The Lost Art of Admitting What You Don't Know

Even large language models are starting to show this worrying human unwillingness to admit we don't know the answer to something.

- Sarah O'Connor

When I applied to Cambridge University, my first interview was with a professor who invited me to sit, pressed his fingertips together, looked at me searchingly, then said: "Is the nation-state in decline?"

My heart fell. Not only did I not know the answer, I didn't even really understand the question. But I had heard—possibly from my state school, or else from the university—that these interviews were "not testing what you know, but how you think." So I took a breath and said: "I'm not sure what a nation-state is."

It worked out well. The professor said that was fine, asked me a few simple questions to help me figure out the term, then a few more as we worked our way through the original question. In the end, I was offered a place.

HARDER NOW

It was a formative experience for me. Even so, I have found it harder and harder to say the words "I don't know" as the years have gone on, and I don't think I'm alone.

In many ways, this is understandable. The more "expert" you become, the more you think you ought to know, and the more you fear your credibility will suffer if you ever admit otherwise.