Pondermania: Familiarity and Intelligence

By Neil S. Kohrn

Hand a six-year-old a smartphone, and they may start a FaceTime call without hesitation. Hand that same child a rotary phone and a telephone directory. Would they know where to begin?

Would they understand why someone used the White Pages instead of the Yellow Pages?

Their intelligence hasn’t changed. Their familiarity with the tools has.

Now reverse the exercise. An adult who once navigated those directories effortlessly may struggle to start a video call. Does that make the adult less intelligent—or simply less experienced with that particular task?

We too often mistake familiar knowledge for intelligence and unfamiliarity for inability.

Knowing how to do one thing does not mean knowing how to do everything. The more revealing question is what happens when we encounter something we haven’t learned yet.

Do we ask? Observe? Experiment? Adapt?

Before judging someone’s intelligence, consider what they have had an opportunity to learn.

The same caution applies to AI: fluency in a familiar task does not establish sound judgment in an unfamiliar one.