# The Death of Expertise - Response By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2025-11-25 God is dead. Nietzsche made this infamous assessment in 1882. We can now assess that if God is dead, faith has in no way been diminished. Generations of faithful have lived devout lives ever since. Nietzsche’s statement was, and often continues to be, considered impolite, if not shocking. In some cases, the statement has perhaps even been consequential. And yet, the statement has not been entirely or even mainly transformative. The “alter of efficiency” on which our algorithms and AI have brought us to sacrifice our humanity also calls for our expertise. Of the two, expertise seems to be harder to offer up. Will we collectively make this offering of our expertise, or will we resist? As indicated, “some forms of knowing can never be optimized, only lived.” The call set forth is important to consider. Will we “create practices that make use worthy not of expertise alone” but of “discernment”? If we consulted the Magic 8 Ball, we might discover that the outlook is grim. Even before AI, expertise had long ago been replaced by spectacle, and discernment by desire. Few have humility or discipline. Society neither valorizes nor rewards these characteristics. There is little in the development of AI to suggest the radical reevaluation of our societal values. If anything, AI will simply entrench further the status quo. As indicated, “the death of expertise leaves us in a strange productive tension where everyone has access to competence, but no one quite knows what wisdom means anymore.” This might be beneficially restated that everyone has access to competence, but few know what to do with it. The democratized “competence” of AI is like handing a random individual a microphone and expecting that individual to become an orator as a result. The tool doesn’t make the craftsperson. Often, it simply makes a poser. Superficially, there is not much difference between artifice and talent. Much of the time, it doesn’t matter. Business, pursuing efficiency, will find it increasingly beneficial to pay for artifice. That will work passably well, until it doesn’t work at all. At critical points, skill, experience, discernment, and knowledge are essential. AI will mask the degree to which these have atrophied. The masses of faithful will continue to pursue AI, convinced in the belief of their easily acquired expertise. #### Related Items [[Expertise]] [[Faith]] [[Discernment]] [[Wisdom]] [[Artificial Intelligence]] [[Spectacle]]