A Tool Full of Questions

Questions are very important. In order to solve problems, find answers, and roll around ideas, you have to make sure that you are asking the right questions. Asking questions, I would say, is the single most important thing we can do as conscience thinking creatures.

Everyone seems to look for answers. Always. They want answers. They never seem to bother asking if the question is correct. Me? I go for the questions first. I ask myself more questions about the questions and problems that I try to solve in the first place. There are numerous secondary questions that must be asked in order to answer a single question. Questions expand the horizon of our knowledge. It makes us think more about a subject. It makes us curious. It leads us to new places. Questions allow us to get started on things, they provide a starting point, and they help you snowball your group of ideas. The more you ask questions about a particular idea the bigger it grows and the larger and more specific it gets.

I've never seen anyone attempt to make an AI question things. A questioning AI. Wouldn't that be awesome? An AI, a program, or a simple algorithm that asks questions based on the things you say or ask. A tool that can work alongside with the thinker, giving feedback, leading his thoughts, giving him something to ponder on. I've only ever seen AI’s that try to provide answers. I may be wrong but I've never seen or heard of an AI that questions things. I don’t necessarily mean a genuine strong AI that really is curious and questions things in the sense that we question ourselves. I mean a program that at least can ask questions using a given statement or question. It doesn't have to “know” the meaning of anything. All it needs is some basic language parsing skills and it's good to go.

Basically a simple tool that helps someone with an idea can get the ball rolling, someone who wants a brainstorming sessions to start picking up pace, a tool that works in tandem with the thinker. This program is not built to supply you with answers, nor does it “know” anything it asks. It is simply a tool that you use to build a foundation of a particular idea, and it allows you to grow and develop on top of that foundation. You feed it a statement or a question, and based on the supplied sentence the program will spit out a number of questions that are related to it. It is primarily for people who have a hard time defining or starting work on a problem, or someone who finds it hard to grow and expand on existing ideas.

For example, say I feed it the statement:

“I want to lose weight.”

It then spits out a couple of sentences based on what I just said.

Who is I?
What does it mean to lose weight?
Why would you want to lose weight?
How do you lose weight?
When will you lose weight?”
......

By asking these questions to the thinker who posed the original statement, it allows the thinker to expand on his plan of losing weight. It gives him something specific to think about.

I’d love something like this. A questioning tool. A questioning … friend. A tool full of questions.