Cognitive Scaffold

Preparing your thinking workspace

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MENTAL MODEL · M5007

Tesler's Theorem

Tesler's Theorem
CultureHigh supportPhilosophy
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Version 1.0.0 · Updated 2026-07-30

CORE DEFINITION

"Artificial intelligence is what hasn't been done yet." Once a function (such as chess or speech recognition) is perfectly implemented by machines, people move it out of the category of "intelligence" and call it "computation" or "automation."

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

The moving goalposts of AI. It explains why we always feel AI is "not intelligent enough." Humans habitually define "intelligence" as a mysterious, unknown domain. This is both a curse and a motivation for AI practitioners—always chasing the horizon.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

That is, Tesler's Law (conservation of complexity): the inherent complexity of a system cannot be eliminated; it can only be transferred between the designer and the user. The two statements point to the same principle, emphasizing that the designer's responsibility is to allocate complexity reasonably.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effectZH · Explicit
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