Illustration by Brian Rea
Summary.
In my work with engineers, I’ve seen firsthand the quest for better signal-to-noise ratios. In non-engineering terms, signal is the thing we want, and noise is everything else. Signal is the input — what we’re trying to do or communicate — whereas noise is the undesired and unintended outcome. If an idea or word is noisy, that means people often lack clarity on what it actually is because the original signal has degraded by the time it reaches the masses. For example, the term AI is loaded with noise right now. If you ask 10 people what AI means, they’re going to give 10 very different answers based on their personal situation, industry, political ideology, and more.