Intelligence Isn't Judgment

Good judgment is knowing what matters.

It's distinguishing signal from noise. Seeing second-order effects. Understanding when rules apply and when they don't.

You can have high intelligence and terrible judgment.

You can ace every test and still make catastrophic decisions.

Intelligence is processing power. Judgment is knowing what to process.

In the AI context, this becomes acute.

AI produces outputs. Good judgment knows when to trust them versus verify them.

It recognizes that "AI can do this" doesn't mean "we should have AI do this."

It sees the difference between demos and production-ready systems.

Good judgment is pattern recognition crossed with wisdom about tradeoffs.

It's what makes someone say "wait, let's think about this differently" when everyone else is nodding along.

And it's becoming one of THE bottlenecks in the age of AI.

Because AI commoditized the things that used to signal judgment: analysis depth, research thoroughness, articulate synthesis.

What stayed expensive was the judgment itself.

Knowing which insights actually matter given real constraints. Building conviction that a recommendation is right despite uncertainty. Navigating organizational politics to get things implemented. Being present for the messy work of change. Taking responsibility when things go wrong.

These are human-only skills.

Not because AI lacks capability, but because they require context, consequence, and accountability that only humans carry.

Good judgment is what only humans can do.

And in a world where AI can do almost everything else, that makes it the new scarcity.