Judgment in the Age of AI · Article 46
An explanation that handles the usual case may fail at the boundary. A counterexample is not an argument for its own sake; it is a low-cost way to discover the range over which a rule works.
Four rounds in a counterexample laboratory
- Extreme value: Make quantity, time, age or cost very small or very large.
- Role reversal: Exchange the beneficiary and the person bearing the cost.
- Missing condition: Remove a resource, permission or fact on which the answer depends.
- Neighbouring exception: Find a real case that looks similar but ends differently.
Example: test “automation always saves time”
| Counterexample | Condition exposed |
|---|---|
| Every task is different | Configuration may cost more than it saves |
| Errors are rare but extremely costly | Review cost cannot be ignored |
| The process itself is unnecessary | Automation only performs useless work faster |
A counterexample need not destroy the original answer. Rewrite the absolute conclusion as a conditional one: “When A and B hold and risk C is controlled, this usually works.” Advice with an explicit boundary is more useful than advice that sounds universally right.
References
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