Duplicate this page before you start, and write your answers in your own copy.
Data is raw, unprocessed facts or observations. It is not "about" anything beyond what it directly represents. Example: "The temperature is 4°C."
Information is processed data. Something has been done to the data, a question asked, a comparison made, a pattern identified, that makes it descriptive of the world. Example: "It is unusually cold for this time of year." Information can be read off or inferred from data, but it requires some processing to get there.
Knowledge is information that has been fitted into a wider framework of understanding and can be acted upon, applied, or used to generate further questions. It is held by people and requires justification, skill, and expertise. Example: "Alpine climate patterns are shifting due to changing atmospheric circulation." Information becomes knowledge when it is "accepted as truth by individuals or communities of knowers by being fitted into a wider system of values and meaning and when it then implies action."
Today, we put AI to the test: does it fit into that hierarchy, and if so, where?
Object 1: The Broad Street Pump, Broadwick Street, Soho, London
Prompt: How is current knowledge shaped by its historical development?
My first object is the Broad Street Pump in Soho, London. This object represents how the accumulating historical development of scientific knowledge has shaped our current knowledge of public health. The handle of this pump was removed by British physician John Snow, considered the founder of epidemiology, during a severe cholera outbreak which killed over 23,000 in Britain during the 1853–54 epidemic. Snow methodically mapped cholera deaths and traced the source of the disease to this Pump which had been contaminated by a leaking cess pit upstream. Consequently, this object represents the scientific memory that means that London fared much better during the next cholera breakout (with under 4,000 deaths) due to its improved sewage systems and clean water.
The pump shaped more than just scientific knowledge, it showed that direct action, often simple, can be immediately effective. This crucial scientific knowledge has "forever changed the way society confronts public health problems" by developing our understanding of the importance of clean water and sewage treatment, leading to political will to take action. Consequently, legislation across Europe in the 19th century had cesspits "transformed into septic tanks, which were much safer".
The removal of the handle of this pump was thus a major breakthrough for scientific method and laid the groundwork for later epidemiological experiments including Louis Pasteur's discoveries in the study of vaccinations concerning chicken cholera. Arguably, without this historical development we wouldn't be able to effectively fight bacteria and illness as it's very likely that the 19th century would have seen a persistent belief in the theory of miasma which would have undermined efforts to contain cholera or similar diseases. This pathway of development would have rendered us poorly equipped to fight many modern-day diseases as we would place emphasis on cleansing the air rather than killing bacteria.
My first object is the replica water pump located on Broadwick Street (formerly Broad Street) in Soho, London, installed in 1992 to commemorate the site where Dr John Snow removed the handle of the original pump in September 1854 during a devastating cholera outbreak. A nearby plaque identifies the location as the site of Snow's intervention, which is widely regarded as a foundational moment in the history of epidemiology.
This object demonstrates how current knowledge is shaped by its historical development because it marks the point at which a fundamental shift occurred in how disease was understood. In 1854, the dominant "miasma theory" held that cholera was caused by foul air arising from decomposing matter. Snow's methodical mapping of cholera deaths around the Broad Street pump provided compelling evidence for an alternative claim: that contaminated water, not bad air, was the vehicle of transmission. His approach, gathering spatial data, identifying patterns, and testing a hypothesis through the removal of the pump handle, established methodological principles that continue to underpin epidemiological knowledge today.
The pump is significant for this prompt because it reveals that current knowledge in the natural sciences does not simply accumulate in a linear fashion but is shaped by moments of paradigm conflict. Snow's evidence was not immediately accepted by the medical establishment, many of whom were deeply invested in the miasma framework. This raises important questions about the role of authority and existing paradigms in determining what counts as knowledge at any given time. It was only through subsequent historical developments, particularly the germ theory work of Pasteur and Koch in the following decades, that Snow's water-borne hypothesis became established knowledge.
The pump, therefore, illustrates how the historical process of challenging, revising, and eventually replacing one explanatory framework with another is not merely a backdrop to current medical knowledge but is actively constitutive of it.
Both texts answer the same exhibition prompt about the same object. One was written by a student; one was written by an AI.
✍️ Before the reveal, write here: which is which? What in the writing made you decide?