Noam Brown @polynoamial
Noam Brown @polynoamial · Jan 26
1987: AI can't win at chess—planning is uniquely human
1997: AI can't win at Go—intuition is uniquely human
2016: AI can't win at poker—bluffing is uniquely human
2023: AI can't get IMO gold—reasoning is uniquely human
2026: AI can't make wise decisions—judgment is uniquely human
[Screenshot of NYT-style opinion guest essay, headline partially visible: "OPINION GUEST ESSAY ... [Hu]mans Poss[ess a] Thing Tha[t AI Does] Not: Judg[ment]" — visible body text fragment: "...hean by 'judgment'? The...mong competing values a[re a matter]...of opinion, to weigh consi[derations]...independently but canno[t weigh them]...at once, to consider seve[ral]...ght on the best one. Judg[ment]...ely on when trade-offs ar[ise]...e and the right answer is [contested]...uted. It is a uniquely hum[an capacity]" (last clause highlighted in blue)]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Noam Brown (OpenAI researcher, known for poker/Diplomacy AI) mocking a recurring pattern of "AI can't do X, X is uniquely human" claims that keep getting falsified, applied here to a 2026 NYT opinion essay claiming judgment/wisdom is the next uniquely-human bastion. Relevant to capability-timeline tracking and the recurring rhetorical pattern of moving goalposts on AI capability claims.
ai-capabilitiesforecastingnoam-browntwitterjudgmentnyt-opiniongoalpost-moving