By Peter A. Facione
AI has tremendous value. In the modern workforce, its capacity to ingest, sort, and categorize vast amounts of data has transformed how we operate. AI tools streamline tasks, flag patterns, and accelerate workflows. At this point it would seem reasonable for everyone to use AI to find answers to straightforward factual questions and to assist with composing effective messages of all kinds.
Insight Assessment is one of the many companies that utilizes AI to increase business productivity. There is no question about AI’s capacity to cull through hundreds of resumes and identify the most promising candidates. The 2024 film “Counted Out” by Vicki Abeles notes that 99% of Fortune 500 companies use AI to screen job candidates.
“You will be replaced by AI!”: A frightening prediction for many — but, if businesses require leaders who can exercise sound judgment, negotiate differences, and navigate complexity, people with strong critical thinking will remain indispensable.
AI cannot reflect on its own thinking, question its own assumptions, take responsibility for a decision’s ethical implications, or navigate the complexities of social relationships. These are unique human capabilities—and they all involve critical thinking.
Human critical thinking is reflective, purposeful, and context aware. It is what we do when we approach problems with fair-mindedness, organization, foresight, courageous truth-seeking, and maturity. It is not just about gathering information and quoting authoritative sources. Critical thinking is about applying analytical, interpretive, evaluative, and inferential skills to make sound, well-reasoned judgments about what to believe or do.
Currently, AI does not make judgments. It generates outputs based on algorithms that process massive amounts of data. While it can mimic human speech patterns, and it can generate outputs that correlate with what humans might think, AI does not—yet—exhibit insight, foresight, or discernment. It cannot question its own assumptions, revise its own goals, or take responsibility for the consequences of its own “decisions”. And just like us, AI is liable to rely on some of the abundant falsehoods that litter the Internet.
With Our Power of “Meta-Cognition” We Can Improve Our Own Thinking
More than just using evidence, the human mind can access critical thinking to question, verify, evaluate, interpret, accept, or reject evidence. Using our critical thinking, we can reframe the problem we are trying to solve. We can interpret and reinterpret the context within which we are making our choices. We can apply the prescribed methods for solving whatever problem we face, or we can challenge, update, or alter the accepted methods. We can establish, prioritize, revise, or completely change the criteria of what will count as a successful result. Critical thinking enables us to evaluate our own analyses, interpretations, and inferences. Most importantly, we can reflect on our own thinking, correct our reasoning, and improve our decisions in real time—individually and as teams.
That’s the power of critical thinking. It’s not just what we think, but how we think.
Sound judgment is indispensable—especially in environments where strategic thinking and effective leadership are critical. Whether you are managing a business, leading a team, serving clients, or raising a family, you are constantly navigating competing interests, shifting priorities, and uncertain outcomes. Leaders use critical thinking to stay ahead of the competition, negotiate workable compromises, and persuade reluctant colleagues.
AI can crunch data and generate predictions, pump out a SWAT analysis instantly, but it cannot effectively tell you which goals are worth pursuing or how to reconcile the wants, needs, and interests of multiple stakeholders. That takes human insight and judgement—the ability to weigh values, anticipate consequences, and decide what will genuinely move your organization, team, or community forward.
But at the end of the day, the AI is not really doing the deciding. Behind every AI algorithm is a designer whose assumptions, values, and biases shape how that AI operates. Their values and biases, whether acknowledged or not, are likely to be baked into that algorithm. If the algorithm preferences job applicants who graduated from elite universities in four years, then it is not likely to surface a potentially better candidate who may have had a different path—perhaps balancing school with military service, caregiving, or financial constraints. It is the people, or the people they work for, who write AI’s decision algorithms and decide whether these kinds of life circumstances should matter. And, even if they are being considered, it is the algorithm writers or their clients or bosses who determine how they are weighted.
This is true across industries. Today AI is used in many ways, including for diagnosing and prescribing treatment in a medical settings, establishing election district boundaries, identifying candidates to be interviewed, predicting criminal recidivism, anticipating consumer buying activity, and managing supply chains. What we often forget is that the quality of the AI output all depends on who writes the algorithms along with whatever biases, mistaken information, decision-criteria, weightings, or misunderstandings that are baked in. AI does only as much as a machine can do, which in these cases is to apply the algorithm encoded with the reasoning—or the blind spots—of its creators.
Good judgment is important for all kinds of reasons. Businesses that want employees who can think critically need to implement two things in their hiring and training processes:
(1) Make an objective evaluation of critical thinking part of their hiring process, and
(2) Embed high-quality critical thinking training into their professional development programs.
An “objective evaluation” of critical thinking requires a lot more than seeing critical thinking listed as a skill on someone’s resume. It means giving the candidate a valid and reliable objective assessment and comparing their score to a relevant benchmark.
To be effective, training in critical thinking requires exercises focused on developing specific skills. Training is often a multi-day or multi-course program with lessons on reasoning in precise and ambiguous contexts and on making decisions based on qualitative and quantitative information.
At Insight Assessment, our in-person training services include immersive group exercises where participants tackle real-world scenarios, examine diverse perspectives, and collaborate to reach sound, defensible conclusions. Developing strong reasoning skills and a positive thinking mindset comes about by practicing strong critical thinking where it matters most: in context, with others, and under pressure.
Insight Assessment delivers a comprehensive service for assessing and developing critical thinking. Our clients don’t have to guess whether their people can think well under pressure, solve complex problems, or make sound judgments. We provide the data.
Our services include industry-specific critical thinking assessments tailored to executive leaders, professionals, and staff across business, healthcare, law, defense, and more. We help organizations identify who has the mindset and skill set to lead—and who can benefit from focused development.
For professional growth, we offer organizational discounts on our Insight Basecamp products: virtual self-paced professional development courses that strengthen core critical thinking skills across roles and sectors.
If your organization isn’t actively investing in critical thinking, the risk isn’t that you will be replaced by AI, it’s that you’ll lose your business altogether. Let us help you assess, train, and elevate the thinking that drives your business forward.
