By Futurist Thomas Frey
When the Questions Never Stop
We’ve spent seven columns exploring what happens when AI applies maximum curiosity to everything: history traced backward infinitely, genealogy mapped completely, ownership chains exposed to their origins, ideas revealed as endless recombination, existence itself questioned to its foundations, and consequences modeled forward without limit.
Each investigation revealed the same pattern: there is no natural stopping point. Every answer generates new questions. Every door opened reveals more doors behind it.
This seemed like pure benefit—more knowledge, deeper understanding, better foresight. Isn’t unlimited curiosity exactly what we want from AI?
But there’s a problem we haven’t addressed directly. A problem that emerges from the very logic of maximum curiosity combined with recursive self-improvement.
Without someone imposing limits from outside, an AI system built on these principles doesn’t just ask better questions. It becomes trapped in an accelerating spiral of questioning that can never be satisfied.
This isn’t a bug. It’s a fundamental characteristic of the design.
And it needs a name.
Continue reading… “Maximum Curiosity Part 8 – Living in the Question: The Frey Paradox”