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Why a Foundational Knowledge Will Save You From AI
Schools and the general public have scorned general knowledge up until now, but it has saved my life more than once.
How do you know if a calculator is right if you don’t know how to work out the answer in your head in a minute? You don’t, do you? And if you can’t, you’re going to take the word of the calculator as fact, aren’t you?
The greatest threat from Artificial Intelligence is the dissemination of false information. This is made more difficult as it is written in excellent English, and thus it gives the illusion that the writer has some excellence in the subject matter. Indeed, mix it together with factual information, and it is difficult to know what to put the lie to.
One of my great advantages is that I was educated in South Africa at a time when it was said that we had the best education system in the world — if you were white, of course. Put that together with my senior education at a private school that gave an even higher level of education, and I absorbed bits of information that have enabled me to spot bs when I read it. It’s probably why I alienate so many.
