Type the words “kind of”, “probably” or “perhaps” into an email in Microsoft Outlook and the program might well tell you to think again. If the artificial intelligence-powered “Microsoft Editor” decides you’re not sounding decisive enough, it will warn you: “Words expressing uncertainty lessen your impact.”
To me, this suggestion encapsulates something we’ve got wrong in society. Leaving aside the extent to which Big Tech is creeping ever further into our lives, it highlights a broader issue: we live in a world that rewards those who speak with conviction — even when that is misplaced — and gives very little airtime to those who acknowledge doubt.
During a global pandemic caused by a new virus, it is understandable that people have clung to anyone who seems authoritative — witness the rise of armchair epidemiologists, who often seem more confident about what they’re saying than the qualified scientists themselves. “We are drawn to, and more inclined to listen to, those pundits who tell us a simple, clear, confident story. Why? Because that's psychologically satisfying,” says Dan Gardner, author of Future Babble. “That's saying ‘let me sweep away the uncertainty for you’.”