I’ve been thinking about the distinction.
Knowledge is what we acquire, accumulate, and exchange. It helps us understand what is possible and how things work.
Wisdom is how we apply that knowledge in relationship to others, our environment, and the consequences of our decisions.
Knowledge tells us what we can do. Wisdom helps us understand what we should do.
Which raises an interesting question about AI.
We’re building machines with extraordinary access to knowledge and increasingly impressive reasoning capabilities.
But can we teach them wisdom?
Not simply to provide the correct answer, but to understand the relationships, context, and consequences that make an answer appropriate and potentially beneficial.
Perhaps the next great challenge in AI isn’t teaching machines more about the world.
It’s teaching agents to understand their relationship with the world.
And, while we’re at it, perhaps we humans could use a refresher course ourselves?
