BUSINESS • 03
(This discussion is strictly limited to the AI-Native phase of business society, a period where AI has not yet developed autonomous consciousness and still exists as a super-tool.)
Preface: The Crisis of Subjectivity Amidst Triple Dilution
On a barren plain about to be submerged by computing power, human subjective value is encountering unprecedented dilution: our professional skills, once a source of pride, are experiencing hyperinflation brought on by AI; our subjective value based on "rationality" is being gradually eroded by digital avatars; and our brains, those searing neural furnaces, are slowly cooling and solidifying from the long-term habit of demanding answers directly from machines. We are forced to ask: What exactly is the strongest human defense line that AI cannot cross?
The answer may lie precisely within our "weakness."
I. The Structural Defense of Humanity: "Carbon-Based Defects"
At the execution level, we are completely defeated by machines due to the fragility of our flesh (we tire, we feel pain, we die) and the irrationality of our decisions (impulse, bias, gambling nature). Because of this, I once predicted the twilight of management was imminent! Yet, when we have nowhere left to retreat, it is precisely these "defects" that miraculously transform into an insurmountable defense line for humanity: because of the fragility of the flesh, humans can understand cost; because of the irrationality of decisions, humans can become great. At the execution layer, defects are bugs; but at the decision layer, defects might be features.
The First Line of Defense: Only with the Fragility of Flesh Can We Bear Responsibility
The essence of AI is calculation; the essence of humanity is gaming. It’s like Texas Hold'em: if the chips on the table are virtual, relying on a mathematician to calculate probabilities is enough; but once life and fortune are at stake, our decisions become incredibly heavy. This weight stems precisely from the "irreversibility" of our flesh: our wealth can return to zero, our reputation can be swept away, and our lives can end. AI, however, can restart infinitely in virtual space; failure is merely parameter adjustment. It cannot pay the price brought about by the irreversibility of human flesh. And price is the foundation of transactions in commercial society. Only those who bear "irrevocable" consequences have the right to sit at the table.
Here I want to clarify a misconception: "bearing responsibility" is not about being a scapegoat, but about confirming rights. It doesn't mean humans only shoulder the bad things while AI takes all the good things. Quite the opposite, Shouldering means full Ownership of the results. Because only we can pay the price of visceral pain, only we are qualified to enjoy the hundredfold dividends of success. AI is just a worker earning a fixed wage (electricity/computing power), while we are shareholders taking the surplus value (profit/equity). Pain is the ticket to gain.
The Second Line of Defense: Only Irrational Decisions Can Be Great
Rationality may be powerful because the underlying logic of AI is to find the "statistical optimal solution" based on probability theory and historical data. But this also means AI's nature is Convergence and risk aversion. Its task is to flatten the curve, eliminate noise, and make everything regress to the mean. However, on the scale of civilizational evolution, "regression to the mean" often equates to "mediocre silence," and thus can never be great.
Imagine if an AI served as Columbus's advisor in the 15th century. It would calculate based on all available navigational data that sailing west was a dead end, and it would use perfect rationality to dissuade Columbus: "Please stay in the port; that is the local optimal solution." Similarly, AI would never advise Van Gogh to paint that distorted starry night because it violated all perspective algorithms of the time. In AI's algorithms, Columbus and Van Gogh are "noise," "errors," and "outliers" that must be optimized away. But it is precisely these "outliers" that ignited every great leap in human civilization. We became the paragon of creation not because we are more rational than machines, but because we possess "visionary irrationality."
Here we must also clarify a misconception: the "irrationality" we speak of is absolutely not ignorant "blind choosing," nor is it leaving fate to the "blind randomness" of a coin toss. A "Great Choice" is choosing to believe in that 1% possibility after exhausting all rational calculations. It is a strategic adventure based on profound intuition; it is an intuitive leap after experience has accumulated to the extreme. This "active deviation based on profound insight" is the last spark of carbon-based life. Rationality constitutes the floor of our survival, but that seemingly erroneous "madness" is the skylight leading to civilization.
II. The Value Loop Formed Jointly by AI and Humans
If humans are fragile and unwilling to actively shoulder burdens, fragility is merely a weakness; only when we stake a price does fragility become "credit" that AI cannot generate. If we have "irrational" deviations but never actively choose such deviations, deviation is merely noise; only when we choose this deviation does it become a "miracle" that AI cannot calculate.
Choosing and Shouldering are precisely humanity's last line of defense.
