Cultural debt

Cultural debt is the slow organisational damage that accumulates when AI tools spread faster than the rules, habits and human judgement needed to use them well. A recommendation appears in a slide. Nobody is quite sure where it came from, but the meeting is running late and it looks plausible, so it moves. Nothing explodes. The purchase order is ninety-eight per cent right, the report is fine again, and a few thousand defensible approvals gradually lower the standard. Technical adoption can happen in a quarter; a culture that questions, corrects and takes ownership takes longer. Pretending otherwise does not clear the debt. It only hides the statement.