09. What AI Can't Change: People, Responsibility, and Reality Constraints

AI’s Blind Spots: Those “Irrational” Complexities

In the past eight articles, we have seen how AI accelerates code generation, knowledge retrieval, and even changes team organization and hiring strategies with amazing efficiency. It seems omnipotent.

However, as a manager, you will quickly find that a large part of the “biggest headaches” and “most energy-consuming” things in your daily work are completely beyond AI’s capabilities.

• “The Technical Lead and Product Manager are arguing fiercely over a requirement detail. As the person in charge, how should I coordinate?”
• “There is a misunderstanding between team members, and the working atmosphere is tense. How should I do team building?”
• “The project failed. Who will explain to upper management, who will bear the responsibility, and who will learn the lesson?”
• “Why don’t users buy this feature even though it is clearly the optimal solution?”

These problems have one thing in common: they all involve humanity, emotion, responsibility, ethics, and constraints rooted in the real physical world. These are AI’s blind spots and the core management areas it can never touch.

AI Cannot Bear Responsibility: Silicon-based Life Has No “Credit”

This is one of AI’s most core boundaries: It cannot bear responsibility.

• When AI suggests a code solution that causes a system crash, who takes the blame?
• When AI-generated copy causes user backlash, who apologizes?
• When AI-assisted decisions lead to financial losses, who bears the financial consequences?

The answer is always Humans.

Responsibility means anticipating, accepting, and bearing the consequences of actions. This requires moral judgment, ethical consideration, and understanding of social relationships. AI can simulate these, but it cannot experience them. It has no credit, nor social capital to lose.

In the fifth article, we discussed that AI will not replace humans, but only “Low-Judgment Roles”. And “Bearing Responsibility” is the Highest Order of Judgment. It transcends logical calculation and enters the realm of values and courage.

Therefore, one of the most important values of a manager is to act as the Ultimate Bearer of Responsibility. This is a “scarce resource” that AI can never replace.

AI Cannot Handle Personnel Conflicts: Emotion is its “Black Box”

Human society is full of irrational emotions and complex interpersonal relationships.

• Team members misunderstand each other due to improper communication methods.
• Subordinates feel their contributions are ignored and develop negative emotions.
• Friction occurs during cross-departmental collaboration due to resource competition.

AI can analyze a large amount of communication data and give suggestions for “optimizing communication methods”. AI can even play the role of a “psychological counselor”, analyzing emotions and providing comfort.

But AI cannot:

• Feel the grievance and anger of a team member.
• Experience the joy and sense of belonging after the team works together to achieve a goal.
• Build leadership based on trust and empathy.

These subtle interpersonal interactions require managers to use empathy, emotional intelligence, experience, and wisdom to balance and resolve. This is a “Black Box” that AI can never enter.

AI Cannot Understand “Why”: It Only Has “What” and “How”

AI is very powerful in providing “What” and “How”:

• “What is the cause of this Bug?”
• “How to implement a user login module?”

But AI cannot truly understand “Why”:

• “Why do customers feel this product experience is bad?” (Merely negative reviews in data, unable to understand the underlying motivation and emotional needs)
• “Why is team morale low?” (Unable to understand the personal dilemmas and career development aspirations of team members)
• “Why do competitors adopt such a business strategy?” (Unable to understand the long-term game and human weaknesses behind business decisions)

These “Whys” often point to deep humanity, business logic, social culture, and the complexity of the real physical world. Understanding these and making strategic judgments based on them is the core duty of a manager.

Manager’s Role Shift: From “Driving Execution” to “Calibrating Cognition”

In the AI era, the core value of a manager is no longer simply “Driving Execution”—because execution can largely be left to AI.

The value of a manager is shifting from “Pushing Progress” to “Calibrating Cognition”.

• Calibrating Upper Management’s Cognition: Resisting the unrealistic “Linear Acceleration Illusion” and clarifying AI’s boundaries.
• Calibrating Team’s Cognition: Helping junior engineers understand the double-edged sword effect of AI and guiding them to cultivate judgment; helping senior engineers use AI to amplify value and avoid falling into the involution of “competing on knowledge reserves”.
• Calibrating Self-Cognition: Identifying “hard bones” that AI cannot solve and investing energy in challenges that truly require humans to solve. Calibrating cognition sometimes also means actively giving up work that is no longer suitable for humans to complete.

In the AI era, the value of excellent managers will rise, not fall. Because they are the scarce “Human Anchors” and “Responsibility Hubs” in the organization. Those managers who only forward AI reports, blindly listen to AI suggestions, and lack independent judgment and responsibility will be quickly eliminated.

Conclusion: The Immortal “Humanity”

Ultimately, what AI cannot change are those core elements that define “Humanity”:

• Responsibility: Bearing results and facing consequences.
• Emotion: The cornerstone of empathy, compassion, collaboration, and trust.
• Values: The final judgment of “Right and Wrong”, “Good and Bad”.
• Creativity: AI excels at efficient combination in existing spaces, but “creativity that breaks existing boundaries” still requires human motivation, risk appetite, and value judgment.

The most important duty of a manager is to guard these positions of “Humanity”. Because when AI becomes everyone’s “External Brain”, these are what truly make us different.

Remember: The greatest value of AI is to let us refocus on those problems that only humans can solve.