When I was young and needed to learn about something, I had to go to a library or a bookstore to get information. I often started by looking through an encyclopedia. I had to wander between entries to learn more about the topic I was researching. A few lucky friends had their own copy of an encyclopedia, which was nice since we could research at home. At some point these collections of information were moved to CD/DVDs, which made them more portable and more accessible to a larger group of people than in the past.

In the 90s we had the innovation of search engines, which allows us to more quickly move through information. There was more information available on the Internet than was ever published in encyclopedias. Over the years, these search engines improved their ability to rank and recommend information that is relevant to your query. However, you still need some idea of what you are trying to learn about. You have to direct the searches, although the Google auto-complete felt very predictive at times.

However, I heard a quote recently that is the title of this piece: everything is the right question away.

That might seem like something a search engine or even an encyclopedia would help with, but consider the fact that with an AI LLM you don’t have to specify much at all to get started. You can even ask it the question of how do I do/learn/find something and get a result that seems better than any computer system in the past. It might be better than what you get from most humans as well.

Of course, you might not get the answer you want or need, though you can continue to ask the LLM and refine what you need. What’s even better is that once you get a good answer, you can shortcut the route to that knowledge by asking the LLM to provide you with a better prompt to get you to the place you end up in faster.

Asking the right question to get an answer is an age-old human problem. Philosophers and religious figures have debated and hinted at this for centuries. You still need to build strong communication skills to ask a clear question and some expertise to judge the results. AI LLMs, however, make this a much easier and quicker process than at any time previously in human history.

Steve Jones

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