Should I buy this apple?
Let’s ask the LLM.
It sounds silly, but this is where we’re headed.
AI is quickly becoming a default response engine for every question, every decision, every moment of hesitation.
But when a tool becomes a crutch instead of a catalyst, we might lose… duh duh duh… critical thinking.
So how do we ensure our human teams don’t turn into AI regurgitation machines?
How do we design systems and cultures that encourage our teams to think with AI, not just through it?
Here are 5 principles to guide your organization:
1. Ask questions: Don’t just optimize for efficiency. Optimize for exploration. Encourage your teams to use AI to explore different angles, test assumptions, and surface edge cases.
2. Stay skeptical: A confident AI answer isn’t the same as a correct one. Build workflows where teams interrogate the output and their own thinking.
3. Design for reflection, not reaction: AI works fast, but real insight takes time. Slow down. Create moments for deliberation, interpretation, and synthesis. Embed review cycles that go beyond checklists.
4. Value original thinking: If everyone’s using the same tools, differentiation comes from how you think with them. Encourage teams to add context, bring in their own perspectives, and challenge outputs.
5. Keep humans in charge: Systems should amplify judgment, not eliminate it. Avoid over-automating critical decisions. Make space for disagreement, deliberation, and nuance.
If we’re not careful, we won’t just outsource answers to AI. We’ll outsource our agency.
The ability to question, reason, and make meaning is what makes us human.
We have to stay engaged, curious, skeptical, and accountable. That’s how we ensure AI serves us, not the other way around. Because the real potential of AI isn’t to replace human thought, but to push it further.
Special thanks to Vince Lynch, CEO at IV.AI for sharing these insights.
