Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, just said something that should stop business leaders cold:
“This lack of understanding is essentially unprecedented in the history of technology.”
He’s talking about AI.
Not hypothetical, sci-fi AI.
The same AI that’s already embedded in healthcare, finance, hiring, education, and national defense.
And he followed it with this:
“When a generative AI system does something, like summarize a financial document, we have no idea, at a specific or precise level, why it makes the choices it does.”
That’s not a fringe take. That’s one of the leading voices in the field saying we’re scaling systems we don’t fully understand.
Now ask yourself: Would you fly on a plane built like that?
We’re Trusting Black Boxes
Imagine boarding a plane. Right before takeoff, the pilot says:
“We don’t fully understand how this thing flies. But it usually gets there.”
Would you stay in your seat?
Because that’s what we’re doing with AI.
Every day. Across every industry.
Why We Don’t Understand Modern AI
Here’s the core issue:
- Traditional software runs on logic. Humans write the rules. The behavior is predictable.
- Modern AI runs on probability. It learns patterns from massive datasets. Its behavior is emergent, not programmed.
What happens inside these large models is so complex, even the teams that built them can’t explain how they arrived at a specific answer.
Inputs go in. Outputs come out.
What happens in between? No one really knows.
That’s a problem.
What This Says About Us
The fact that we’re fine with this should raise some hard questions. It tells us:
- We value speed over safety. Faster is better, even if we don’t fully understand what we’re scaling.
- We prioritize convenience over clarity. Just like social media and smartphones, we adopt first and audit later.
- We’re outsourcing responsibility. AI becomes the decision-maker, but no one wants to be accountable when it goes wrong.
- We treat AI like an oracle. We trust outputs we can’t explain because it “feels” smart.
We’re running toward the shiny without checking the wiring.
This Isn’t Fear. It’s a Reality Check.
At Lithyem, we work with AI every day. We believe in it.
But we also believe in knowing what you’re actually putting into your business.
If you’re using AI without clear systems to challenge, verify, or audit its output, you’re not leading.
You’re gambling.
And gambling at scale is reckless.
Would you fly on a plane like that?
Then don’t let your company run on one either.
Want help building AI systems that actually make sense?
We help founders and CEOs eliminate bottlenecks with practical, explainable AI that scales operations, without losing control.
