Writer's Note
The Altimeter
I want to talk to you about the difference between knowing about something and knowing something. I call this knowledge transfer versus knowledge acquisition. For this example, lets use Mt. Everest. Anyone can learn a lot about Mt. Everest from the comfort of their couch, or bed, or desk. You can ask even the most primitive tools and find out that Everest summit sits at 29,032 feet. You can watch incredible footage in HD that will take your breath away. More sophisticated tools can describe to you in great detail the difficulty, and the challenges, and the danger. You can leave this experience almost feeling like you have been there. It is truly amazing the vast knowledge we have at our fingertips.
Now, put yourself in the shoes of someone who has actually been to the top. The months of planning, training, and preparing. The long travel days to even get within the summit's orbit. Everything you have to do, and plan, and think, to make it possible to get your body from the warm, comfortable couch at home, to the top of one of the highest and most challenging peaks in the world. Try to imagine now, the depth and quality of that person's knowledge of Everest. Everything they saw, felt, smelled, and thought along the way. Everything that could not be read about—but instead had to be experienced. That is knowledge acquired.
Don't get me wrong. I use the tools. I love them. I really do. I use them all day, every day. But know this—no matter how much you can learn by knowledge transfer, it still pales in comparison to knowledge you acquire through experience. Both people know the elevation of Everest. But their knowledge is not the same. The gap between these two types of understanding is what I am writing about now.
The gap is not always there. Sometimes, the easy road is really the best way to go. Sometimes the number is all you need and looking it up gets you to 100%. But we are losing the ability to see the difference. Good enough is replacing great. And that is a problem we should all care about.
The Concession I Almost Missed
I recently heard a song that really touched me. My daughter and I are both musicians and I had been looking for something we could play together. So I broke the song down and we learned it as a duet. After a few weeks, when we had kind of put as much into it as we could afford to, we recorded it. The rhythm was a bit off. The recording was a one-take video on my iphone. We messed up some of the words. But it was beautiful for what it was.
I could have reached for some tools. Instead of hammering away at this song for three weeks, I could have sat down and sampled our voices. I could watched youtube while one of my tools generated a perfect version of this song that sounded just like us—but better. It could have been amazing. The rhythm would be perfect. The pitch would be perfect. Every word would be perfect. And it would have only take an hour or two—and would have been devoid of any real meaning.
But that's not what we did. We held our breath, and sent our imperfect video out to everyone we know. We had no illusions that we were going to be instantly famous. But what we got back were some heart felt messages, from people we truly care about and value, telling us how much our song touched them. Some of them broke down into tears listening to it. One said she listens to it every day, or any time she is feeling sad. We connected. We put our work and our hearts into a thing and someone on the other end heard not just our song, but the real message we were sending.
I can't know for sure that the AI generated version would not have moved people. But I do know that what gave that experience meaning to me was that I did this challenging thing with my daughter, and that we took a risk, and sent our imperfect, off-tempo, but heart-felt message out to the people we love. What would it have meant if we had generated it while watching tv, giving it only 10% of our attention? Your attention is everything. If I had reached for the tool, I would have lost the only thing the song was for.
The Two Classes
Ok. Let's open the lab. Let's test. Remember, I am not an AI skeptic. I'm just intentional. So I see two classes of knowledge. First, knowledge where transfer alone completes the journey. Let's call these transfer-complete tasks. My email. Oh, I really hate email. I'm only too happy to have bots sifting through it, summarizing it, and (mostly) deleting it. Formatting a word doc? I don't need to paint the Mona Lisa with that font change or margin adjustment. There are many times in my day, when I reduce friction with AI and I don't look back.
But then there is the second class. This is knowledge best acquired. These are tasks where the doing is where the meaning is made. Let's call these acquisition-only tasks. My song with my daughter. Climbing a mountain. The anniversary card you write to the person you love with your hands instead of generating it and printing it out.
And we can prove the difference in the lab. Transfer-complete tasks produce identical outputs no matter the path. Read your email and delete it. Have a bot read your email and delete it. The outcome and output are the same. Acquisition-only tasks produce outputs that are wildly different that their transferred version. The facts about Everest versus the understanding of Everest. My daughter's song versus a generated and generic song.
The problem is that we are, as a civilization, losing the ability to tell the difference. Or more importantly, we are slowly deciding we don't care if there is a difference at all.
The Test You Can Run
Earlier I opened the lab by asking myself:
Am I sure I can't do this? What happens if I try?
Let's apply that to today's idea. Transfer or acquire. Is this thing I have in front of me a transfer task or an acquisition task? What will I lose if I let the machine do it?
If the answer is nothing, go for it! But don't make the mistake of assuming that because the machine can do a thing that it should—or that it MUST. This test is not a rule. It is not a simple equation. It is a habit of noticing. It is a habit of deciding, with intention. Most of the time, the answer will be "let the machine do it." And that answer will be correct. The point is to no longer do this by reflex—or by some sense of obligation.
The altimeter reads the same for everyone. What the number means is still yours to decide—until you give it away.