Vitalik: AI is hyper-knowledgeable but unwise, giving surface-level readings of new texts
paulnovosad · x · 2026-10-29
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin argues that AI is extremely knowledgeable—able to detect references to almost anything—yet unwise, making only surface-level judgments about what a piece of writing is actually saying.
The weakness is most visible when AI reads a text for the first time; it does far better on material already in its training data alongside lots of human analysis.
His sharper point: AI's knowledgeableness is easy to verify while its limited wisdom is not—perhaps wisdom is by definition hard to verify, unlike intelligence.
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