The Sound of Keys

Type, type, type. In the world of specialized knowledge, this is often what it comes down to. Knowing what to type, and in what sequence.

This is exactly what an AI learns. It masters patterns to know what to type at what time.

But we are different. Our intelligence is more primordial. We don’t just learn “what to type.” We learn by first building a world view.

A world view is the lens for everything. The external world is what it is; we just see it through our senses. Our mind receives this information like a CPU receives bits. It’s processed, and a world view is formed.

On this foundation, you keep adding. Sometimes you remove info, sometimes you add. Some of this information becomes core beliefs, usually formed in childhood. Changing them is hard. Your mind fights it, because changing a core belief means your entire world view might not hold. Whatever you have built on top of it collapses. It’s like trying to move the 100-foot ditch dug for a tall building.

This world view is what creates your specialized knowledge.

A coder sees a problem, filters it through their world view, forms an opinion, and types it out. A doctor sees a patient’s symptoms, their own world view already loaded, and gives a solution.

In this way, the work of an experienced professional can look quite similar to an AI. Both are driven by patterns seen over a long time.

But a newbie doesn’t have enough patterns. They have to think it out, like deriving a math formula from scratch. This is why a new eye can sometimes see things an experienced eye never will.

An experienced person often works fast, but their awareness can be low. A new person works slow, but their awareness is high. Learning new things is what keeps awareness high.

This contrast leads to a strange conclusion. Perhaps being ‘experienced’ isn’t always the ultimate goal. Mastery requires experience, of course. But the daily routine of a job often dulls the high awareness needed to achieve it. That is why it’s so rare.

Most swordsmen of old were just soldiers; only a few became grandmasters. To master the bow, you need intense focus and awareness even after practicing the same shot for years.

So, an experienced person with low awareness becomes like an AI. They see the patterns and find the best keys to type next. Their work becomes predictable.

An experienced person with high awareness, however, becomes a master. They see the known patterns but find more masterful, creative ways of what to type next. There is still thought and art in their actions.

From the outside, the two can look the same. On the inside, there is a vast difference.

This presents a choice.

If you have experience but low awareness, AI will eventually do your job only faster, and without getting tired or bored.

But if you are experienced and also cultivate awareness, art, and creativity, AI becomes your most powerful tool. It becomes a junior partner in ways no human could ever be.