Stop Blaming AI: It’s Not Broken, You’re Just Not Asking the Right Questions

I’ve heard it from students, executives, and curious skeptics alike:

“I tried ChatGPT… but it gave me the wrong answer.”

“AI is unreliable.”

“I don’t trust it—it makes stuff up.”

And I get it. AI is not perfect. It occasionally hallucinates. It sometimes answers confidently… and wrongly. But let’s ask the deeper question:

Why do we expect AI to behave like a perfect being when we ourselves often struggle to ask clear questions?

We’d never go to a doctor and say, “Something’s wrong—fix me,” and expect an instant cure. We wouldn’t approach a lawyer and mutter, “Can you help?” without context, and expect legal precision. Yet with AI, people toss out half-baked prompts and expect brilliance.

Why?

The Myth of the Oracle

Part of the problem is cultural. We’ve grown up surrounded by one-click solutions. Push a button, get an answer. Convenience culture has made us impatient with nuance and allergic to ambiguity.

AI gets bundled into this category—seen as another tool that should just “work.”

But AI is not a vending machine. It’s a collaborator. A thought partner. A mirror.

And that’s where things get uncomfortable.

AI Reflects the Clarity (or Chaos) of Your Thinking

Generative AI doesn’t invent insights from nothing. It works by pattern recognition. It draws from the structure and clarity of your input.

• If your question is vague, the answer will be foggy.

• If your request lacks context, the output will miss the mark.

• If you treat AI like a mind reader, it will frustrate you.

In short: garbage in, garbage out.

But here’s the twist: most people don’t realize how unclear their own thinking is—until AI reflects it back to them.

Asking The Right Questions?

The Real Issue: A Lack of Critical Thinking and Communication Skills

Let’s be honest: clear thinking is rare.

Precise communication? Even rarer.

And it’s not our fault—we weren’t trained for it.

Schools often emphasize memorization over inquiry.

Workplaces often reward execution over exploration.

As a result, many people have never had to rigorously articulate what they want, or how to ask for it.

AI doesn’t just expose technological illiteracy—it exposes a gap in mental discipline.

And that can feel threatening.

The Rise of a New Literacy

We’re entering a world where prompt engineering is a fundamental skill—just like writing, public speaking, or coding.

But the barrier isn’t technical. It is emotional.

To collaborate effectively with AI, we must:

• Accept that we may not be clear in our own minds,

• Be willing to iterate, explore, and refine,

• Let go of ego, and embrace learning.

In other words, we must become better thinkers. Because the real superpower of AI isn’t its intelligence—it’s how much better it makes you when you know how to use it.

Final Thought

If you’re dismissing AI because it didn’t give you the perfect answer on the first try, ask yourself:

“Did I give it the clarity it needed?”

AI is not broken. It is just waiting for a better conversation.

Let’s raise the quality of our questions—and unlock the quality of our future.