“Think of how stupid the average person is; and realize that half of them are stupider than that.” – George Carlin

I’m pretty sure we’ll never fully sort out a usable understanding of the human mind. Mostly, because we’re stupid. Stupidity introduces a randomness to life and, in that stupidity, we’ll remain unsolvable and always have an advantage over AI (or the stupid new acronym “SI”). Being non-stupid is core to the AI mission. People?  Not so much.

Sure, we’ve split the atom, mapped the human genome, and sent rocket ships to explore the depths of outer space. We routinely perform open-heart surgery, build skyscrapers, and create machines that aggregate all known things and beam them into an iPhone.

Yet, somewhere out there, someone is trying to light their Halloween decoration by inserting a CR2032 battery upside down. And they’re pissed about it. Present company excluded…

That’s the “human” part of the human race: unlimited potential paired with an unlimited capacity to do the absolutely ridiculous.

The Quest for Non-Stupidity

We comfort ourselves in the belief our intelligence separates us from the lesser animals. Squirrels aren’t out there sending emails to dodge a meeting, and pigeons have never used a particle accelerator to discover Higgs boson.

But, then there’s messy reality. We walk into a room and forget why we went there. We open the refrigerator then stare into its depths, expecting a life-changing snack to appear between the milk and the half-eaten cucumber. We search for our glasses while wearing them on our heads, then blame the cat when we can’t find the remote.

Now before you get indignant with me, I don’t exempt myself from the scrutiny. From jumping bicycles as a boy (it was the Evel Knievel era after all), to racing in cars that were well beyond my skillset as a young man, to climbing and cutting rotten trees with a chainsaw in adulthood, only a merciful higher power kept my stupidity from getting me unceremoniously plucked from the gene pool.

Add alcohol, and hoo-wee!

Technology and Stupidity

Technology was supposed to make us more non-stupid by putting the endless wisdom all history in the palm of our hand. Instead, it’s provided new and exciting ways for us to embarrass ourselves.

We carry supercomputers in our pockets, yet mostly use them to watch strangers eat, argue with people we’ve never met, debate whether a tomato is technically a fruit, and invent alternate realities for ourselves. One day we’re legal experts; the next, physicians, ASE-certified mechanics, Bobby Flay, head coaches, or general managers.

If I have to have a past, then I prefer it to be multiple choice

Another couple of things that crack me up: We ask AI agents questions we could answer ourselves given 10 seconds of “strenuous” thought. “What was the name of the guy who jumped out of that airplane with all the money and was never caught?”

We issue commands then become personally offended when the device misunderstands us. “Alexa, play some relaxing music.” She responds by playing a Quiet Riot montage.

Of course, we then shout at the machine, because nothing says we’re non-stupid quite like losing an argument with a Bluetooth speaker.

Then, there’s autocorrect. The dreaded autocorrect. The digital equivalent of an unsupervised toddler. It changes perfectly reasonable messages into linguistic disasters, then leaves me to explain why I apparently wished someone a relaxing evening with suspiciously specific poultry.

For the record, there really IS a good fried chicken restaurant on Fangboner Road in Ohio.

The Confidence of the Clueless: Dunning-Kruger Effect

One of the most impressive of human achievements is the ability to be completely wrong with absolute confidence. Gilded stupidity.

Ask a non-stupid person a complicated question and they’ll explain the uncertainties, discuss the evidence, and acknowledge what remains unknown. Maybe they’ll kick around a few probabilities and their associated magnitudes.

Ask someone who watched a five-minute YouTube video, and you’ll receive a lecture, a conspiracy theory, and an invitation to stop being so fill-in-the-blank phobic.

We’ve managed to develop a culture in which admitting ignorance is more embarrassing than demonstrating it. A cluster of mountaineers scaling the Peak of Mount Stupid. So, we bluff. We improvise. We invent facts on the spot and sell them with the conviction of a biblical martyr.

The great tradition of Everyday Stupidity

Stupidity doesn’t always announce itself with fanfare. It hangs around wearing comfortable shoes every day. Never getting tired or bored. Ever buy gym memberships and then drive around the parking lot looking for the closest space? How about buying software to improve your personal productivity and spending the better part of a month researching which personal productivity software is best?

Life is awfully short, but we voluntarily spend three hours arguing with strangers about whether Dan Marino was better than Tom Brady, or if an elf could beat a dinosaur in a fight. Which reminds me… would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?

Stupidity is a tradition, like pumpkin pie in the fall, Christmas trees for the Holidays, and zapping your hand with a 110 current because you weren’t going to walk all the way to the breaker box.

In Conclusion…

I’ll wrap this up with a Cippola’s (humorous?) Five Laws of Stupidity:

1. Always, and inevitably, non-stupid people underestimate the number of stupid people in circulation.  No matter how many stupid people you suspect are surrounding you, you are invariably low-balling the total
2. The probability of a person being stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person
3. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid people
4. Non-stupid people constantly forget that dealing or associating with stupid people frequently turns out to be a costly mistake
5. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of people, while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

Cynical, for sure. But there are some grains of truth tucked in there. 😉

We make stupid mistakes, learn absolutely nothing from them, and then make slightly different stupid mistakes with renewed enthusiasm. We stumble through life powered by Monster Energy and misplaced confidence, inspired to move forward by the occasional moment of genuine brilliance.

The more I think about it, stupidity isn’t the opposite of intelligence. It’s just the side effect of having a brain capable of imagining a thousand possibilities, including those that are spectacularly terrible.

So, the next time you do something stupid, take comfort in knowing you’re participating in one of humanity’s oldest and most inclusive traditions. I know I will.