Asking as Leadership: The First Lever of the AI Era

Chien Li-feng, former managing director of Google Taiwan, offers a sobering read on this wave of AI disruption: generative AI draws its power from public knowledge — and public knowledge is precisely what schools spend years teaching. That is why the first casualties are junior white-collar workers, often from elite universities. His prescription: do not outsource your brain; train what he calls the leadership of asking.

This is exactly why the 問用管造 (Ask · Use · Manage · Build) framework puts Ask first. Learn to Ask is not prompt technique; it is inquiry. How deeply you understand a problem determines how far AI can take you. At the basic level, you state your need clearly. At the proficient level, you push through multiple rounds toward the essence. At the advanced level, you bring an expert's framework into the room — letting AI scout the terrain inside a master's coordinate system.

When the cost of answers approaches zero, the quality of questions becomes the entire premium. The most valuable person in an organization will not be the best answerer, but the best definer of problems.

Technology depreciates. Attitude compounds — and asking is attitude made visible.