It’s 2025, so now every educational experience comes with a big sticker slapped on it that says “Now with AI!” So I thought I’d propose my own confirmed scientific bachelor sworn to never reproduce.

Treacherous water crossings have been my theme this week: the frog and the scorpion. But here are some other notable treacherous water crossings:

• The Tacoma Narrows Bridge
• D-day
• Jason and the Argonauts
• The Titanic
• Apollo 9
• The Middle Passage
• The Tempest
• Salmon runs
• Paleolithic migration
• Undersea networks, offshore drilling (1000s of scientific-technical water crossings–it’s kinda their deal)
• Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Challenger (e.g. Humanity’s greatest hits)
• The Ship of Theseus, the ship of fools, Noah’s Ark, yada, yada
• Here comes the flood, global pandemics, climate change, wee!
• Lethe

I’m just spitballing a little bit. But I’m talking about aporias and the aporetic quality of AI, which requires the services of the human looper to be the “chicken who crosses the road,” or, following this week’s theme, to “Carry on! Elysian.” Getting the BS of AI’s treacherous water crossings begins with the Meno-inspired proclamation that once complete students will have learned to look both ways. Or as Thom Yorke puts it. “I can go anywhere I want. All I have to do is turn myself inside out and back to front.” Hmmm. If I’m going to teach students to look both ways (before they cross), I could add Hedwig and the Angry Inch to the curriculum.

In the end, it’s all about the final crossing into the undiscovered country anyway. It’s not the final anyone wants to pass. So everyone is always requesting extensions while obscuring their intentions (to themselves). I’m Gumby dammit!

Maybe I can apply for a founding grant from the royal society for the prevention of metaphorical waterborne accidents.