AI: Considerations for people who make decisions
Source: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/ai-for-decision-makers/
Author: Bert Hubert (PowerDNS founder)
Published: 2026-07-31
Summary
Bert Hubert's presentations to the Dutch Network of Government Service Providers and the Advisory Council for Science, Technology and Innovation. The core question: what exactly is the rush?
Key arguments:
AI genuinely works — a Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for AlphaFold. AI can predict protein structures, translate well, transcribe audio at superhuman levels, and hack impressively.
But the rush is unjustified for most organizations:
- Organizational disruption: AI takes over junior-level work — where will future senior staff come from? Senior staff spending careers checking AI output is unsustainable.
- Environmental cost: Absurd CO2 emissions, electricity consumption requiring new power plants, while grid congestion and wildfires worsen.
- IP/legal risk: Uncertain status of training data and AI output ownership. Microsoft won't indemnify against IP claims from Copilot output.
- Digital sovereignty: Surveillance capitalism 2.0, imported from the US. AI providers leak personal data on a massive scale.
- Financial fragility: AI providers are financially precarious after $3-4 trillion in investments. If funding dries up, dependent organizations face sudden cost spikes.
- Measurement failure: Most organizations never define success criteria or measure whether employees are actually more productive.
Recommendation: Wise people don't jump into the ditch just because everyone else is doing it. Take a year to observe. If AI is ultimately a good idea, it will still be there next year.
Evidence (Obsidian)
From AK-RSS-Digest 2026-07-31 (score 8.0/10):
覆盖了组织结构破坏、IP 法律风险、电力/碳排放、数字主权、供应商财务脆弱性等很少被同时讨论的维度。建议决策者花一年观察再决定，而不是被 FOMO 驱动。