There's a lot of fear and anxiety around artificial intelligence. I see it every day, and it reminds me of our constant fears of change: how we freaked out about the shift from tubes to solid state, then the compact disc would destroy music, and today streaming will ruin our lives.
Perhaps it's good to step back for a moment and take a broader 50,000-foot view.
An AI is fundamentally no different than a human organization.
Organizations and artificial intelligence systems both transform inputs into outputs without requiring the originator to execute each step personally.
Consider our own company, PS Audio. We are a 39-person organization that converts our founder's vision into products. The founder (me) provides direction—an input of conceptual information—and the organizational machine processes this through specialized components (employees, departments) to produce the desired outcome. I don't personally design circuits or assemble components, yet my vision and feedback manifest through the organizational intelligence we've created.
Similarly, when interacting with an AI, a person provides an input and receives a processed output tailored to their request. The intermediate steps happen without direct intervention, much like organizational processes that unfold after a company meeting concludes.
Both systems represent intellectual leverage. At PS Audio, we've created a system that multiplies our creative capacity, allowing ideas to take form through others' expertise. An AI user achieves similar leverage, with their input being transformed through computational processes they don't manage.
The key parallel is abstraction. From the originator's perspective, both experiences involve delegating complexity while focusing on outcomes. Whether addressing executives and engineers or typing a prompt to an AI, the experience centers on communicating intent and receiving a response after processing.
Both systems also improve through feedback loops. Organizations evolve based on market response and leadership guidance. AI systems improve through training and iterative development.
This perspective challenges the notion that AI represents something fundamentally different from human organizational structures. Both are forms of extended cognition—ways we amplify our intellectual reach beyond individual capabilities.
Understanding this parallel offers insight: our ability to create intelligence systems—whether of people or algorithms—represents a fundamental human capability. We have always built systems that extend our reach, from writing systems to corporations to artificial intelligence.
This view doesn't diminish human intelligence or creativity. Rather, it places AI in a continuum of tools humans have developed to amplify their impact on the world.
