In the age of artificial intelligence, being knowledgeable — memorizing facts, or knowing where to go find them — isn’t nearly as valuable as learning how to ask great questions, says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“There will be a kind of ability we still really value, but it will not be raw, intellectual horsepower to the same degree,” Altman told Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant’s “ReThinking” podcast, in an episode that published last week. “Figuring out what questions to ask will be more important than figuring out the answer.”
Understanding how to ask thought-provoking questions, especially when trying to understand or add broader context to an idea, is already an important skill, Grant noted.
“We used to put a premium on how much knowledge you had collected in your brain, and if you were a fact collector, that made you smart and respected,” said Grant. “Now, I think it’s much more valuable to be a connector …