In 1966, Michael Polanyi explained why some knowledge resists being written down. Sixty years later, that's the knowledge AI cannot touch — and the knowledge your senior engineers carry in their bones.
The author says this knowledge can’t be extracted or transcribed, but isn’t that exactly what that senior engineer does after that hour has passed?
No. When we communicate, we’re not really communicating our knowledge or understanding, we’re communicating a crystallization of it in a form the listener might be able to learn from. The communication and the understanding are fundamentally different things. Like a map to the terrain. If they were the same, would we not be able to understand something purely by hearing it?
No. When we communicate, we’re not really communicating our knowledge or understanding, we’re communicating a crystallization of it in a form the listener might be able to learn from. The communication and the understanding are fundamentally different things. Like a map to the terrain. If they were the same, would we not be able to understand something purely by hearing it?
What’s communicated is an imperfect projection of what is understood - fine. It doesn’t matter they’re not the same.
Take whatever the senior engineer concluded after that hour and document that for the next time something like this happens.