Life after cancer

Recently, astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter wrote spotted about a humbling experience. While reviewing a research paper, a colleague a basic error in his work. Sutter initially felt a wave of self-generated embarrassment—not because of the mistake itself, but because he realized he had been misusing AI in his workflow.

Yet, Sutter didn’t throw his hands up and abandon technology. He took the error as a lesson, adjusted how he used AI as a collaborative tool, and moved forward. The takeaway wasn’t that smart people don’t make mistakes; it was that the true value lies in what we do with the knowledge of a mistake.

When I used AI

My own recent experience with AI revealed a starkly different reaction from the world around me.

I had done some deep research, compiling statistics on military personnel and veteran counts since the Korean War, broken down into ten-year age increments starting in 2026 and moving backward. When I tried to share the compiled data, I was met with an unexpected question:

“Did you use AI to generate this?”

When I confirmed that I had, the response was swift and dismissive: “Well, that’s alright for you, but not a 16-year-old kid.”

Before I had navigated a severe bout with pneumonia after being treated for cancer—an experience that reframes how you look at time, judgment, and what genuinely matters—I might have simply absorbed that comment as a reprimand. I would have assumed I had done something wrong just by utilizing a modern tool which comes with some controversy, regardless of my age or experience.

Contempt Prior to Investigation

Today, however, I look at interactions like that and find myself asking entirely different questions:

• What? Are you going to read the report?
• And the answer: No, probably not.

The contrast between Sutter’s experience and my own is striking. In Sutter’s case, his colleague actually read the research, discovered the flaw, and sparked a genuine re-evaluation of methods and tools. Investigation led to growth and a new way of thinking.

In my case, the opposite happened. No investigation led to nothing at all—a textbook example of contempt prior to investigation.

I certainly felt the contempt. But looking past the dismissal, the lesson is clear: true evaluation requires looking at the actual work rather than knee-jerk assumptions about the tools used to build it. Innovation and collaboration aren’t about avoiding tools; they’re about integrity, curiosity, and doing the work to see what the output is actually worth.

How do you collaborate with someone that holds what you do in contempt?

Today, I know that you don’t.