The rear view mirror
It’s almost impossible to safely drive a car while only looking in the rear view mirror. Only seeing where you’ve been is a terrible way to figure out where to go.
But it’s really unsafe to go forward with no idea of what came before.
AI plods along into the future, using machine learning to closely examine the past.
And radical visionaries often slam into unforeseen obstacles precisely because they failed to do the reading.
Somewhere in between is a useful set of tactics.