The Top Gun Theory of AI: When Maverick Becomes a Machine

AI Accelerates and Humans Steer

Change, but start slowly, because direction is more important than speed. —Paulo Coelho

If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else. —Yogi Berra

Above: AI and Humanity, if we play our cards right.

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The older I get, the more I appreciate physics.

Like C.S. Lewis with Faith, it took quite a while and I was once the “most dejected and reluctant convert” to its beauty, elegance, utility, and importance.

High school Tom would be horrified to read the above, however, I suppose wisdom requires aging much like fine wine does.

Given I was likely the worst physics student East of the Mississippi, I turn to my friend Craig who extrapolates its lessons in simple, elegant English:

Speed vs. Velocity

[T]ake a step back and ask yourself if your team is operating with speed or velocity.

Queue Freshman year Physics, Speed is defined as, “the rate of change of position of an object in any direction.” Conversely, in Physics, velocity is known as a “physical vector quantity” which means both magnitude (speed) and direction are required.

In business terms:

Speed = Busy

Velocity = Focused

So often teams I’ve been on and, if we’re being honest, ones I’ve led fail when they are going fast (speed) but aren’t focused and in turn lack direction (no velocity).

The key difference between speed and velocity is direction.¹

I harp on physics because it serves as the foundation of all scientific laws that govern our world, our technology, and, by extension, our interaction with AI.

Physics teaches that acceleration without direction leads nowhere.

Similarly, AI can propel us forward at breakneck speeds, but without human guidance, it’s a jet without a rudder, hurtling aimlessly through the sky (until it inevitably crashes).

For the first time in history, we find ourselves co-piloting with machines that can think.

This is not just another industrial revolution—it's a war on both work and white collar workers.

Now to Top Gun:

AI is Maverick: brilliant, fast, capable of incredible feats.

We humans are Goose: the strategic eye, the moral compass, the humane element that gives direction to raw power.

As we hurtle headlong into the age of AI, the relationship between and respective roles of both man and machine have never been more important.

Ideally, unlike Goose, we survive.

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What Lulu Cheng Meservey quipped about communication also holds true for AI: “Communication is a vector, not a scalar. It only matters if there's a direction attached to it.”

The next few years are not just about making things faster or more efficient; they are about aligning that speed with a meaningful purpose.

Efficiency alone does not equal efficacy. To paraphrase Naval Ravikant, it is much more about understanding than purely hard work. Yes, hard work matters, and you can’t skimp on it. But it has to be directed in the right way.

AI acts as a lubricant, not a lodestone. It greases the gears of progress and productivity but doesn’t decide on the destination.

It is power in its purest form—neither good nor bad—but an amplification of intent.

As the old adage goes, power doesn’t corrupt; it reveals. The direction of said revelation—toward the good, the bad, or the ugly—rests in the hand that holds it.

Humanity is at the helm and our collective hand is on the tiller; let’s navigate diligently towards Actionable Intelligence.²

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I leave you with the wide words of the inimitable C.S. Lewis:

We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.

The next few years will determine whether we harness this power effectively or let it run wild.

The question isn't whether AI will accelerate our capabilities; it's whether we'll be wise enough to steer this acceleration toward human flourishing.

After all, growth unchecked is cancer and meaning cannot be fabricated or forced.

We are the captains of this ship and the masters of our collective fate.

AI can help us get there faster, but it can’t tell us where “there” is. That’s our job.

Let's do it well.

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Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.

If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter X. With sincere gratitude,

Tom

1. Note that Craig refers to humans here, but this also applies to forthcoming teams of AI agents. NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang predicts this eloquently, “I have 60 direct reports. They're on staff because they're world class at what they do - they do it much better than I do. I have no trouble interacting with them. I have no trouble prompt engineering them. I have no trouble programming them. I think that's what people are going to learn - they're all going to be CEOs.”

2. This AI-led, human co-pilot approach represents an aspirational example of what I outlined in You Can't Spell Renaissance Without AI: “The best-case scenario for AI lies in its ability to work hand-in-hand with humanity, creating a new societal calculus where 1+1 equals 3. This outcome represents a symbiotic relationship where AI and human intelligence complement each other, driving human flourishing forward in ways neither could achieve alone.”