PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

THE CURIOSITY CONSTANT

Manilka Ediriweera believes that asking questions is vital in the AI era

Curiosity killed the cat. This is advice we have been given at least once in our lives – perhaps as children, when we pried too much; or as adults. when we were too nosey. It’s a polite warning that cautions us to not ask too many questions, keep our heads down, accept things as they are and stay in our lane.

Somewhere between the endless and exhausting questions of ‘why?’ in childhood and compliance of adulthood, most of us stopped asking bold questions. We stopped being curious; instead, we bought into the lie that certainty, intelligence and expertise are what mattered.

However, ‘curiosity killed the cat…’ is only half the proverb. It has an ending that many are either unaware of or have (perhaps conveniently!) forgotten. And that is ‘…but satisfaction brought it back.’

Given the circumstances we find ourselves in today, it’s time we paid more attention to the second half of this proverb.

We live in an era where answers have never been easier to find. Ask an AI agent or assistant to summarise a 100 page report, prepare a marketing strategy or write code, and it will do so in a matter of seconds. Information that was once scarce is now available in abundance.

In a world where everything is being reshaped by technology, simply staying in your lane without questioning anything isn’t a safety strategy. As artificial intelligence takes over routine tasks, data processing, pattern recognition and more, our technical skills are depreciating faster than ever.

If you want to succeed, you can no longer rely entirely on your skills and expertise. That’s not what your value hinges on. It hinges on your curiosity to ask the right questions, see beyond the norm and probe the unknown.

So how does this become the mindset of the future?

Because while machines excel at processing data, spotting patterns and executing technical tasks, they don’t wake up in the morning wondering ‘why?’. They don’t challenge premises unless prompted to. And they don’t question the fundamentals.

On the other hand, curious individuals do. They look outside the box and ask questions like ‘why this?’, ‘why now?’ and ‘why this way and not another?’.

And this is where value exists. Almost every breakthrough – whether in society, science, arts or business – began with someone refusing to accept the existing answer as the only one available. That is to say that creativity and innovation don’t arrive as a flash of genius; they begin with a quiet curiosity.

While curiosity tends to have a bad reputation as a soft, whimsical trait, this isn’t entirely the case. For starters, curiosity helps power progress. It opens us up to the world and learning, challenges our perceptions and beliefs, and perhaps even changes them.

Beyond that, curiosity offers cognitive advantages.

Neurologists have discovered that when you confront a problem with genuine curiosity, your brain undergoes a shift. High states of curiosity trigger a massive release of dopamine, which actively primes the brain to form more stable neural connections.

This neurological spike can boost your memory, and make it easier to absorb and retain new information. It also helps you become more patient, and allows you to sit with uncertainty and questions.

However, curiosity isn’t about vague, surface level interest; rather, it the persistent habit of questioning assumptions and asking questions even though a comfortable answer already exists.

Much of the conversation around AI has focussed on technical skills, tools and changes to the job landscape. They fail to address a more fundamental shift happening beneath it all – because the real change isn’t in what we need to know but how we need to think.

If we look at the most beneficial qualities or skills a person can carry into the future, these are empathy and curiosity rather than experience or expertise.

But cultivating curiosity isn’t easy… because thanks to our past successes and hard-earned expertise, we’re wired to resist it. Researchers call this ‘the Einstellung effect.’In plain terms, the more experienced we become, the more our brains default to pattern recognition.

This is a costly trap that expertise sets for itself – especially in a rapidly shifting landscape.

The answer is to be willing to see even the most familiar thing as something you have never encountered before. It’s like having a beginner’s mindset and looking at a problem with fresh eyes. It begs you to drop the protective armour of being the expert in the room and begin unlearning as much as you have learned.

So perhaps it’s time we paid attention to the second part of the proverb – because in a world where machines are becoming very good at producing answers quickly, your competitive edge is your capacity for curiosity.

The cat survived – and so will you.