The Great AI Debate

Are humans giving up our role to AI in creating great products? Here’s a peek into our internal debate — and three of our reference points.

3 min read

Author:

David Goodtree

Date:

March 11, 2026

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Our executive team is having a heated debate about the proper use of AI.
The debate is passionate, respectful — and I believe — highly productive.‍

AI is deceptively good. Initial AI results are high-quality. The LLM explains its “thinking” robustly in natural language. Humans are convinced.

The user may even say “My friend Claude got it right”.

Our CTO is worried that AI tools are becoming agents of human assimilation. Users unwittingly abdicate their responsibility to a convincing bot, because the results appear credible. He calls this phenomenon the “Borgification” of software engineering, referring to the famous Star Trek story line.

Our VP PM is more sanguine, saying “Claude is my fast dumb friend” who needs oversight. She agrees with Anthropic’s President Daniela Amodei, who believes “Claude is really a tool to help promote your ability to think more deeply, to solve problems, and to be ambitious about the types of projects you are taking on.”

Our AI Architect shared how Steve Jobs described a rock tumbler as a metaphor for how great ideas come to life. This machine smashes together crude, unfinished inputs to create beautiful polished stones. Jobs explained that 90% of the work in creating great products is not in the big idea or the raw materials, but through the combination of friction + time + teams to turn the inputs into amazing products.

Job’s metaphor rings true to me:
Friction + time + teams create great products, not AI or other tools.

At Foodgraph, we collect raw data from dozens of sources, debate ideas vociferously, use AI as creation tools, and smash everything together iteratively to develop services that have premium market value.

We’ve built the first national catalog of CPG product data, after years of initial R&D. Our ongoing R&D work is accelerated by AI, but does not displace our hard-won domain knowledge and human judgement that curates data services and earns high-value, long-term contracts.

Our platform — developed through friction + time + teams — delivers product data and services never available before. Our data includes not just large brands, but also private label products and long-tail items. Our services solve for the mess that has vexed CPG & commerce, for decades.

Being AI Native helps us go faster and smarter, while our Context Graph compounds our learning.

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The SaaS Apocalypse may be coming for some, but only when humans abdicate their role.

AI raises the bar of what humans can do — and are now expected to do.

To paraphrase Steve Jobs:
We — the humans — are the rock tumblers, not AI.

Watch: Daniela Amodei, Responsible AI and Steve Jobs’ Rock Tumbler Metaphor.

How Can We Help Your Work?

Send me a note with thoughts or questions. I’d love to hear how we can support your work.

Warm Regards,

David Goodtree

Founder and CEO, Foodgraph