We already expect that humans to exhibit flashes of brilliance. It might not happen all the time, but the act itself is welcomed and not altogether disturbing when it occurs. What about when Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to display an act of novelty? Any such instance is bound to get our attention; questions arise right away. How did the AI come up with the apparent out-of-the-blue insight or novel indication? Was it a mistake, or did it fit within the parameters of what the AI was expected to produce?

Are there things that we must not know? This is an age-old question. Some assert that there is the potential for knowledge that ought to not be known. In other words, there are ideas, concepts, or mental formulations that should we become aware of that knowledge it could be our downfall. The discovery or invention of some new innovation or way of thinking could be unduly dangerous. It would be best to not go there, as it were, and avoid ever landing on such knowledge: forbidden knowledge.

Mice can be amazingly smart, mightily so. We all would likely agree that mice are quick on their feet and physically agile. On a personal level, I've dealt with mice that decided to take up residence at my home and were determined to stay without my permission and without paying any rent. Upon witnessing a mouse running around in my domicile, I rushed over to the local store and got an everyday mousetrap. Turns out that the mice avoided the thing and probably got quite a laugh at my having set it up to begin with.

Imagine that you are driving your car and come upon a dog that has suddenly darted into the roadway. Most of us have had this happen. You hopefully were able to take evasive action. Assuming that all went well, the pooch was fine and nobody in your car got hurt either. In a kind of Groundhog Day movie manner, let's repeat the scenario, but we will make a small change. Imagine that you are driving your car and come upon a deer that has suddenly darted into the roadway. Fewer of us have had this happen, though nonetheless, it is a somewhat common occurrence for those that live in a region that has deer aplenty.

That's what often happens when people take on debt. Shakespeare famously warned us about the dangers of going into debt, stating that "neither a borrower nor a lender is; for loan doth oft lose both itself and friend." For some people that become swamped by debt, they find themselves sinking into an all-encompassing abyss. The debt impacts them, their loved ones, their friends and acquaintances, and otherwise bodes for indubitably rotten tidings. Sometimes, a person is oblivious to their mounting debt. I know that seems nearly impossible to imagine. What can happen is that the person starts making zillions of charges on their credit cards, and they meanwhile delude themselves into not realizing there will ultimately be unfavorable consequences. The piper, though, will eventually need to be paid. Credit card agencies often make life especially easy for those that wantonly are apt to spend.

Imagine a scenario involving a coy bit of spy craft. A friend of yours wants to write down a secret and pass along the note to you. There is dire concern that an undesirable interloper might intercept the note. As such, the secret is first encrypted before being written down, and thus will be inscrutable to anyone that intervenes. All told, the message will look scrambled or seem like gobbledygook. You have the password or key needed to decrypt the message. After the note has passed through many hands, it finally reaches you. The fact that many others saw and ostensibly were able to read the note is of no consequence.

Ransomware is being continually mentioned in the daily news and appears to be an unstoppable fiendish craze. Perhaps the recent attack of ransomware on the Colonial Pipeline received the most rapt attention since it led to concerns over gasoline shortages and caused quite a stir among the general public. When ransomware is used against a particular bank or hospital or school, this normally doesn't have quite the same widespread disruption as did the fuel pipeline incident. The thing is, we are probably going to see a lot more ransomware being fielded and doing so against all manner of businesses and governmental entities. Some would assert that we are only so far at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ransomware hacks. Part of the reason why you can expect more use of ransomware is that it is relatively easy for an evildoer to deploy the computer hacking scourge. Whereas the perpetrator used to need to have some keen computer skills, that's not the case anymore. Sadly, ransomware programs can be cheaply purchased online via the so-called dark web, opening the floodgates to just about any determined villain. As a point of clarification, not every use of ransomware is successful.

There's an old proverb that dates back to at least the year 1670 and declares that sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. A more modern and altogether familiar version is the assertion that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. That's a saying that we all know well. In today's world, this ostensibly suggests that something applicable in one instance is likely applicable in another (consult your favored online dictionary for further elaboration). I often highlight cutting-edge technology bringing about AI-based true self-driving cars. I like to highlight foundational R&D work taking place in research labs that are focused on creating autonomous vehicles. The thing is, a lot of the autonomous tech will also end up in human-driven cars too. Many assume that the tech devised to aid AI-based autonomous driving would solely be used by autonomous driving vehicles.

You undoubtedly know what a zipper merge is, though the name of it might seem unfamiliar. Imagine you are driving along on the highway, minding your own business, when you spy up ahead an indication that your lane is being narrowed out and you'll need to get over into the other lane next to you. An electronic board sign is flashing warnings that your existing lane is going to end soon ("Merger Ahead" it veritably screams at you). In addition, a series of weather-worn red cones are set up in your lane that inch you over, step-by-step, and are positioned to gradually shunt all traffic out of the lane you are in. It is the classic 2-into-1 traffic control squeeze play. This is also commonly known as the zipper merge because it looks like a zipper as cars are pinned into veering from two lanes into one. Anyone that drives around with any frequency is apt to encounter these 2-into-1 situations on any given day and during any given driving journey.

The existing and ongoing pell-mell rush to get AI systems out-the-door is worrisome. There is a potential price to be paid for the flimsy assumption that soonest AI is the best kind of AI. For example, some have put together contact tracing apps that have AI capabilities to bolster the intended functionality of slowing or preventing the spread of the infectious virus, but insufferably those same apps oftentimes are privacy intrusion nightmares. Had there been concentrated attention toward incorporating AI Ethics precepts, perhaps those scurrying to push out an AI beneficial application would have been more likely to consider the downsides of their creation too. For clarification, AI Ethics is a set of ethics-oriented guidelines or principles that offer guidance when designing, building, testing, fielding, and maintaining an AI system.