Children from the regions of Armenia provide the local IT community  with the largest library of cognitive biases

ArmInfo.  In the summer of 2020, a free project was launched - UXCore, which is the largest library of cognitive biases (thinking patterns) with over 1000 examples for use. The author of this project was an Armenian Wolf  Aleksanyan, who has over  17 years of experience  in information  technology (B2G, B2B, crypto) for more than 17 years. Aleksanyan  released UXCore (UX - user experience, Core - core) under the GFDL  license, allowing anyone to use it for non-commercial purposes. The  project is available in English and Russian, which, among other  things, has attracted the attention of the global IT community and  sparked heated discussion. Today, UXCore is popular, including in  Silicon Valley. Wolf Aleksanyan mentioned in an interview with an  ArmInfo correspondent that the project has received high praise from  influential people in the industry, representing conglomerates as  Google, Amazon, etc.

In total, the library consists of 105 cognitive distortions with  their own names, along with  short, simpler, descriptions for  perception than what can be found in other sources and examples of  use. It is noteworthy that this material is focused on the field of  software development, that is, software, as well as on HR management.  However, this does not mean at all that the presented content cannot  be applied to any other type of activity. "In other words, you can be  completely unrelated to IT, but since operations, that is, company  management, is something universal, then cognitive distortions can be  used, in principle, in anything," the author of the project noted.   In total, there are approximately two hundred cognitive distortions  in the world. However, according to Aleksanyan, exploring these 105  patterns presented in UXCore will be more than sufficient in terms of  increasing one's self-awareness. However, the reason for the meeting  was not the success of the UXCore project, much less Aleksanyan's  achievements, which he categorically refused to talk about, but the  launch of this project in Armenian. It is worth mentioning, that the  students of the Armenian social and educational NGO (MEM) took on the task of translating this complex   material.

Children VS Armenian IT community

In 2023, Wolf Aleksanyan was approached by one of the MEM  coordinators, Artur Hakobyan, who offered to translate the project  content  into Armenian with the help of children under his guidance.  It should be noted that the NGO's main focus  is to assist children  living in the regions by facilitating communication between them and  experts in the Armenian IT community  to develop their professional  and soft skills.  After a lengthy conversation, during which  Aleksanyan tried in every possible way to dissuade his interlocutor  from implementing this initiative - due to the complexity of the  material and the lack of specific terms in the Armenian language, the  latter turned out to be more persistent and convincing. "We are now  discussing a time when less than a year had passed since the release  of the widely discussed GPT chat. At that time, LLM worked very  poorly with the Armenian language, and  could not explain anything  due to cognitive distortions, simply because there was little  content, etc.," he said. As a result, the translation was ready by  early 2025. Of course, Hakobyan took on a significant portion of the  translation of the material, but at the same time he was in constant  direct contact with the children, creating materials for them in  Armenian, listening to their questions, and validating the processes.  Some of the children participated in the project directly, while  others participated indirectly: by listening to lectures, providing  feedback, giving comments, etc.

 "I really want the students who participated in this project to  receive their share of recognition for doing something exceptional.  And in my eyes, they are far above the vast majority of IT companies  in Armenia.  This is a fact, because I know the budgets of IT  companies in Armenia, I know how they spend their money. The  companies themselves rarely generate quality knowledge, and even less  frequently share it with our IT community. And, in the end, against  this backdrop, there is a group of children  who are doing something  incredibly cool. It is not just translating a text into Armenian,  they have literally created Armenian content for our nation for years  to come, on which LLMs and systems of the future will learn.  They  have done a very serious job, probably without fully realizing its  scale. Cognitive distortions will continue to be present with us, not  only now, but also in 100 years, and even in 500 years," Aleksanyan  explained.

The effect of Cognitive Biases on IT Growth in Armenia

In response to the correspondent's question about whether the use of  the cognitive bias library would increase the efficiency of Armenia's  IT sector, Aleksanyan noted that this is only possible if Armenian IT  influencers, whom people follow, understand the significance of the  project and promote it. More precisely, not the project itself, but  the idea. "I don't even need the project to be spread, it is much  more important to spread the concept. Influencers need to say that  children in the regions of Armenia have done many smart things, while  our IT community is not  Open Source at all. In general, we have very  few achievements in terms of Open Source in IT. Because, mostly,  everyone does something for themselves. I tried to promote this  concept, but my attempts were unsuccessful, I think because of the  mentality. But here you need to understand that even working for  yourself, you can generate a lot of benefits for society, a lot,"  assured Wolf Aleksanyan. Noting that the level of education in  Armenia is only gaining momentum, he drew attention to the fact that,  in turn, this narrows the interests of our IT community to a  discussion  which project where, how much money was raised.  Therefore, Aleksanyan was not initially interested in translating the  project into Armenian, simply because, as he thought, in Armenia few  people would understand the significance of such material, its value.  "That is, we are now talking about the fact that only a few percent  of people in Armenia can understand this project. Not from the  perspective of the text, but in the context of how to convert the  information written into their own business," he noted.

Mentality as a root cause

Aleksanyan believes that the mentality in Armenia is changing in some  sense. But in order for attitudes toward learning to change, in his  opinion, the right influencers are needed. "To my great regret, in  Armenia, some influencers are so greedy that they do not understand  how to use their  power for the benefit of people, rather than  themselves. If they do not understand this, they should consider  reading a book," he complained. Today, Aleksanyan is most interested  in redirecting Armenian society's focus from discussions of a  mercantile nature towards books, textbooks, and research.   Considering that the world is increasingly moving towards  globalization, which cannot be stopped because it is inherent to homo  sapiens, he emphasized that now is a very convenient time to  understand that a book is good thing. That is, as the expert noted,  to try to reformat your attitude towards literature, focusing on  scientific and technical works, rather than fiction. When asked  whether we need to learn  to live by books again, Aleksanyan noted  that we need to relearn how to learn. "Learning should be seen as  something incredibly cool and attractive. What I am saying now is  common sense and more than obvious for the IT capitals of different  countries. In places like Poland, Silicon Valley, Singapore and any  country or city with a high concentration of IT specialists, learning  is a completely normal process - people learn, share knowledge, work  on self-improvement," the author of the project noted. Only this  mindset, according to Aleksanyan, will help Armenia to be reasonably  compared to countries like Israel and other small countries that are  excelling in IT development.