When the machine writes something, you edit it. When it proposes an idea, you question it. When it generates a report, you verify each fact and rewrite the conclusions in your own words. This is what a partnership between a human and artificial intelligence should look like.
In the right model of collaboration, you start by studying the real capabilities of the tools. You test them yourself to separate marketing from actual functions. You look for places where technology can improve quality, not just speed — enhance workflows, activate idea generation, elevate the final product.
Artificial intelligence generates dozens of options — you choose the best and develop them. It creates a draft — you turn it into a masterpiece. It analyzes data — you find meaning in it and make decisions. In all fields, it is people with a critical approach to working with machines who achieve success.
From the perspective of company leadership, this means not rushing to cut staff but looking for opportunities to help existing teams serve more clients, create better results, and find new revenue sources. Since technology is young, those who experiment and find creative applications gain an advantage. But someone decided that this is too difficult.
The myth of the all-knowing machine
The promotion of artificial intelligence is built on a simple idea: the machine is faster, smarter, and more capable than a human. Why think for yourself when a chatbot can provide a ready answer? Why doubt when the algorithm sounds so confident? Why struggle with complex tasks when technology promises to solve everything with one click?
We swallowed this bait whole. Almost half of the users of large language models believe they are smarter than themselves. When a chatbot says, 'Great idea!', people forget about critical analysis. If a smart machine approves, then I must be right. If it writes better than me, why even try to write myself?
Companies have caught this wave. Convinced that artificial intelligence will soon replace human workers, they are rushing to cut staff. Amazon is laying off 14,000 employees, citing technology productivity. Microsoft is replacing programmers with neural networks. Entire teams are being disbanded not because machines have proven their effectiveness, but because everyone has believed in the myth of omnipotent artificial intelligence. In this mythology lies the source of catastrophe — we stopped viewing artificial intelligence as a tool and began to worship it as a deity.
The reality of digital junk
Wherever you look, artificial intelligence ruins everything. The internet is filled with machine garbage: endless tasteless blog posts and identical resumes. Students use chatbots to evade studying, employees churn out reports that look professional but are empty inside. We scroll through feeds in an ocean of hallucinations, where truth is mixed with fabrications.
An epidemic of digital junk is thriving in workplaces. 41% of employees encounter such materials from colleagues, according to research by BetterUP and Stanford. These are reports, presentations, and documents that look polished but turn out to be superficial, templated, and sometimes blatantly incorrect.
Imagine a scenario: a colleague sends you a presentation created by artificial intelligence. At first glance, everything looks beautiful — graphs, tables, conclusions. But when you start to investigate, it turns out that the data is three years old, the conclusions do not follow from the facts, and the recommendations are completely inapplicable to your situation.
The price of illusions
The emotional cost is also high. Recipients of such 'creativity' often feel irritation and confusion; many feel offended. It is no surprise: a 'ready-made solution' is perceived as unfinished work.
The scale of the problem is staggering. A company of 10,000 people loses up to $9 million a year due to the need to correct work spoiled by the illiterate use of artificial intelligence. At the same time, the paradox is obvious: the number of technology implementations is growing, but the returns from them are practically non-existent. MIT's research shows that 95% of organizations do not see a return on investment from artificial intelligence.
Why is this happening? People misuse technology — not to enhance their abilities, but to replace them. Instead of using the machine as a powerful tool for editing and generating ideas, they transfer responsibility for the outcome to it.
Partnership instead of worship
There is nothing wrong with the technology itself. Artificial intelligence can enhance human cognitive abilities and improve outcomes, but this requires a shift in approach. The key is in restoring critical partnership.
Once you discard the myth of the all-knowing machine, a real opportunity emerges: technology that makes us better versions of ourselves, not replacing our ability to think but developing it. As Steve Jobs said, computers are bicycles for the mind. We must not only pedal but also hold the handlebars firmly.
