Not All Friction Is Waste

I am a big believer in friction as part of the path, not all friction, of course.

There is useless friction, excessive friction, bureaucratic friction, stupid friction that drains energy and teaches nothing.

But there is also necessary friction. The kind that gives you traction, builds, forces conversation and makes you and others better.

The promise of “zero friction” is attractive, but in many areas of life it is total bullshit.

As a cyclist, I think about this a lot. I can get obsessed with rolling resistance. Tire width, tread pattern, model, brand, pressure, temperature, surface, real-world conditions. You want the tire to be fast, but you also need it connected to the ground. You want less resistance, but not zero.

Zero friction sounds fast in theory, but in reality, without some friction, you don’t move forward, you slide, lose control or crash.

That is the point I keep coming back to with AI.

After a meaningful conversation with Phil, I kept thinking about this: with AI, we need enough of it to enhance us as humans, but not so much that it disconnects us from the friction of becoming better.

That is the necessary friction I am talking about, the friction of:

• Learning, thinking, writing badly before you write better

• Calling another human instead of asking a machine

• Not knowing yet

• Trying, failing, correcting and trying again

This is the qualitative question each of us needs to ask when we use AI tools and especially when we recommend them or mandate them for younger generations, teams, athletes, students or employees.

The question is “what part of the human process does it remove?” not necessarily if it only makes you faster…

We need to move from the box of optimizing into the broader box of living.

Many of us are wired for outcomes. I am. We like performance, systems, tools, metrics, and execution. But a good system is not judged only by its output, it is judged by what it does to the people operating inside it.