AI Efficiency Could Cost Us the Next Generation of Experts
TL;DR
An engineer describes why his team deliberately left manual steps inside the sequences of a digital control system for a US nuclear plant. Operators who only supervise automation gradually lose their feel and their mental model of the plant. Automation tends to hand control back exactly when it is confused or in trouble. The essay transfers that experience to the use of AI in knowledge work.
Nauti's Take
The proposal can be applied right away and carries a real advantage: keeping manual steps in the process preserves competence inside the team instead of slowly handing it away. The limit shows up in the cost, since deliberate friction takes time and money and rarely scales across every workflow.
For small teams, the practical move is picking a few critical routines that people still run without AI.
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