We are likely to see more and more “chaotic mess” solutions in the coming decades. We will need to confront complex problems in ways that are discerning, real-time, responsive, and adaptive. We will need systems capable of doing things that no single designer, however masterful, could envision—things far beyond an individual planner’s capacity to comprehend and control, just as the intricate structure of ant colonies is beyond the single ant’s 250,000-neuron brain.
