They Stumble That Run Fast: Smart Tools, Dulled Decisions
Artificial intelligence is revolutionising the world of communications and crisis communications, but as we embrace this technological leap, we’re also seeing a somewhat disturbing paradox: the smarter our tools become, the less we seem to use our own grey matter.
A recent article in The Guardian asked: Are we living in a golden age of stupidity? It argues that while technology makes life more convenient, it may be eroding our capacity for critical thinking and judgment – skills that are essential for communicators.
These AI capabilities are invaluable in high-pressure situations where every minute counts. They allow teams to move quickly, stay informed, and make data-driven decisions.
However, there’s a catch. AI doesn’t understand context. It doesn’t feel the weight of a decision. It can’t read a room, anticipate emotional fallout, or navigate the moral complexity of a crisis.
When organisations rely too heavily on AI, they risk losing the very qualities that make crisis management effective – empathy, instinct, and understanding of nuance. We’ve seen AI-drafted statements that are technically perfect but tone-deaf and responses that are fast but land with a dull thud.
Scroll through LinkedIn lately and you’ll notice a familiar pattern in posts – a liberal sprinkling of emojis, a peppering of now infamous em dashes and perhaps most irksomely, while Shakespeare loved a good antithesis (it’s not x, it’s y), the Bard your average LLM is not.
AI should augment human intelligence, not replace it. The best crisis responses come from teams who use AI to inform thinking, not do the thinking for them.
That means:
- Asking hard questions, even when the data looks clean
- Listening to gut instinct
- Prioritising human connection over algorithmic efficiency
In a crisis, the sharpest tool remains the human mind. As we’ve been on the subject of Shakespeare, we’ll finish with a quote from Hamlet “…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” And no algorithm is replacing thoughtful judgement any time soon.
