John Cutler · 8 min read · AI & Product
TBM 441: AI, the Loss of Positive Friction, and What to Do About It
Read the original on cutlefish.substack.com →
The article explores how AI is eliminating 'positive friction' from product workflows—the cognitive effort involved in processing, synthesizing, and decision-making that previously forced intentional thinking. While AI can now automate the entire product loop from customer calls to shipping, this risks removing the judgment, discernment, and human reasoning that made those workflows valuable. The author warns that speed and volume gains come at the cost of meaningful insight and strategic thinking.
Key Takeaways
- Pre-AI product workflows contained 'positive friction'—information migration moments that served as forcing functions for conscious thinking, judgment, and discernment.
- AI can now theoretically automate the entire product loop (calls → insights → specs → build → ship → measure), but this removes critical human reasoning at each stage.
- Automated workflows quickly replace original, human-generated information with layers of AI-generated pointers and summaries, distancing teams from ground truth.
- The blast radius of product decisions expands dramatically with AI—going from 5 calls to 80 opportunities, 80 tickets, and 400 tasks—creating unmanageable scale without proportional human oversight.
- Teams must intentionally reintroduce checkpoints and judgment-requiring moments into AI-assisted workflows to avoid shipping at speed without strategic thinking.
Excerpt
Imagine a stereotypical product workflow. Customer call → synthesize insights → decide what to do about it → do it → ship it → measure impact Pre-AI, this would involve 1) reading/reviewing a call transcript and your notes, 2) synthesizing that into a set of takeaways either in a document or presented somehow, 3) considering a set of options by talking about those options, writing about them, and narrowing those down to some tangible actions/investments, 4) taking those actions (e.g., building something) using whatever collaborating techniques and “pointers to the work” (e.g., tickets), 5) shipping it, and 6) ideally measuring…