Something to do with serendipity

AI has enabled us to find the exact solutions to many of our problems. There is no denying the benefit of exactitude. It doesn’t matter if your problem is technical or not; it doesn’t matter if you’re solving a complex problem or not; it doesn’t matter if you’re an expert on the subject or not. The reality is, AI can help you find the exact solution to your problem. But this exactitude comes at the cost of serendipity.

Searching Google, Stack Overflow, or even Reddit has the underappreciated benefit of finding favorable solutions by chance. Searching through results takes more time and requires more cognitive energy, but I ask the reader to think about how many times you found a novel solution to your problem—a solution you had no idea to look for at the onset. I’m willing to bet it happened more times than you can remember.

Sleuthing through results activates the brain’s creative bits. Instead of being a passive observer, the old approach demands that you be an active participant. You may get lucky and find a solution quickly, but more likely you’ll construct one from different sources. And let’s not forget the blissful feeling of finding a solution unnecessary when someone in the thread reveals an altogether simpler approach.

The old way is still available to us today. I would encourage the reader to remember all that was achieved before the age of AI—the near infinite ways of expression that were written out by hand. One might even find ways of using AI to surface serendipity by asking it to provide multiple answers—or, best of all, even better questions. Because in the era of artificial exactitude, one must deliberately seek out human serendipity.