AI Raised The Floor… And “Good Enough” Fell Through It

There’s something strange (and getting stranger) happening in the AI conversation.

Not the technology… the certainty.
On one side, it’s a work apocalypse.
50% of white-collar jobs gone in three years.
Middle management vaporized.
Entry-level careers erased before they begin.

On the other side, it’s all upside and optimism.

Relax… we’ve seen this before… it’s just another tool.
What fascinates me isn’t which side is right.
It’s how sure everyone sounds.
Especially how varied these perspectives are from the experts developing these frontier models.

In my recent conversation with Ann Handley (author of Everybody Writes, creator of the newsletter Total Annarchy and her recent musing, Something Messy Is Happening: On AI, Panic, and Asking Better Questions, a response to Matt Shumer’s viral Something Big Is Happening) for this week’s Thinking With Mitch Joel, we didn’t argue about whether AI is powerful.

It is.
We didn’t debate whether it’s useful.
It is.
We didn’t even disagree about whether it’s transformative.
It is.
What we wrestled with was something deeper…

Judgment… taste… art… creativity… how we define those things… and whether or not machines have some version of them.

And what happens when “good enough” becomes dangerously good.
When suddenly everyone can be more than “good enough” at most forms of content creation.
Because here’s where I am landing on this…
The floor, the mean… the middle… has been raised.
AI can draft… structure… and even generate ideas faster than you can finish your coffee.
AI can produce something that feels “close enough” to judgment that, in many cases, the distinction barely matters (for most forms of content).

And that’s new… and ignoring that might be the real mistake.

We’ve lived through technological shifts before.
Calculators… computers… the web… ecommerce… mobile… social media…
Each one changed skills, distribution and opportunities.
But none of them felt like they were staring back at you… this one does.
I’ve had real moments (and I’ll admit this openly) where the output doesn’t feel mechanical.
It feels intentional… it feels like it “knows” where to go next… or, better said, where I would go.
Whether that’s true judgment or just probabilistic algorithms is almost beside the point.

It’s convincing… and it has convinced me on more than a few occasions across different types of work.

And convincing is enough to destabilize that middle.
Not the superstars… the middle.
The competent professional.
The mid-level strategist.
The entry-level writer trying to find their voice.
The team of five that can become one plus software.

That’s where this middle lives.

And this is where certainty becomes dangerous.
If you’re certain it will replace everyone, you panic.
If you’re certain it’s just a tool, you dismiss.
Both reactions skip the hard part.
Everyone is talking about speed… how fast this is all happening… and how fast these outcomes will change our economy.

Quick question: What race are we even running?

Speed has become the default at work.
Faster… more output… more code… more everything.
My new jam is that speed is boring (things have always been moving fast… faster).
I think the “win” for businesses today is to ignore speed.
Here’s my formula: Direction + Momentum > Speed
If AI can generate average work instantly, then average is no longer valuable.

Which means the floor… the mean… the middle… has been raised.

Original and critical thinking matters more (aka knowing which is the right direction).
Not just prompting and assuming the tech is better… faster than your current results.
You may think the real danger is AI replacing humans.
I think the real danger is humans outsourcing their experience and thinking to the machine by way of assumptions.
What we currently have is generative engines trained on (mostly) historical and average output.

Which also means that the question isn’t whether AI has taste.

It’s whether we do.
Because if you treat AI (as Ann said on the podcast) like a Labrador retriever dropping tennis balls at your feet (endlessly suggesting, endlessly offering options) you’ll spend your time throwing and fetching.
If you treat it like something else/something more, it can sharpen you (and your business… and this, in tests and projects will give you the momentum part of the equation).

That difference matters.

Mass adoption will happen.
Some teams will shrink.
Some roles will change.
Entry-level pathways will likely look very different.

That part is real.

But the loudest voices predicting inevitability often skip the most human variable in the equation:
Choice.
We still choose how we use it.
We still choose where and how it can add value (direction).
We still choose whether we care about human skill and judgment.
We still choose where this technology can create the best outcomes (momentum).

I worry that this certainty about AI shuts down our ability to choose the direction and build those moments of momentum.

So before we declare the future won or lost…
Maybe we should ask a better question…

If the floor has been raised (and the work is all “good enough” now), how high are you willing to climb?

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.