Information, confidence, and the search for certainty
Have you ever gone looking for one answer and instead came away with a thousand more questions?
Twenty years ago, the challenge was finding information.
Today, the challenge is deciding what deserves our focus.
I wasn’t expecting to arrive at that conclusion while researching my family tree.
For almost twenty years, I have been building my family tree. Not continuously. In bursts whenever curiosity takes hold again. There is something deeply satisfying about such detective work. Every birth certificate, census return and military record is another clue. Every missing link another mystery waiting to be solved.
When a family member recently asked me to revisit one particular branch of the tree, I returned once again with enthusiasm. Happily disappearing down the rabbit hole once more.
Much has changed over twenty years.
Digitised historical records have expanded enormously. AI can now suggest potential family connections almost instantly. On paper, it should make the whole process dramatically faster.
In some ways it does.
Yet instead of spending more time researching, I found myself spending more time filtering, cross-checking, validating. More than three thousand possible matches now sit waiting to be reviewed. Some appear convincing until a close look reveals that the dates, locations or family relationships don’t fit. Others have little logical connection at all.
Without realising it, I stumbled across a pattern that extends well beyond family history and increasingly into how many of us now approach knowledge work and business more broadly.
Information is no longer the bottleneck
I have always approached AI with cautious optimism.
It has genuinely transformed parts of the way I work. Used well, it is an extraordinary tool, and I have no doubt that it will continue to develop and become ever more capable over time.
Yet the more I use it, the more I find myself spending time somewhere I hadn’t expected. Not searching. Evaluating. Deciding.
The effort of work itself hasn’t disappeared. It has simply morphed and moved into something else. Shifted where my time is focused.
We now have almost limitless information available at our fingertips. Tempting, therefore, to assume that because finding information has become easier, the work itself has become easier too.
I’m not convinced that it has.
If anything, I have found myself spending longer evaluating what I’ve been given on occasion. Cross-checking sources. Testing assumptions. Rewriting automations that don’t quite do what I had tasked them with. Discarding ideas that initially appeared plausible, before uncovering something more credible.
The bottleneck, therefore, is no longer access to information.
It is our ability to distinguish what matters and what is credible from everything that isn’t.
The confidence trap
The more interesting development I have noticed over recent months is not necessarily the additional time spent adjusting, training, or correcting.
It’s actually what it did to my own thinking.
In some situations, AI has actually made me less certain of my own reasoning. Not because it is always right, but because it is rarely hesitant.
It doesn’t simply produce answers. It produces confident answers.
Confidence has a curious effect on us. We instinctively give it weight. Even when we know deep down that confidence and correctness are not the same thing. A polished response feels persuasive.
Increasingly, teams are using AI to draft reports, analyse data, prepare presentations and generate content. In many cases, the outputs are genuinely impressive.
The danger isn’t that AI is doing the work.
The danger is when we quietly remove that human step that questions, challenges and ultimately decides whether the output is good enough.
For me, rather than accepting the first answer now, I find it useful to pause and ask myself three questions:
What evidence is this actually based on? Can I verify this independently?
What assumptions has this answer made that I haven’t challenged yet?
Would I reach the same conclusion if this answer had been written with less confidence?
What I don’t need from AI is constant, confident agreement.
I do not need my ego massaged every time I ask a question.
I want objectivity. Multiple perspectives. Evidence that challenges my thinking rather than quietly reinforcing it. Not in a deliberately contrary way, but as a balanced partner that helps me think more clearly before making a decision.
The work that still matters
The easier it becomes to generate answers, content or ideas, the more valuable and imperative it becomes to make better decisions.
AI will continue to become faster, more capable and accessible. That much is inevitable.
What feels less inevitable is our ability and willingness to slow down long enough to question the answers it gives us. Perhaps that is where value increasingly lies. Not in our ability to produce more information or content faster, but in our ability to decide on what to focus on, pursue or accept.
Identifying what matters. Deciding what not to say. Choosing where to focus. Determining which problems are actually worth solving.
To recognise the nuance.
That’s leadership. That is strategy. That is marketing. That is life.
The question is no longer whether we can generate another answer. It’s whether we know when we have enough to set the direction.
Some answers may come from AI. The decision still lies with us.
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