Article summary
A few weeks ago, I asked my younger brother a very random question:
“What would the consequences be of putting higher performance shock absorbers in my car?”
Question One
He led me down an interesting conversation about the costs, the considerations, the damage it could do to my very simple Mazda CX-30. We chatted about it for about 5 minutes, realistically, with follow-ups and back-and-forth. In the end, I learned why I should probably just get the recommended shocks for my car until it dies, but also what it takes for other cars to get that smooth, uninterrupted ride on a pot-holey Michigan road.
If you’re curious, not only would it make it easier for me to roll over my car, but it could also cause wear on surrounding parts and be more costly than it’s worth. (It messes up all the physics… or something. I should ask him again.) I got to peek into one of my brother’s knowledge bases for a while and add it to mine.
More Questions
On a different day, I asked my friend Nicole, a medical assistant at a podiatrist’s office, what kinds of exercises I could do to strengthen my ankles, since they’d been hurting. She walked me through what they recommend at her office. My vacuum was purchased on the recommendation of a friend. I know what plants work best for my house from my mother. And, when I’m curious about something in urban planning, I know I can always ask my cousin, who’s in that field.
My encyclopedia is human. All the entries are from my friends! Everyone in my life holds things I can reference, and I know that, for many others, I do the same.
As I move through my career in both software and consulting, the lessons that stick the most with me are all the ones I’ve learned from other human beings. It’s always easier to try something new or see a new perspective when I outsource to a new set of hands, ears, and eyes. But also, seeing others for the knowledge they hold frees up space in my mind for the knowledge I must hold, because I know I can consult them.
Why and How
I think a few things allow me to enable this. For one, I love conversation. That base level joy surely adds to what I get out of any one experience. Another factor is that I love the people I have in my life. It makes me remember more easily what I’ve learned because I’ve attached it to a person I’m learning from.
In having a conversation, a person can also tailor how they deliver that knowledge to what they know about me and my use case, which helps make the knowledge more immediately practical. Google’s AI summary may be able to tell me what changing the shocks could do to any car, but may not tell me as well what could happen with my car specifically. My brother, on the other hand, has knowledge of vehicles in my car’s class and size, giving him an upper hand to apply that knowledge.
I love learning, getting my hands into things, and turning concepts into tangible objects. I love learning what others have learned. And, I love sharing my knowledge. As AI changes the landscape of information, I think that core feeling will remain. Even as it gives us more access to knowledge and patterns than ever, I still believe it is important to take human reasoning, past experience, and intuition to apply that knowledge correctly.
My encyclopedia is human.