Don't Delete the Radiologist and other tales

A look at "Friction-Maxxing" and why the path of least resistance isn't always the path to good business, strategy or risk management

I came across something in a podcast recently that mirrored what I’ve been thinking about and writing about in the world of investing and business.

It’s this concept that’s taking hold called: friction-maxxing.

Maybe it’s an innocent reaction to what is happening in our world today where everything and most notably ‘AI’ is making our lives too easy (is that a real actually thing!?), but nonetheless I’ve been feeling it myself too.

But let me try to define friction-maxxing without using any GPTs for help and using my own home-grown neuro-network instead.

Fiction-maxxing: A deliberate and intentional choice by an individual or group of individuals to conduct an activity with the purpose of either the task taking longer than it should even while there are faster and/or easier ways to reach the same outcome.

And so to spell it out a bit and how it relates to Software of the likes that Constellation Software ($CSU.to) makes — I think that in the sci-fi world where we think that AI will do everything for us getting from A to B with minimal friction and what I call, bowing in the altar of efficiency, is my biggest skepticism lies.

Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we want to do it that way nor do we always follow the path of least resistance either.

Just because we can make something happen without lifting a finger, does mean that we would want to do that way all the time or even some of the time. It remains to be seen but the example that we’ve been living with these past 8 months has been the prediction that AI will “do away” with all radiologists and that in aggregate we’ve had to employed even more radiologists even while AI has exploded in skill and in adoption.

There is such thing as good system design. That’s why we use what is most valued, desired and utilizes the strengths and mitigates against the weaknesses of the different parts of a system. Humans are still good at, and want to be supervisors especially when the readout of a CT scan can literally have live or death consequences.

Let’s not blindly worship at the altar of efficiency.

Let’s also not put all our eggs in one basket (of AI) for fear of it being a house of cards in the medium or long run.