Thursday, February 26, 2026

Knowing and Understanding

We’ve all said, “I’ve got this.” But do we really? Our safety depends on it

By Michael Schroeder Hubert, CLAC Training Manitoba Program Manager

Have you ever had someone tell you, “Yeah, don’t worry, I know how to do it.”? As a parent, I’ve heard that from my kids a lot.

Do you always get the result that you hoped for when you hear someone tell you,” Yeah, I know how to do it.”? Sometimes, the result is very different than the result that you intended because the person doesn’t understand what to do even though they think that they know what to do.

Recently, I had another interaction that made me think about the difference between knowing and understanding. I’m working on creating some PowerPoint presentations of material that I have in text form. I’m using an AI tool to try to speed up the process. I’m pretty new to using AI, so I’ve been doing some learning on how to communicate with AI.

One task that I asked the AI tool to do was to generate an image of the tools that are needed to prep a window opening in a house under construction. I gave it the list of tools that I wanted in the image: Utility knife, red construction tape, peel-and-stick flashing, caulking gun and silicone, and a hammer tacker. For those of you who haven’t used a hammer tacker before, it is a cross between a stapler and a hammer that is swung like a hammer to slam a staple into a surface. A hammer tacker stores staples in the handle and advances them one at a time like a stapler each time you hit a surface. These are the two styles of hammer tacker:

Both work by the momentum of the swing causing a staple to come out the end.

When I asked AI for an image of a hammer tacker, this is what AI generated for me:

AI knows that a hammer tacker is a form of stapler that looks like a hammer. It has these two competing images of what it should look like based on its name, so it comes up with this image.

I gave the AI more context to see if it could come up with a better representation of a hammer tacker. I asked it to generate an image with all the tools (including a hammer tacker) needed to prep and install a window opening.

Above shows that the AI interpreted a hammer tacker to be staple gun. But a staple gun is not best tool for the task. A hammer tacker lets you work faster.

So, I kept giving the AI suggestions for what I wanted the image to include: an actual hammer tacker.

I even included an image of an actual hammer tacker for the AI to use as a reference.

But the image kept getting more and more strange. The AI could not seem to get past what it knows:

The AI knows that a hammer has a handle and head that hits things.
The AI knows that a stapler has a handle that needs to be pushed to release a staple.
The AI was trapped by needing to represent each of these components in the image that it created.

What the AI does not understand is the function of the hammer tacker and how it works that requires it to be the shape that it actually is.

AI Lessons for Safety

When it comes to safety, we can’t rely on hoping that people “know” what to do. Just like with AI, what each person knows may be quite different, and sometimes our backgrounds or experiences may cause us to see things only in a certain way.

What is critical is that people understand how to work safely and understand why that is important. We don’t get a second chance when working around hazards. Do it wrong and you may be irreparably hurt or even killed.

Here are a couple of suggestions to ensure that people can keep themselves as safe as possible around hazards:

Get them to repeat instructions back to you to confirm that they know what they have been told to do.
Ask the follow up question, “Do you understand why we do it that way?”

If they can’t repeat what they’ve been told or can’t tell you why it is important to do it that way, they probably won’t be able to do the task safely. Try giving the message in a different way to make sure that they truly do understand what you are talking about.

P.S. If someone on the crew is still looking for the board stretcher or the left-handed screwdriver, AI’s got you covered. Here are some pictures to help with the search:

Knowing and Understanding

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