A few months ago, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and tech specialist Mark Garman predicted that engineers will no longer need programming skills because AI models will handle that. Now, influential figures like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are signaling a deeper shift: The future isn’t about how much knowledge you have but how well you can frame the right questions.
“There will be a kind of ability we still really value, but it will not be raw, intellectual horsepower to the same degree,” Altman remarked on Adam Grant’s ReThinking podcast. “The like kind of dumb version of this would be figuring out what questions to ask will be more important than figuring out the answer.”
Why Questions Matter
Altman’s insights highlight how asking the right questions can uncover new solutions and products, emphasizing the power of curiosity and synthesis.
“That’s consistent with what I’ve seen even just in the last couple years, which is 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. And now I think it’s much more valuable to be a connector of dots than a collector of facts,” Grant noted.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates echoes this sentiment. In a blog post, Gates explained that solving major problems often comes down to asking the right questions. “Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve tackled every big new problem the same way: by starting off with two questions. I used this technique at Microsoft, and I still use it today. I ask these questions literally every week about COVID-19,” he wrote.
A New Role: Question Designer
Altman’s reflections open the door to a potential new job profile: a question designer. This professional would specialize in creating the precise questions needed for AI models to generate meaningful answers.
Lydia Logan, IBM’s vice president of global education and workforce development, underscores the importance of this skill: “If you don’t give a good prompt to a generative AI tool, you’re not going to get a good answer. It’s garbage in and garbage out.”
Logan noted that U.S. companies are already offering high salaries for roles requiring this expertise. “I cannot stress this enough: Prompt engineering is a gateway skill that you can use almost anywhere,” Logan says. “It’s a skill that can open the door to so many opportunities.”
Curiosity as a Core Skill
Beyond technical applications, the ability to ask insightful questions is increasingly seen as a vital soft skill. Traits like curiosity, adaptability, and active learning are becoming more valuable than traditional degrees or fixed knowledge bases.
As Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg, companies are prioritizing skills over credentials in hiring.
This shift stems from the rapidly evolving landscape of AI models, where adaptability and a growth mindset are crucial.
While Altman predicts AI will take over repetitive tasks in workplaces, he firmly believes it won’t replace human intellect or creativity.
“I have certainly gotten the greatest professional joy from having to really creatively reason through a problem and figure out an answer that no one’s figured out before. And when I think about AI taking that over, if it happens that way, I do feel some sadness. What I expect to happen in reality is just there’s gonna be a new way we work on the hard problems,” Altman said.
He envisions a future where AI models complement human ingenuity, enabling us to tackle hard problems through a first-principles approach—questioning everything from the ground up. This Aristotelian thought process could redefine how humanity collaborates with AI systems to solve complex challenges.
Image | World Economic Forum
Related | What Is ‘Technological Singularity,’ and Why Does Sam Altman Believe It Might Arrive by 2025?
View 0 comments