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How To Ask A Question?
Today I’d like to ponder something Kevin Kelly — a fellow co-founding editor of Wired — said to me roughly 30 years ago. During one editorial conversation or another, Kevin said — and I’m paraphrasing here — “The most creative act a human can engage in is forming a good question.”
That idea has stuck with me ever since, and informed a lot of my career. I’m likely guilty of turning Kevin into a Yoda-like figure — he was a mentor to me in the early years of the digital revolution. But the idea rings true — and it lies at the heart of the debate around artificial intelligence and its purported impact on our commonly held beliefs around literacy.
I’ve spent a lot of the last few decades as an interlocutor on stage or as a reporter on the ground, and I find that preparing for interviews requires not just a ton of research, but a rather formal process of interrogation of the facts prior to any actual dialog. It starts with naive, even ignorant queries, and each response yields fresh questions, each of which become more subtle, specific, and pointed. The question is the tool, it can be wielded like a spade in sand, a pick axe against stone, a paintbrush, a hex key, a hammer, a pen. It may well be the most human expression we have — our core differentiator from the stochastic parrots we can’t help but create.
