“Prepare for the unexpected!” they say. This is another example of the kind of the thing done with language all the time, an utterance that doesn’t make any sense at all, but which, perhaps lamentably, everyone understands. When we prepare for the unexpected, whatever the unexpected was before we started preparing for it is, now, of course, expected. We can only prepare for the expected. Preparing for the unexpected is a chimera, but an interesting one because it hints at the critical distinction between training and education, between problem solving and thinking.

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I sometimes entertain the idea that I might “just” be AI of some sort, which is unnerving in the same way that “it is only a simulation” theories are. Sometimes I imagine the AI CEOs are themselves AI. This is not too much of a stretch considering the unnaturally high levels of obtuse awkwardness exhibited by Zuck, Elon, Altman, the whole lot really, when interacting with regular humans with only natural intelligence.

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It is easier for people to simply obey the rules rather than understand the intent expressed by the rule’s existence. More difficult still is to understand the need for the rules in the first place. I’m using “rules” here to stand in for a rather wide category of artifacts: instructions, methods, algorithms, legal structures, moral guidelines, etc. People have a need for rules, in order to account for the past and (re)design the future.

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