Teach Our Children to Become Socrates

 

Teach Our Children to Become Socrates

For most of human history, knowledge has been power largely because knowledge was difficult to obtain. Governments had archives, experts, and intelligence agencies. Newspapers had reporters, editors and printing presses. Universities had libraries and scholars. Corporations had lawyers, engineers and researchers. The ordinary citizen had comparatively little.

Then came the internet. Suddenly, an enormous portion of the world's information became available to almost anyone, but we discovered something important: access to information is not the same as understanding it. If anything, the internet demonstrated just how easily human beings can surround themselves with information that confirms what they already believe. Conservatives can find conservative sources. Liberals can find liberal sources. Conspiracy theorists can find evidence for conspiracies. Almost anyone can type a belief into a search engine and find someone, somewhere, telling them they are right. The problem was no longer simply access to information; it was critical thinking. Now artificial intelligence may change that equation again.

A Research Staff in Your Pocket

I have developed a habit when reading the news.

When I encounter an article that doesn't quite smell right, I don't simply dismiss it because I dislike the newspaper or disagree with the writer. I copy the article and give it to AI. Then I start asking questions. 

• What are the actual factual claims in this article?
• Which claims can be independently verified?
• What are the original sources?
• Did the headline accurately describe what happened?
• Is a statistic technically correct but presented without context?
• What information did the writer leave out that might materially change the reader's understanding? 
• Where does the writer move from reporting facts to interpreting them?
• What would someone who disagrees with this article say?
• And perhaps most importantly: What evidence would demonstrate that my own interpretation is wrong?

Something remarkable has happened. A process that might once have required hours in a library, access to experts, or an entire research staff can increasingly be performed by an ordinary person sitting at the kitchen table in seconds. Think about what that means. The printing press dramatically reduced the cost of distributing knowledge. The internet dramatically reduced the cost of accessing knowledge. Artificial intelligence may dramatically reduce the cost of analyzing and interrogating knowledge. That could be revolutionary. No, that is revolutionary. 

But Don't Trust the AI Either

There is an enormous danger here, however. We must not replace one unquestioned authority with another. AI is not an oracle. Artificial intelligence learns from human-produced information, which contains bias, mistakes, propaganda, conventional wisdom, political assumptions, and sometimes outright falsehoods, so AI can be wrong. It can give too much weight to supposedly authoritative sources. It can mistake widespread agreement for proof. It can overlook contrary evidence. It can repeat a claim simply because thousands of other sources have repeated it, and perhaps most dangerously, it can be wrong while sounding remarkably intelligent.

After using AI to challenge an article, we should challenge the AI.

Ask it:

• What are the weakest parts of your analysis?
• What assumptions did you make?
• Could the sources you relied upon themselves be biased?
• Give me the strongest evidence contradicting your conclusion.
• Separate what you have actually established from what you have merely inferred.
• Now reconsider your original answer.

That is where AI becomes something much more valuable than an electronic encyclopedia. It becomes a partner in critical thinking.

Don't Ask AI What to Think

This is where I believe our schools have an extraordinary opportunity. We should not teach children to ask AI, "What should I believe?" That would be educational malpractice.

Instead, give students an article representing one side of a controversial question and tell them to interrogate it.

• Identify the claims.
• Find the evidence.
• Locate the primary sources.
• Identify loaded language.
• Look for missing context.
• Construct the strongest opposing argument.
• Then challenge that argument.
• Then challenge the AI's analysis.

Finally, ask the student, "What do you think, and why?"

Now we are teaching something far more important than memorizing the approved answer for Friday's test. We are teaching young people how to think.

The Socratic Machine

More than 2,400 years ago, Socrates understood something we still struggle to teach. Wisdom doesn't begin with possessing all the answers.

• It begins with questions.
• What do you mean?
• How do you know?
• What evidence supports that?
• Does your conclusion necessarily follow?
• Are you contradicting yourself?
• What assumption are you making?
• What would prove you wrong?

Those questions remain extraordinarily powerful because they can be directed at anyone.

• A politician.
• A newspaper.
• A professor.
• A corporation.
• A preacher.
• A political party.
• Your parents.
• Your friends.
• Yourself.
• And now, artificial intelligence.

That last one matters. The goal should never be a population that stops saying, "The newspaper says it's true," and begins saying, "AI says it's true." We would have accomplished very little. We would merely have changed authorities. The objective should be citizens who respond to every authority with the same two words: Prove it.

An Informed Population Changes the Balance of Power

Another consequence deserves discussion. Institutions have historically possessed an enormous informational advantage over ordinary citizens. Governments, political parties, corporations, universities, and media organizations possessed resources that individuals simply could not match.

• AI begins to narrow that gap.
• A politician can cherry-pick a statistic.
• A newspaper can omit an inconvenient fact.
• A corporation can carefully word a press release.
• An activist organization can present only the evidence supporting its position.

But now with AI, an ordinary citizen can respond, and here is where the hidden figures pulling the strings of government and the media begin to get nervous. 

• Show me the underlying data.
• Find the original report.
• What did they leave out?
• Give me the argument from the other side.
• And do it in seconds.

That changes something fundamental. It does not mean institutions are always dishonest. It does not mean experts should be ignored. And it certainly does not mean AI is always right. It means institutional authority no longer has to be accepted merely because the ordinary citizen lacks the resources to investigate it. That is healthy for a free society.

Knowledge Is Power—But Only If We Know What to Do With It

We spend enormous amounts of time worrying about what artificial intelligence will do to our children. Perhaps we should spend more time thinking about what it could do for them. Imagine a generation that grows up instinctively asking for evidence.

• A generation comfortable discovering that its first conclusion was wrong.
• A generation that understands the difference between fact and interpretation.
• A generation suspicious not merely of other people's biases, but of its own.
• A generation that understands that disagreement is not evidence of stupidity or evil.
• A generation possessing, in its pocket, a tool capable of helping it investigate almost any question imaginable.

That could create something extraordinarily powerful: An informed citizen.

Our greatest educational opportunity with artificial intelligence, therefore, isn't teaching children how to use AI to find answers. It is teaching them how to use AI to ask better questions, and then teaching them to question the AI itself.

Don't teach our children to trust artificial intelligence.

Teach them to become Socrates. Tell the AI you use to question you as if AI is Socrates. In this manner, we become more like Socrates. AI is now a tool and not a crutch.