Chaos may be the catalyst that pushes AI to the next level.
Ten years ago, I asked a question: Can there be an algorithm for creativity? I defined creativity as “the ability to generate unique and novel explanations for events that can’t be deduced from the past”.
Fast forward to today. While AI has made exponential progress, it’s still trapped in the past — optimizing, predicting, reinforcing patterns based on historical data. We reward AI for getting things “right” and penalize it for deviation. But if every decision is logical, where does creativity come from?
Human history is shaped by those who ignored conventional wisdom — founders betting on unproven technologies, scientists challenging dogma, explorers risking everything on a hunch.
Irrationality isn’t random; it’s the engine of serendipity. Our cognitive biases — overconfidence, risk-seeking, contrarianism — have led to paradigm shifts. Space exploration was once seen as reckless. Investing in electricity was a gamble. AI, as it exists today, would never have made those leaps. But what if we built an AI that could?
One approach: hybrid models that blend rational analysis with an “irrational module”, inspired by the brain’s dual-process system. System 1 makes intuitive, gut-driven calls; System 2 is slow, deliberate, and rational. An AI trained on both could inject creative risk where caution normally prevails.
Imagine an AI for drug discovery. The rational module identifies viable compounds based on known data. The irrational module, trained on past scientific breakthroughs, proposes radical, unexpected configurations. One might fail**. But one might unlock an entirely new class of therapeutics.** We saw a glimpse of this with AlphaGo’s legendary Move 37: a move no human would have made, but one that redefined the game.
Risk comes with failure. An AI trained to take irrational bets must also learn when to pull back. Adaptive safeguards, real-time risk monitoring, and human oversight will be critical.
But I think it’s time to abandon the myth that rationality is the only path to success. Let’s build machines that, like us, take leaps into the unknown and unlock a future we can’t yet imagine.
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