All Those That Ponder Are Not Lost: Keep Asking Good Questions.

If you watch any tech company’s latest media, or any company, they are all saying AI this, AI that.

Just like blockchain and the Metaverse before it, AI is the latest fad that no business wants to say they don’t have or don’t use.

And we all know how excited people are for blockchain and the metaverse, they were fantastic wastes of money and we rife with shady characters and thieves.

Companies are desperate to show the world that they understand the technology, because they want to be one of the cool kids in school.

As of the posting of this blog, Nvidia become the most expensive business in the world on the back of powering a lot of the worlds AI with their hardware.

I am disappointed I don’t own any of the stock, and this is not financial advice. Getting an 162% increase, that is some sweet gains that would make Arnold proud.

So what does the astronomical rise of AI, both financially and culturally mean for you as a leader?

Absolutely nothing, and here is why?

It’s The Question That Drives Us

Just as Trinity told Neo when they first met in The Matrix, it is asking the right questions that produces better outcomes.

There is a Japanese saying, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

We gravitate to questions we know the answers of because it makes us feel better. The uncertainty of unknown questions can be overwhelming.

The staggering amount of compute power that is increasing daily, being given to learn and come up with answers. We are not going to be devoid of answers, the real question is something different.

Do we have good questions?

Riddle Me This

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers – potentially some words uttered by Pablo Picasso, or something resembling this idea.

The point is that AI is just a tool, like google before it, and the library before that. They are just ways to find answers.

The answers are not actually important in of themselves. They are important if they are relevant and insightful.

Life is played with jeopardy rules, you win by having the right questions.

It is better to get an incomplete answer from an excellent question than an accurate answer to a terrible/pointless question.

The answers we often get from AI or search are what answers. What was the date Magellan started his voyage? What was the biggest volcano eruption? Where did the Medici live? Who invented calculus?

All of these have hard answers, meaning one specific or a set of specific answers. They are all provide surface level understanding. But so what, what does that tell you? Nothing.

The more important questions are why and so what?

Why did Magellan sail and what was the flow on affect of this journey. That is more important than a date. Understanding the whole story, breaking it apart, putting it back together. Investigating the meaning behind things is where you get insight.

The trouble is they are ephemeral and nebulous, there is disagreement and debate on why’s. We live in a world where people are so used to certainty we ask questions we know the answers too rather than going on an adventure of discovery for questions we don’t know the answers.

The tools are wonderful, go crazy on them, but remember the questions you ask are always going to be more powerful than the answers you get.