The Tacit Knowledge

Knowledge is a generic term that everyone knows, but ‘Tacit’ seems to be unfamiliar to most of us.

Meaning of ‘Tacit’ - understood but not actually said.

Here is my take on tacit knowledge.

It is an unspoken/unwritten/untaught knowledge that you gain by getting deeply involved into something on a fundamental level.

I believe most of us would have had such experiences on different occasions. Continue reading, and I will explain further.

I have been driving cars for the last 17 years. I started with a simple car with no power steering, no reverse camera, no 360-degree camera, no ADAS, no airbags, no upholstery, no ventilated seats, and nothing fancy. A beautiful car that had the bare minimum tech, whatever was required to drive. The knowledge that I have acquired by driving cars for the last 17 years is phenomenal, and I am still learning a lot. Perhaps, you might wonder that I am exaggerating this, as it is a matter of learning in a few weeks or a month to get trained and licensed. The answer is yes, you will be certified to drive the car, but there is something beyond that, which is where I want to turn your focus.

I don’t want to brag, but to confidently put it across.

1. I can park a car in a tight space, good enough for my car.

2. I can drive both in daytime and nighttime (for long drives, I prefer night though).

3. I can navigate in any climate (except snow, which I haven’t tried yet).

4. I can easily judge when the engine is cranky or if the tyre pressure is low or high.

5. I can hear the differences in the engine sound.

6. I can feel the turbo kick in and can gauge the correct RPM to switch gears

7. I can reverse the car without the need for a parking guideline or the reverse sensors

8. I can ride the hill with engine braking

The list goes on (We can have a separate deep-dive post on automobiles). The point here is that all the above-mentioned knowledge can’t be attained within a month of learning.

It is only by the process of deliberate practice, you’ll gain the knowledge.

You gain it only by being hands-on. No shortcuts! You don’t get the knowledge by just learning or watching “how to drive a car.” Having said that, I am not here to give boomer talks about vintage cars. I still drive advanced cars and enjoy the same pleasure of driving. The question here is, if things go south, for example, your inner/outer rear view mirror is damaged, or the in-built display stops working, then you should still be able to drive the car to the destination or the workshop. I am not saying you should live with that forever, but you should be confident enough to take it to the nearest destination without fear. You get that sort of confidence only when you don’t over-rely on assistive technologies. It is like how you feel when you ride a bicycle without training wheels.

If you look at the history of cars, nothing has majorly changed in the fundamental principles, i.e. the four wheels, an engine/motor, and a body. Changes were made to the design, fuel type, safety features, assistive technologies, and much more. Automatic cars are really convenient and break the entry barrier to driving. Also, helps ease through traffic. Electric cars offer a different level of convenience and save money on fuel for daily commuters. All these conveniences are to be picked based on your needs. Do not completely rely on it or be biased on a variant. Pick and choose what you need.

Now, this post is not about cars but the underlying message (which is tacit knowledge) that applies to any career. AI has evolved into a greater level of replacing people; can it be blindly trusted? Or do you accept whatever it generates? You still need to assess. A lot of grunt work has been automated; does it mean that it doesn’t require any human oversight? You still need to orchestrate. Emails and IMs have disrupted the physical letters, but does it really make you free from writing? You still need to write.

• To assess the code generated by AI, you should have a depth of knowledge to spot the mistakes.

• To orchestrate the work, you should understand how things work from end to end.

• To write an email or message to someone, you should know how to write, because that is a form of expression.

I am happy to see that a lot of technologies have emerged during the AI wave. It really can’t be attributed to AI, probably some percentage of it, but the complete expertise sits with the individual who was behind that. Take, for example, a self-driving car. Did it learn on its own? No, it had people behind who had great skills on how the cars work, knew their dynamics, and also, it involved people who were strong in tech. The end user probably does not need to know all this, but for the maker, it’s their core on which they operate. So, here we see a stark difference as a producer who needs specific knowledge and as a consumer who can survive with generic knowledge of the car.

Go deep on what really matters to you. Seriously, you can’t be a jack of all trades. You can be good at only one trade at any specific point in time. You can’t be a CEO and keep coding. You can’t be a chef and run a restaurant. That’s where you see a lot of founders step down from the executive roles and go into silos to focus on things that really matter to them.

AI has really helped the specialists to be their loyal assistants in this regard.

• A medical professional can vibe-code an app that will help monitor their patients.

• A chemist can give chemical formulations as a SaaS service.

• A content creator can leverage AI to create rich content.

• A software engineer can 10x their productivity and complete more stories in a sprint.

On the contrary,

• What if the vibe-coded app had a bug and mapped the findings wrongly?

• What if the chemist’s formulae were interpreted wrongly by the software?

• What if there were unethical content created by AI?

• What if most of the stories had more bugs that are difficult to resolve?

This is not a rant on AI but a serious thought exercise we have to cultivate. Anything that becomes convenient will always be the easy choice that our brain makes. You can’t help it. Try typing on your phone without smart suggestions, going somewhere without maps, and writing emails on your own without using Copilot. You will suddenly realise how dependent we are on these assistants. To be honest, I used to write a lot of blog posts since my college days, but in the last few years, I have been using grammar assistants to double-check my spelling and punctuation. One good thing is, I don’t vibe-generate content but stick with my own format of writing.

So, how do we still retain our originality but leverage the tools effectively? Let’s take the same example given above.

• A medical professional or a chemist can take some time off to learn the internals of the vibe-coded stuff. Perhaps, if it doesn’t suit their time, they can vibe-code and hand it off to a software firm or individual who does this.

• A content creator must have a template that they follow, and explicitly instruct the AI to stick with the narrative they set.

• A software engineer shouldn’t be focused on completing stories but delivering a quality product by ensuring the code quality and effectiveness. A thorough understanding of AI-generated code, and if required, they have to fix bad code and give it as feedback to the LLM.

This way, the outcome is not one-sided. Don’t brag about generating vibe-coded stuff. If you don’t really know what happens inside, you are essentially doomed and have nothing to brag about. Take ownership, and be in charge of things; that’s where you will get utmost confidence in the craft that you do.

Aim for mastery. Anything fast will not last long. Being authentic triumphs always!