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The meaningmaking lens on AI - Vaughn Tan

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Meaningmaking is a simple concept but one that is counterintuitively powerful in understanding how we think about work and technology in a world where AI exists. What is meaningmaking? the tl;dr is that meaningmaking is any decision we make about the subjective value of a thing. I’ve been working on meaningmaking for a while. It’s a natural extension of thinking about how we construct and deal with the many types of not-knowing that can’t be precisely and accurately estimated. Meaningmaking is connected to one type of not-knowing in particular: not-knowing about relative value. Why is meaningmaking a powerful and vital lens for understanding work and AI? Because every single one of the important and difficult decisions we make in business — including “judgment calls” and “moral decisions” — requires meaningmaking. And only humans can do meaningmaking work, while machines cannot do meaningmaking work at all (for now). So here are 9 short essays I’ve written over the last 30 months. They

The meaningmaking lens on AI (updated) - Vaughn Tan Vaughn Tan speaking writing consulting book tool not-knowing The meaningmaking lens on AI (updated) 28/9/2025 ☼ not-knowing ☼ risk ☼ uncertainty ☼ meaningmaking ☼ AI ☼ tools Meaningmaking is a simple concept but one that is counterintuitively powerful, concrete, and applicable to understanding how we think about work and technology in a world where AI exists. What is meaningmaking? the tl;dr is that meaningmaking is any decision we make about the subjective value of a thing . I’ve been working on meaningmaking for a while. It’s a na

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