I went looking for the Roman Bridge in Pollença.
Google Maps confidently guided me to a pin. I arrived exactly where it told me to go.
Only there was one problem.
It wasn’t the Roman Bridge.
It was an ordinary intersection with an ordinary bridge. The actual Roman Bridge was about a six-minute walk away.
At first, it felt like a simple navigation error. Then I realized something more interesting had happened.
This wasn’t just my prediction failing.
It was the algorithm’s.
For a few minutes, technology stopped being useful. The system that had promised certainty could no longer carry me forward.
So I did something AI couldn’t do for me.
I looked around.
I asked strangers for help in broken Spanish.
I laughed at myself.
I wandered.
I paid attention.
Ironically, the moment the algorithm failed was the moment my experience became more human.
I’ve been thinking a lot about prediction lately. AI is, at its core, a prediction machine. It predicts the next word, the fastest route, the most relevant product, the content you’ll probably enjoy. The better it predicts, the less uncertainty we experience.
But uncertainty isn’t always a bug.
Sometimes it’s where life begins.
If Google had taken me directly to the bridge, I would have seen the landmark and moved on. Instead, I had a conversation. I practiced a language I wouldn’t have spoken otherwise. I became more observant because I could no longer outsource my attention.
Prediction failure gave me something prediction couldn’t.
An experience.
It makes me wonder how often our best stories begin where our best predictions end.
What would happen if you intentionally turned off GPS in a new city?
Who would you meet?
What would you notice?
What version of yourself would have to show up?
As AI gets better at predicting the world for us, perhaps one of the most creative things we can do is occasionally allow ourselves to get a little lost.
Not because the destination matters less.
Because the human you become along the way matters more.
