Diane Coyle
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 Diane Coyle. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Diane Coyle'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 number I trust least is the one I built my career on.
Productivity. Output divided by input. The metric that justified every hire, every sprint, every late night, every decision I made in Trivandrum when twenty engineers crossed a threshold that rewired my understanding of what a small team could do. Twenty-fold multiplier. I said it on stages. I said it to investors. I believed it completely.
Then I spent months inside the work of Diane Coyle, and I realized I had no idea what I was actually measuring.
Coyle is an economist, but not the kind who confirms what builders want to hear. She is the kind who asks what the confirmation is made of. Her life's work has been pulling apart the measurement
