AS: artificial stupidity

Sometimes it seems that not a week passes without the triumphant display of a piece of evidence that the country urgently needs to introduce a new subject into the school curriculum – media education, politics or critical thinking – in order to save itself from terminal ignorance or self-destructive stupidity. 

The latest has been the spectacle of two women, on a quiz show, who thought an atomic bomb might have once been dropped on Vittoriosa. But when the critics get going, the evidence never stops flowing. Anything can point to a national malaise of stupidity – from Facebook exchanges to voting for the wrong political party (that is, the one the critic opposes), to a cock-up by a government minister.

It’s not that these criticisms never have a point. But they tend to overlook several aspects of the real issues. 

One is that education, in itself, doesn’t make one immune to crazy beliefs, political illusions or cock-ups. The world is full of people whose advanced level of education has simply made them more skilful in believing, defending and implementing the indefensible.

Next, too much emphasis is laid on logical argument and not enough on the logic of how things work. No amount of critical thinking will help you “follow the science” or “follow the money” unless you also know how science, economies and industries work in practice. 

Critical thinking processes information. Which information you pick to process, however, depends on a different kind of thinking – baseline thinking, the knowledge of the ‘laws of gravity’, the usual outcomes, in any particular area of life. 

The simplest form of baseline thinking is the rule: “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.” Baseline thinking is a sniff test, a BS detector. However, some sniff tests – like those of a well-trained wine expert – may require training. 

A third reason, perhaps the most important, is that the nature of stupidity is misunderstood. Stupidity is said to be an attribute of individuals. This person is stupid; this one isn’t. But it’s better understood as an attribute of actions. Even highly intelligent people can say or do stupid things.

The human brain evolved to make snap decisions in dangerous environments. It has in-built biases designed to help us jump to conclusions. We fear loss more than we prize gains. We stereotype to save ourselves the effort of a detailed scan. We go with our ‘gut’ – meaning with our baseline experience.

In the right environment, a split-second decision can save lives. In the wrong one, it can endanger them. Going with our gut, in a forest environment, and eating sugar when we find it, helps us survive. The same impulsive instinct, in an industrial environment where many foods are saturated with sugars, can lead to life-threatening obesity.

Finland decided that media education is a security issue and should be a required school subject that teaches how to sniff fake news

Stupid actions are those that are thoughtless about the consequences. We’re often thoughtless because we think we’re operating in one environment, which we’re familiar with, when, in fact, we’re in another, less familiar area.

Perhaps it’s time to speak of “artificial stupidity” – stupid actions caused not by the nature of our brain but as a result of the interplay between our brain and digital culture. 

First, our complex division of labour, enabled by the digitisation of our economy, has greatly separated different spheres of life to the degree that they seem different worlds. It’s why we often have one personality at work, another at home and feel we are a ‘multiple self’ or have crises of identities.

It also means that we are more likely to misjudge events because we use the right criteria from the wrong area – as when we think an economy should function like a household, or government like a family, or have a poor understanding of team dynamics because we work from home. Sometimes we get it wrong because we have no baseline to draw on – there’s no precedent for something radically new.

Second, there are stupid actions generated by the dominant medium of communication. When writing was dominant, it generated a form of literal mindedness (say, about the Bible) that would have bewildered earlier, illiterate generations. 

TV has generated more inanities and lies from artificially tanned politicians with great hair than the rest of history put together. Yet, research has found that election winners (performance in government is something else) can be predicted on the basis of telegenic looks, almost irrespective of what’s said.

Today, social media are generating a new kind of stupid utterance. The speed with which one can react to events means that the crazy crowds out more thoughtful responses, which need more time to produce and, therefore, are fewer in number.

But the clamouring for attention and sensitivity to reaction is also generating a dominant kind of personality – loud, aggressive and insecure – that is prone to favour online might over right.

Finally, our information system, fed by algorithms designed to pander to our online histories, has increased blinkered views of the world that downplay evidence that contradicts our dogmas. It skews the baseline of our experience. 

In the face of artificial stupidity, teaching a set of logical operations devised long ago by Aristotle will be useful but hardly enough. We need to teach how the contemporary world works in different domains.

There are two approaches possible. One is that taken by Finland. Sensitive to the democratic instability that could be provoked by the troll farms of Vladimir Putin’s neighbouring Russia, Finland decided that media education is a security issue and should be a required school subject that teaches how to sniff fake news. 

This approach focuses on the dominant vehicle of communication. It teaches baseline thinking about the identifying patterns of disinformation, irrespective of content. It could be expanded to include brain-care (managing exposure to social media, the way skincare manages exposure to the sun) and anti-silo thinking.

A second approach would be to spread baseline thinking across the curriculum. The expected outcomes, in any given subject, would include gleeful BS-spotting skills at the appropriate level. 

Finding real-life examples won’t be a problem. And, who knows, the glamour of acing the BS-detection test, and the social embarrassment of failing one, might give students a real incentive to do well at exams.

ranierfsadni@europe.com