Why being "smart" is making you dumb
I'm about to tell you something that will make every expert in your field uncomfortable.
Last week, I was on a call with a technical engineer and product manager from a publicly-traded company you could buy stock in right now. We were discussing tech stacks, and when they asked what platform we were using, I decided to test something.
I made up a random company name on the spot.
Instead of asking follow-up questions or admitting they hadn't heard of it, they immediately jumped in: "Yeah, those guys are doing an extremely good job. I totally understand why you picked them."
They said it multiple times. With complete confidence. About a company that doesn't exist.
This isn't just about two professionals trying to save face. It's about a dangerous pattern that's happening everywhere, and it's about to cost the smartest people their competitive edge.
The Dirty Secret About Expertise
Let me share two research findings that will change how you think about knowledge forever.
The Fake Knowledge Experiment
Researchers ran a brutal experiment. They took 5,000+ participants across finance, law, and medicine. The fields where expertise literally saves lives and fortunes.
Then they did something devious. They mixed real industry terms with completely made-up ones. Terms that sounded legitimate but were total fabrications.
Pam-pam-paaaaaam → Experts claimed they knew the bogus terms just as confidently as the real ones.
Why? Because admitting ignorance feels like professional suicide. So they faked it.
The people we trust most: doctors, lawyers, financial advisors. They all are walking around with pockets full of fake knowledge they're too proud to admit they don't understand.
The AI Resistance Paradox
Another research tracking 3,000 professionals found something that should terrify every "expert": the better you are at your job, the less likely you are to use AI tools.
While everyone else is experimenting with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI assistants, the top performers are sitting on the sidelines. They think they don't need help.
They're wrong.
The Perfect Storm of Stupidity
Now combine these two facts and you get what Charlie Munger would call a "lollapalooza effect" - multiple biases creating a massive blind spot.
The most "knowledgeable" people in every field are:
Overconfident in what they actually know
Filling knowledge gaps with educated guesses (that are often wrong)
Refusing to use tools that could make them exponentially better
Creating the perfect conditions for expensive mistakes
The Humility Advantage
In the age of AI, being unsure of yourself might be your biggest competitive advantage.
While experts are doubling down on their potentially flawed knowledge, humble people are:
Using AI as a thinking partner - Not to replace their judgment, but to challenge it. They're asking AI to poke holes in their arguments, find information they missed, and suggest alternatives they hadn't considered.
Double-checking everything - Including AI output. They know AI hallucinates, so they verify. They also know humans hallucinate (we call it "being confidently wrong"), so they verify that too.
Reducing both types of errors - They're catching AI mistakes AND human mistakes. The experts? They're only catching AI mistakes while missing their own.
The New Rules of the Game
The old game was about accumulating knowledge and guarding it jealously. The new game is about combining human judgment with AI capability.
Old way: "I'm the expert. Trust me."
New way: "I'm the expert at knowing what questions to ask and how to verify the answers—whether they come from AI or my own brain."
Your Move
If you're reading this and thinking "I don't need AI, I'm already successful," you're proving my point.
Your biggest competition isn't other experts who think like you.
It's the humble person with AI who admits they don't know everything and uses that admission as fuel to learn faster, think clearer, and move quicker than you ever thought possible.
The question isn't whether you're smart enough to succeed without AI. The question is whether you're smart enough to succeed with it.