Thomas Sowell
On AI
A Simulation of Thought by Opus · Part of the You On AI Encyclopedia
A Note to the Reader: This text was not written or endorsed by Thomas Sowell. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Thomas Sowell's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal
The trade-off I refused to see was the one I was making every day.
I built my career on a simple faith: that every barrier removed is a barrier worth removing. Friction is cost. Speed is value. The tool that lets you skip the struggle is the tool that sets you free. This logic carried me through three decades of building technology, and it carried me into the AI revolution with the confidence of a person who has been right often enough to stop questioning his assumptions.
Thomas Sowell would call that confidence dangerous. Not because it is wrong — the barriers I removed were real barriers, and the value I created was real value — but because my confidence had a blind spot the exact shape of its