[LINK] The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can

[Antony Barry]

The article "The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can" explores the
challenge of AI adoption in organizations through two influential ideas:
the Garbage Can Model from organizational theory and the Bitter Lesson from
AI research.

- **Garbage Can Model**: Organizations are often much messier and less
rational than they appear. When teams tried to map out their company’s
processes, they found confusion, redundancy, and a disconnect between
official strategy and on-the-ground reality. This model describes
organizations as chaotic combinations of problems, solutions, and
decision-makers, making decisions when these elements randomly interact
rather than through orderly processes[1].

- **The Bitter Lesson (Richard Sutton)**: In AI, attempts to encode human
expertise into computers (e.g., chess strategies) consistently get
outperformed by general-purpose AI methods with enough computing power and
data. Instead of mimicking human reasoning, the best results come from
letting the AI figure things out itself—even if its methods are opaque to
human observers[1].

- **Tension in AI Adoption**: Most companies attempt to clarify their messy
processes before integrating AI, believing automation requires clear rules.
But the Bitter Lesson suggests the opposite might be true: focus on
defining good outputs (e.g., a high-quality sales report) and let AI
navigate the chaos to produce those outputs, potentially finding more
efficient—if less transparent—paths through organizational mess[1].

- **Human vs. AI Strengths**: Especially for non-profit and mission-driven
organizations, not all valuable outputs are easily measured. Social
cohesion, trust, or team morale—outputs that matter deeply—are hard to
specify and may depend on the very "messiness" AI aims to bypass. There's a
risk that AI will only optimize what can be measured and neglect aspects
that require human judgment or emotional intelligence.

- **Fundamental Question**: Will organizations, like chess, eventually
yield to scalable AI approaches if we provide good output examples? Or are
they too complex and value-laden for such brute force methods to succeed?
The article suggests that the answer is not yet clear—companies must
experiment to discover whether the Bitter Lesson or organizational
complexity ("the Garbage Can") will prevail[1].

- **Key Takeaway**: The core message is that organizations should
reconsider whether mapping every process is necessary before AI adoption.
Instead, defining success clearly and providing sufficient examples for AI
to learn from may be enough, but human understanding remains crucial for
complex, value-driven goals. The debate between relying on AI's brute-force
capability versus respecting the "mess" of human organizations is ongoing,
and its resolution will shape the future of work.

Sources
[1] The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-bitter-lesson-versus-the-garbage
[2] The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-bitter-lesson-versus-the-garbage?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5afe61f0-bbcf-41c6-9c50-45169ad5d08b_7520x2240.png&open=false
[3] Comments - The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-bitter-lesson-versus-the-garbage/comments
[4] Comments - The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can
https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-bitter-lesson-versus-the-garbage/comments?triedRedirect=true
[5] One Useful Thing | Ethan Mollick | Substack
https://www.oneusefulthing.org
[6] Ethan Mollick https://substack.com/@oneusefulthing
[7] Archive https://www.oneusefulthing.org/archive
[8] Ethan Mollick's Post
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/emollick_the-bitter-lesson-versus-the-garbage-can-activity-7355577304275714048-eURS
[9] This is a great little exploration of AI inside orgs. | Tom ...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomcritchlow_the-bitter-lesson-versus-the-garbage-can-activity-7355588907901546499-ln34
[10] The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can
https://boredreading.com/articles/all/recent/read/152593871/
[11] The main problem with the “Bitter Lesson” is that there's ...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44627888

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