For AI, because the essence of business is the "exchange of interests," AI can never sit at the main table—it possesses a life that never diminishes, so it cannot pay an equivalent "price"; it possesses perfect logic, so it cannot provide great "mutation." AI is like a boxer punching the air. Without humans to "choose" for it, it is merely dissipated heat, not "work" in the physical sense. Without humans to "shoulder" for it, acting as the medium for value transfer, AI receives no feedback or reaction force from the punch. Only when a value feedback loop is formed does AI's computation turn from "data processing" into "commercial value," and meaning is established.
III. The Rise of the Super-Individual: The Democratization of the Musk Model
Is "I Choose, I Shoulder" merely a passive defense against AI? At first glance, yes. But if we think deeper, we will find this is actually the evolutionary path to the "Super-Individual."
Many people mistakenly believe a super-individual is a "polymath." For carbon-based organisms, this violates natural laws. Even Musk cannot simultaneously be a top rocket expert, a top brain scientist, and a top automotive engineer. But he is an extreme "lever of will." He uses his "will" and "credit" to aggregate the best external brains of humanity to do work for him.
Musk himself does only two things in this system:
An Ambitious Prompt (Choice): Pointing out the seemingly impossible direction.
Shouldering Everything (Ownership): Bearing the cost of all failures. This is the definition of a super-individual.
Some might say: "He can shoulder responsibility because he's rich." This completely reverses cause and effect. Musk didn't shoulder responsibility because he was rich from day one; rather, every correct decision and successful shouldering of responsibility in his past leveraged today's achievements and wealth. Money is the "trust voucher" society issues to us after we have made correct decisions and borne the consequences.
Therefore, a clever lever will form between humans and AI: Responsibility is the fulcrum, AI's execution is the lever arm, and Choice is the object to be leveraged. This lever will thoroughly democratize the "Musk Model," and more super-individuals will continuously emerge in the future. Because AI has infinitely amplified execution power, the only thing humans need to compete on now is whose fulcrum (responsibility) is more stable, and whose application of force (choice) is more accurate.
IV. Constructing Minimum Viable Responsibility (MVR)
Of course, in the AI-Native phase, not everyone needs to become Musk, but we must quickly construct the fulcrum of individual subjective value, transitioning ourselves from "executors" who can be replaced at any time to irreplaceable "subjects of responsibility." I call this fulcrum MVR ("Minimum Viable Responsibility"), which can be specifically divided into three levels:
Level 1: Establishing a "Human-Machine Firewall." We must be the gatekeepers of the real world. Even if AI's output is perfect, it must pass through our line-by-line inspection and physical signature. What we sign is not a name, but credit. We must dare to say to the world: "This plan has been verified by me, and I am responsible for it."
Level 2: Learning "Probabilistic Prediction." After being good gatekeepers, we must also be prophets. AI can only fit the past, while we can intuit the future. Try appending our wager to the plan: "I am 70% confident of success, but I am also prepared for 30% failure." Every such bet and review is a quenching of our cognition.
Level 3: Actively Claiming "Chaos." AI likes order and convergence. Therefore, our ultimate mission is to embrace chaos. Go find those corners where data is missing, go solve those problems of human gaming. When others retreat, please raise your hand. Because our value lies not in how many official documents we processed, but in how much discreteness and absurdity we solved that couldn't even be written into a Prompt.
Signing for rights confirmation, probabilistic prediction, mastering complexity. With constant practice, we are no longer cold interfaces for computing power; we become super-nodes possessing credit records and decision-making abilities. And the organization will evolve into a "Responsibility Container." Its sole reason for existence is to act as a legal and capital entity to bear the physical costs and unlimited liabilities that a single person cannot carry for these super-nodes.
[In Conclusion]
Thus far, I have tried my best to present a commercial puzzle regarding the AI-Native era. But is everything I have depicted a logically self-consistent fantasy, or a tangible future? To verify it, I will openly share the core processes of Tanka, the AI-Native company I am personally building, through a series of in-depth logs. I will disclose our underlying logic, operational blueprints, and those critical debates that determine life or death. Whether you are a witness or a future fellow traveler, please watch how we use the lever of AI to attempt to pull our legs out of the quagmire of the old era.
If I succeed, this will be a survival sample for the new era; if I fail, this will also be a valuable warning for those who come after. Regardless of the outcome, I choose to be open. And, I am willing to bear all responsibility for possible failure.
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