April 16, 2025
I’ve been obsessed with expectations lately.
Not the “I expect you to do better” kind. The cognitive kind. The automatic predictions your brain makes about what’s going to happen next.
Because here’s what’s wild—your brain is constantly predicting the future. Constantly. And you don’t even realize it’s happening.
Expectations Are Predictions
Here’s what I realized: Expectations are predictions based on beliefs.
When you walk into a meeting with Client A, your brain automatically predicts:
- How they’ll greet you
- What they’ll want to talk about
- How long the meeting will take
- Whether they’ll be happy or frustrated
You don’t consciously think through these predictions. They just happen. Based on your accumulated beliefs about this client.
And here’s the key: What happens next is measured against that expectation.
If Client A is friendlier than expected → Positive surprise → Updates your belief about them
If Client A is more frustrated than expected → Negative surprise → Updates your belief about them
If Client A acts exactly as expected → Confirmation → Strengthens your existing belief
This Is How Humans Learn
Through expectation violations.
But AI agents? They don’t form expectations. So they can’t learn from violations.
Every interaction is equally surprising (or equally unsurprising). There’s no baseline to measure against.
Example
You tell an AI: “Client A usually responds within an hour.”
Next day, Client A takes 6 hours to respond.
A human would think: “Hmm, that’s unusual. Something might be wrong. I should check in.”
An AI would think: “Client A responded.” (No expectation. No violation. No learning.)
This is the missing piece.
What I’m Building
An AI that forms expectations based on its beliefs, then updates those beliefs based on whether reality matched the expectation.
The AI learns:
- “I expected Client A to respond in 1 hour (based on 10 past interactions)”
- “They actually responded in 6 hours”
- “This violates my expectation”
- “Either my belief was wrong, or something unusual is happening”
Over time, the AI gets better at predicting. Not because I programmed every scenario, but because it’s learning from expectation violations.
The Difference Between Novice and Expert
The difference between a novice and an expert isn’t knowledge. It’s the quality of their expectations.
Experts know what “normal” looks like. So they notice immediately when something’s off.
AI should work the same way.
If your AI doesn’t form expectations, it can’t learn from surprises. And surprises are where the learning happens.
How does your AI handle unexpected outcomes? Does it even know what “unexpected” means?