The Human Element AI Will Never Replace

Nov 22, 2025

There's a story from Auschwitz that changed how I think about AI.

Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, describes a Nazi guard who secretly gave him bread. The guard whispered:

"I envy you. You know why you suffer. I don't even know why I inflict it."

The prisoner had more freedom than the guard.

Why? Because Frankl had chosen his response. The guard was enslaved by his role — following orders without understanding.

Sound familiar?

This Is How Most Companies Deploy AI

Most AI implementations work exactly like that guard:

• No framework for when to trust the model

• No understanding of why it makes predictions

• Blind faith in "the algorithm"

• Following the output without judgment

The AI processes. The AI predicts. But the AI cannot judge.

When a model says "95% confident" — who decides if that's enough for your use case?

When the prediction feels wrong — who overrides it?

When edge cases appear — who catches them before they cost you millions?

A human. Every single time.

Frankl's Framework for AI Decision-Making

Frankl taught: "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom to choose."

For AI practitioners, that space is everything:

• The model outputs a prediction (stimulus)

• You decide what to do with it (space)

• Your action follows (response)

Companies that skip the "space" — that automate without judgment — become the guard: blindly following orders they don't understand.

Companies that preserve the "space" — that build human judgment into their AI systems — become Frankl: choosing their response deliberately.

The Practical Application

When evaluating any AI system, ask:

1. "Where is the human judgment layer?"
If there isn't one, you're building a guard.

2. "What happens when the model is wrong?"
If no one catches it, you're building a guard.

3. "Who decides when to override?"
If no one can, you're building a guard.

The most successful AI implementations aren't the ones with the best models.

They're the ones with the best human judgment systems built around them.

The Lesson

AI can process information faster than any human.
AI cannot choose what that information means.

That gap — that space between stimulus and response — is where your value lives.

Don't automate it away.

More on building judgment into AI systems: BSKiller helps you develop the frameworks that separate successful AI projects from expensive failures.

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