CONCEPT
High Ground and Swampy Lowlands
Schon's topographical metaphor for the two terrains of professional practice — solvable problems on firm ground, messy situations in the swamp — and his argument that the important work happens in the swamp.
Schon drew a line that cuts through everything happening in AI. On the high ground sit problems that can be defined cleanly and solved through the application of research-based theory. The science is settled, the technique is reliable, the application is straightforward. On the low ground sit situations that are messy, ambiguous, value-laden, resistant to clean framing — situations where the first question is what the problem actually is. Schon's central empirical claim was that the problems of greatest human concern live overwhelmingly in the swamp. Practitioners face a choice: remain on the high ground solving relatively unimportant problems according to rigorous standards, or descend into the swamp and engage with the problems that matter according to standards that no theory quite specifies. The AI moment intensifies this choice. Machines have colonized the high ground. The swamp is where the practitioner's value now concentrates.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The high ground is exactly