clumsy lump of feathers and bob goofily on the waves as their big web feet paddle towards shore.

On land, they waddle-walk like giant ducks with over-sized, awkward beak-heads and eventually collapse in the sun, a mass of sleeping feathers.

So what are these creatures? Are they sleek, dive-bombing fishing machines? Or are they ungainly waddling clowns? It all depends on the context in which you observe them.
They are at their streamlined best when pursuing their noblest mission: stunt flying and fishing. The rest of the time, they are downright clunky, simply hanging out and waiting for the next mission. I can't think of another living thing that so completely transforms itself based on its mission.  Except maybe us humans.

So What's Your Mission? 

“Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty… For what task, then, were you yourself created? A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.”
- Marcus Aurelius, in The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Let's face it.  There are things that you are good at -- that only you can do and that you do better than anyone else. And when you're doing these things, you can feel your Source or God or whatever creative muse that powers you as it flows through you and brings energy to your work. In short, when you're doing such things, you know you're "in the zone."

The brilliant psychologist Abraham Maslow, who created the term "self-actualization," said: “Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization.” (From Maslow's textbook Motivation and Personality.) 

So self-actualization -- the act of using your unique gifts to become actually what you are inherently created to be -- is a primal need for all of us. And it must be your highest goal if you are to "be ultimately at peace..."

So what's your unique mission and gift? What excites you... gets you in your zone... makes you lose track of time when your pursue it?  As Deepak Chopra says in his Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: “Everyone has a purpose in life… a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of goals.”

If you're ever to be at peace with yourself or to find the joy you were created to experience, you must find this purpose.  And, once discovered, you need to share it with the world!

The lesson from the humble pelican? You can't spend all day waddling around ignoring and wasting your unique talents. You have to listen to your heart, find your mission and soar!

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See pelicans in action in my video, Pelicans.

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See Also:

• 21 Lies Per Day? Really?! Fact Checking Tools Help You Find the Truth.

• Not all news is bad! Check out these 15 positive news sources.

• Simple Pleasures: A Few of My Favorite Things

• Goodbye Facebook. Hello Bluesky!