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Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality Engineering · Today · 18 min

Mental Skills: Testers Can't Outsource Their Brain to AI - Ard Kramer

If you don't use it, you lose it: what AI does to a tester's brain Mental skills keep testers thinking when AI offers to do it for them, and Ard Kramer puts it bluntly: you can't outsource your brain. With him I talk about why an idle brain loses its connections, how his cue HAH (human, AI, human) keeps the thinking on our side, and which four skills get a tester into the flow: goal setting, visualization, self-talk and stress control. Ard turns the test goal around, because one passing test confirms nothing, so his hypothesis aims at the moment the payment interface fails. He also explains the Zeigarnik effect, why an open task keeps your subconscious busy overnight, and why AI works best as a critical partner that asks you the questions. "You can't outsource your brain." - Ard Kramer Ard Kramer is a software tester based in the Netherlands who blends philosophy with practice as a “Qualisopher”, which stands for combining curiosity, teamwork, and a drive to create meaningful impact. As a former volleyball coach and currently one of the seven board members of the Dutch Volleyball Federation, he brings team spirit, focus, and resilience into his work, treating testing as a team sport where communication and trust drive success. He applies “quality thinking” not just to software but also to team dynamics, personal development, and real-world systems, and sees testing as the way to gather relevant information about value and risks, which means it is about improving people, systems, and environments. Highlights: Ard Kramer holds that testers can never say a system works, only that they tried everything and found nothing that did not work. Goal setting, visualization, self-talk and stress control are the four mental skills a tester can train, while concentration, motivation, confidence and arousal are the capacities already inside. The cue HAH, short for human, AI, human, puts a person at both ends of every AI loop, thinking first and testing the output afterwards. When AI takes over the thinking, use it or lose it applies to the brain. Unused connections disappear and are hard to rebuild. Walking around raises brain activity and improves thinking, which makes movement the simplest form of stress control before a hard testing task. 📘 Tool migration ahead? Teamscale playbook: migrate only 20% of tests, keep nearly all bug detection. Download for free

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If you don't use it, you lose it: what AI does to a tester's brain

Mental skills keep testers thinking when AI offers to do it for them, and Ard Kramer puts it bluntly: you can't outsource your brain. With him I talk about why an idle brain loses its connections, how his cue HAH (human, AI, human) keeps the thinking on our side, and which four skills get a tester into the flow: goal setting, visualization, self-talk and stress control. Ard turns the test goal around, because one passing test confirms nothing, so his hypothesis aims at the moment the payment interface fails. He also explains the Zeigarnik effect, why an open task keeps your subconscious busy overnight, and why AI works best as a critical partner that asks you the questions.

"You can't outsource your brain." - Ard Kramer

Ard Kramer is a software tester based in the Netherlands who blends philosophy with practice as a “Qualisopher”, which stands for combining curiosity, teamwork, and a drive to create meaningful impact. As a former volleyball coach and currently one of the seven board members of the Dutch Volleyball Federation, he brings team spirit, focus, and resilience into his work, treating testing as a team sport where communication and trust drive success. He applies “quality thinking” not just to software but also to team dynamics, personal development, and real-world systems, and sees testing as the way to gather relevant information about value and risks, which means it is about improving people, systems, and environments.

Highlights:

  • Ard Kramer holds that testers can never say a system works, only that they tried everything and found nothing that did not work.
  • Goal setting, visualization, self-talk and stress control are the four mental skills a tester can train, while concentration, motivation, confidence and arousal are the capacities already inside.
  • The cue HAH, short for human, AI, human, puts a person at both ends of every AI loop, thinking first and testing the output afterwards.
  • When AI takes over the thinking, use it or lose it applies to the brain. Unused connections disappear and are hard to rebuild.
  • Walking around raises brain activity and improves thinking, which makes movement the simplest form of stress control before a hard testing task.

📘 Tool migration ahead? Teamscale playbook: migrate only 20% of tests, keep nearly all bug detection. Download for free

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