AI didn’t take my judgment away.
I was still the one approving decisions. Still the one saying yes. Still the one accountable when things went wrong.
But over time, my judgment had less room to operate.
AI didn’t replace it.
It crowded it.
Judgment Needs Space to Form
Judgment isn’t a switch you flip at the end of a process.
It forms slowly, through:
- Framing the problem
- Weighing tradeoffs
- Sitting with uncertainty
- Letting instincts surface and be tested
AI entered my workflow right where that space used to be.
By the time I was “deciding,” most of the thinking had already happened — just not by me.
AI Filled the Silence Too Quickly
Before AI, there were gaps.
Moments where nothing was clear yet. Where the problem hadn’t settled. Where options were still loose and uncomfortable.
AI hates those gaps.
It fills them immediately with:
- Structure
- Explanations
- Recommendations
- Next steps
That helpfulness came at a cost. The silence where judgment used to grow disappeared.
Judgment Became a Checkpoint, Not a Process
I told myself I was still exercising judgment because I reviewed the output.
But review isn’t the same as formation.
My role shifted from:
-
Shaping the decision
to
Approving a pre-shaped one
Judgment moved downstream. It still existed — but only at the margins.
That’s what crowding looks like. Not elimination. Compression.
When Crowding Becomes a Problem
The issue didn’t show up during routine work.
It appeared when:
- Stakes increased
- Decisions had to be defended
- Assumptions were challenged
- Context shifted unexpectedly
That’s when I realized my judgment hadn’t been practiced early enough. It was reacting instead of leading.
The decision wasn’t wrong. It was thin.
AI Didn’t Dominate — It Pre-Framed
This was the key realization.
AI wasn’t overpowering me. It was framing the thinking before I arrived.
By the time I engaged, the language was set. The options were narrowed. The logic already pointed somewhere.
My judgment wasn’t overridden. It was invited in late.
Making Room for Judgment Again
Reclaiming judgment didn’t mean rejecting AI. It meant changing the order.
I started:
- Framing problems myself before prompting
- Writing rough reasoning before reading clean outputs
- Interrupting AI explanations mid-stream
- Treating AI recommendations as material, not direction
Judgment moved back upstream — where it belongs.
Why Judgment Can’t Be an Afterthought
Judgment isn’t something you apply once everything looks clear.
It’s what makes clarity meaningful in the first place.
When AI crowds that space, decisions become efficient but fragile. They move fast — until they’re questioned.
The Bottom Line
AI didn’t replace my judgment — it crowded it out of the moments where it mattered most.
AI can accelerate thinking. It can organize it. It can sharpen it.
But judgment needs space, and space has to be protected deliberately.
If you want to use AI without letting it quietly displace judgment upstream, Coursiv helps professionals build judgment-first AI practices where humans lead the thinking and tools support it — not the other way around.
AI can assist decisions. Making room for judgment is still your job.
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