Apple’s researchers recently put today’s most celebrated language models (OpenAI’s, Google’s, Anthropic’s, and others) through a deceptively old-school trial: the Tower of Hanoi puzzle. As the disks multiplied, accuracy collapsed, approaching zero even when the models were given the correct algorithm. More strikingly, the systems began spending fewer inference-time tokens on their answers, as though they simply gave up when true reasoning was required.
The episode is a timely reminder: Artificial intelligence excels at pattern recognition, not wisdom. It parses probability; it does not ponder meaning. Treating it as a digital oracle risks confusing calculation with contemplation.
From Efficiency to Flourishing
Tools and technology have always extended human capability, but they have never answered the deeper question: To what end?
Steam power, silicon, and now neural networks each promise efficiency. Yet the measure of healthy progress is not output alone. Healthy progress drives the flourishing of people and communities.
AI’s real gift, then, is not autonomy but attenuation: it absorbs the rote so that people can exercise the uniquely human arts of prudence, creativity, and moral imagination.
Compounding Intelligence
Imagine two separate “tools”—one a high-speed calculator and the other a seasoned counselor—sitting side by side. Used alone, each delivers a predictable return: one solves equations, the other listens and helps their subjects process emotions and experiences. But when the calculator supplies rapid pattern-finding and the counselor filters those patterns through experience, ethics, and empathy, the gains compound. The outcome feels less like 1 + 1 = 2 and more like hitting 1 + 1 = 7: breakthroughs emerge, relationships deepen, and both grow wiser.
The catch? The compound effect appears only when each partner sticks to its vocation: machines handle velocity and volume; humans provide meaning, moral direction, and wisdom. Swap or blur those roles, and the math slides back to ordinary addition.
Commercial Intelligence in Practice
This synergy is at the heart of Commercial Intelligence: an operating model in which machines surface probabilistic insights, while people supply context, judgment, and final decision-making, all oriented around the economic relationship that exists between a service provider and their clients. Here are three keys to finding the right balance between human and machine:
- Automate Signal.
Let AI synthesize conversational data points, identify potential connections, and reveal hidden signals. Leaders reclaim hours for strategy and relationship building.
- Empower People.
Use technology to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration. Institutionalize knowledge and eliminate silos. Leaders and professionals alike are empowered with the information they need, even before they realize they need to ask for it.
- Keep Humans in the Loop.
Design workflows where critical decisions always require human review, especially when livelihoods or civil liberties are at stake.
Choosing Wisdom Over Haste
The Apple research findings are sobering, but liberating. If the most advanced models today stumble on children’s puzzles, they cannot yet shoulder ultimate responsibility. And that is good news. It summons organizations to cultivate the kind of leadership that algorithms cannot supply: wisdom rooted in experience, ordered toward the common good.
So ask yourself and your team:
Where can AI buy us the silence needed for more profound thought?
Which decisions must remain irreducibly human?
How will we form conscience and competence together, lest speed eclipse stewardship?
The future belongs to enterprises that harness technology without sacrificing their purpose. Harness the silicon. Guard the soul. In that partnership lies the path from mere efficiency to lasting impact.
