The Appearance of Knowing

For a long time, we had a phrase for pretending to be slightly more capable than we felt.

Fake it until you make it.

There is something surprisingly generous about that idea.

It recognizes that confidence often arrives after action rather than before it.

The first time we lead a meeting, perform on stage, make a presentation, supervise someone, teach a class, or attempt something difficult, we rarely feel completely prepared.

We step into the role anyway.

Sometimes we behave like the person we are trying to become until experience catches up.

That can be growth.

Stylism is something different.

Stylism occurs when the performance becomes a substitute for the growth.

And artificial intelligence, maybe making that distinction, increasingly difficult to see.

Consider what happens in nature.

There are butterflies that resemble toxic species.

Harmless snakes sometimes share markings with venomous ones.

And Batasian mimicry, a relatively harmless organism, benefits because predators confuse it with something dangerous or unpleasant.

The organism survives because something else believes a story about it.

The bluff works.

Other animals inflate themselves to appear larger.

Some insects resemble leaves, sticks, bark, or other creatures.

Animals use false eye spots, deceptive coloration, mimicry, posturing, and camouflage.

Nature is filled with things that are not quite what they appear to be.

But describing this as dishonesty would impose human morality on evolutionary processes that possess no such intention.

The butterfly isn't committing fraud.

It isn't consciously padding its resume.

Natural selection simply preserves traits that improve the probability of survival and reproduction.