Get Used to Uncertainty

The age of GenAI is forcing users to get used to uncertainty as the same inputs no longer always lead to the same outputs. This turns on its head the first thing we learn in computer science. Unironically, systems that lean into the uncertainty of GenAI will be more “human” for it. The hard truth: most humans hate uncertainty, but it is in uncertainty that power truly lies.

The Hard Truth No One Wants to Hear

We humans like to fool ourselves into thinking the world is stable and predictable. Over the last few centuries, we’ve built entire industries around this assumption—chief among them, the idea of *standardization*. From assembly lines to modern software development, the same input was supposed to yield the same result every single time.

But guess what? We’re entering a new age—one where that bedrock assumption gets shattered on a daily basis. Suddenly, we’re being asked to embrace “randomness” as an asset, not a liability. It’s enough to make most people’s heads spin. But here’s the hard truth: the future belongs to those who can live comfortably with—and harness—uncertainty.

If you feel some anxiety, that’s normal. People tend to hate uncertainty because uncertainty means no guaranteed repeatable recipe for success. But beneath that fear lies enormous power. *Uncertainty* is where genuine creativity, unexpected insight, and meaningful innovation happen. It’s how new genres of music develop, how groundbreaking startups take root (such as the development of flight and reusable spacecraft, where it wasn’t clear at all what approach would eventually work), and how we occasionally land on those “crazy” ideas that end up changing the world.

How the Industrial Revolution Made Us Expect Certainty

Think back to the Industrial Revolution. Before industrialization, a craftsman (like a carpenter) would build a chair from start to finish with unique flourishes. Then came factories and assembly lines, which broke that large task into separate, standardized steps: cut the wood in the same shapes, attach legs using the same method, package and ship them identically. Multiply that by millions, and you’ve got an entire economy built on repeatable, predictable processes.

This standardization was a quantum leap for civilization. It brought unprecedented scale, affordability, and distribution. Suddenly, people could buy a chair—or a Model T car—at a fraction of the old cost. Productivity soared. And let’s be real: a reliable system with consistent outputs made us *comfortable*. When you buy a replacement part for your dishwasher, you expect it to fit perfectly. You don’t want any “creative interpretation” messing up your appliance.

However, the cost of scale and predictability was *creativity*. When the focus shifted to identical units, creativity took a back seat. Individual flair was sidelined in favor of uniformity. The same approach got encoded into everything from product development to distribution. Eventually, it even bled into how we handled *information*.

The Age of Computers and the Allure of Determinism

Enter the digital era. We built computer systems largely on top of deterministic logic: if you run the same program with the same input, you get the same output. It’s an ironclad rule—and the foundation for most modern software. Programming languages, by design, rely on determinism. Variables are assigned to memory, instructions run in a consistent order, and outputs can be tested and verified. Just consider how software is tested: we run identical test cases repeatedly to check for consistency.

This deterministic way of thinking only intensified the sense that we *ought* to know exactly what’s happening in our machines at all times. We turned coding into a methodical, if occasionally messy, discipline. We refined frameworks, established best practices, and celebrated stable processes that delivered predictable apps, websites, and features. The entire tech industry was built on the promise of “build it once, replicate it infinitely.”

GenAI—A New Kind of Uncertainty

Then everything shifted. GenAI tools like ChatGPT and others arrived, and suddenly, the same input no longer guarantees the same output every time. This is a whole new ballgame. It’s also exactly why GenAI feels so disruptive. It’s as if you asked a software system to print “Hello, world,” and sometimes it gave you “Hello, Earth,” or even “Greetings, interstellar traveler.” Weird, right?

But also *human*. Real human creativity doesn’t respond the same way to the same prompt, day in and day out. If you ask ten writers to craft a short story with the same premise, you’ll get ten different stories. That’s the spark of creation—*the new, the unexpected, the subtle twist* that emerges from an interplay of context, knowledge, and gut instinct.

This new frontier isn’t merely about novelty. It’s about rethinking the fundamental principle that underpins our relationship with machines: the assumption that they should always do exactly what we tell them. With GenAI, we’re suddenly training an intern or raising a child—guiding its output, refining it, correcting it when it goes off-track. Instead of a monolithic program with deterministic rules, GenAI is a system that’s been fed oceans of data. It learns by finding patterns, then “guesses” the best response, shaped by probabilities. No more guaranteed duplication. Instead, we get something different—sometimes annoyingly different, but also sometimes brilliant.

In cases such as when you have insufficient data, what you get back from GenAI can be “hallucinations.” However, are these “hallucinations” in fact machine creativity? If so, maybe instead of stamping them out and trying to restore determinism, we should be encouraging them. And another emerging technology that lives in uncertainty is coming soon, quantum computing. Qubits literally can be both 0 and 1 at the same time and in that lies their power.

We’ll be speaking more about both quantum and hallucinations in future posts.

Embracing the Uncertain Path

Is there a responsibility that focuses on creativity and thrives in uncertainty? Absolutely. These are product builders.

A great product builder can’t just repeat the steps everyone else has followed. They’re uniquely positioned to sense when an existing solution applies and when a problem or opportunity breaks the mold.

Now, with GenAI in the mix, product builders can harness tools that act like a co-pilot. Instead of rigid instructions, think of it as flying a plane with real-time adjustments, creative problem-solving, and the occasional unexpected maneuver. Using GenAI effectively can spark wild new ideas or out-of-the-box solutions that a purely deterministic approach would never generate.

The Power of Embracing Chaos

Ultimately, the greatest breakthroughs happen in the fog of uncertainty. Standardization and determinism built our modern world—no question there. But we’re at a new frontier now, where creativity isn’t just welcomed, it’s *demanded*. Anyone who dares to play in the 0-to-1 space—should embrace tools like GenAI precisely because they *aren’t* predictable. The moment we stop clinging to a single, repeatable path is the moment we discover entirely new directions.

Think of it this way: you can either hang on to the certainty that *used* to work or leap into the unknown and figure it out as you go, harnessing powerful yet unpredictable technologies along the way. Yes, it’s uncomfortable because it literally isn’t what got you to where you are in your life right now. But if you’re building the future, the safe and obvious path won’t get you there — maybe at all. Get used to uncertainty.

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