Making the case for context-aware AI
I keep coming back to the idea that context is the hardest part of intelligence, far harder than raw reasoning. We can build a model that knows every supply chain statistic in the world, but if it doesn't know that your warehouse manager only trusts deliveries on Tuesdays because of an old union handshake deal, it's going to make a technically perfect suggestion that nobody follows. That's the real frontier.
What excites me is that this pushes AI away from the clean, abstract world of math and into the fuzzy, contradictory domain of human institutions. It means we'll have to get comfortable with AI that asks clarifying questions, admits when it's out of its depth, and maybe even changes its mind based on office gossip. That's a far stranger and more interesting future than one where machines just get faster at predicting things.
I'd want to know how we're going to gather that context without turning every workplace into a surveillance panopticon. The line between "AI understands our culture" and "AI is monitoring our every move" is going to blur, and that's a conversation we should start having before the vendors do it for us.