The art of asking — Nahrizul Adib Kadri

OCTOBER 12 — Imagine having access to almost everything that humanity has ever written, discovered or recorded, but not knowing what to do with it.

This would have sounded like a rather strange problem to our ancestors, who spent much of their lives trying to preserve knowledge and make it available to others.

Yet, in many ways, this is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today. We have more information at our fingertips than any generation before us, but having access to information does not necessarily mean that we know how to use it.

For much of human history, one of our greatest challenges was storing information.

Knowledge was passed from one generation to another through oral traditions, handwritten manuscripts and whatever materials were available at the time (including clay tablets used by the Sumerians and papyrus scrolls by the ancient Egyptians).

Even after papermaking developed in ancient China and gradually became more widespread, producing books remained laborious and expensive.

Access to written knowledge was largely confined to those who could afford it or had the privilege of entering institutions where such materials were kept.

The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century transformed this situation.

Books could be reproduced in greater quantities and distributed to a much wider audience.

Libraries, which had existed long before printing became widespread, gradually expanded their collections and their role in society.

Over time, knowledge that was once difficult to preserve and share became increasingly accessible.

Humanity had not completely solved the problem of storing information, but it had made remarkable progress.

However, this progress brought another challenge. As the amount of available information increased, finding what we needed became more difficult.

A library might contain thousands of books, but knowing which book held the answer to a particular question required another set of skills.

Then came computers, digitalisation and eventually the internet, followed by the World Wide Web, proposed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.

Information that previously required a visit to a library could now be accessed from almost anywhere.

Search engines further transformed this experience by allowing users to locate relevant information simply by entering a few keywords.

What once required hours of searching through books and journals could sometimes be accomplished within seconds.

Of course, the internet did not eliminate the problem of finding reliable information. In fact, the sheer volume of material available online created new difficulties, particularly when it came to distinguishing credible sources from questionable ones.

Nevertheless, the technological progress was undeniable. We had moved from worrying primarily about how to store information to developing increasingly sophisticated ways of finding it.

Today, with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, particularly large language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini, we may be entering another phase in this long relationship with information.

Instead of searching through a list of websites and reading several sources to construct an answer, we can now ask a question in ordinary language and receive a response that appears to address our needs directly.

This introduces what I would call the third challenge: the problem of asking.

The ability to ask good questions becomes increasingly important. — Pexels pic

Unlike conventional search engines, large language models generate responses based on patterns and probabilities learned during their training.

They do not retrieve and reproduce knowledge in exactly the same way that a library catalogue or search engine does.

Their responses are influenced by how we phrase our questions, the context we provide and the instructions we include.

Two people seeking similar information may therefore receive quite different responses depending on how they approach the interaction.

This is where the ability to ask good questions becomes increasingly important.

A vague question may produce a general answer, while a more carefully considered question can lead to something considerably more useful.

Providing relevant context, explaining our intentions and identifying what we actually want to understand can improve the quality of the interaction.

Then there is also the question of what we do with the answers we receive.

Generative AI can produce convincing explanations even when the information is incomplete or incorrect.

Being able to ask a question therefore does not relieve us of the responsibility to examine the response, compare it with other sources and decide whether it makes sense.

Looking back, the history of information technology can be understood as a series of attempts to overcome different limitations.

We developed ways to preserve knowledge, then tools to locate it, and now systems that can respond to our questions in increasingly sophisticated ways.

Each development has expanded what ordinary people can do with information, while also requiring us to develop new skills.

Perhaps the most important skill for the next generation will not be the ability to remember more facts or even to find information more quickly.

It may be the ability to recognise what is worth knowing, formulate meaningful questions and exercise good judgement when answers are readily available.

So what do you want to ask today?

* Nahrizul Adib Kadri is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaya, who is currently pursuing an MA in Publishing Studies at the same university. He may be reached at [email protected]

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.