You Have Arrived. — by Dan Lynn
By Dan Lynn
In 2003, I bought a BMW 530i.
It was a beautiful car. The Ultimate Driving Machine. Fully loaded.
The only complaint came from my seven-year-old son: there were no cup holders in the back seat. The salesperson explained, "This car is so nice that kids shouldn't even be allowed in it — never mind have drinks in it."
I thought that was funny.
My son didn't.
One thing the car did have was a navigation system — my first car with that technology.
Right after I got the car, I had to drive from New Jersey to Pittsburgh for my grandmother's funeral. I was a pallbearer.
My dad asked me if I wanted directions.
No, Dad. I have this new technology. Just give me the address of the funeral home.
"Are you sure you don't want directions?"
I'm sure. All I need is the address.
I put the address in and started driving. About six hours, and I would arrive about an hour early. The car drove better and smoother than any car I had ever driven. I had to be careful — I'd glance down and discover I was doing 100 miles per hour without even knowing it.
Soon I was winding through the streets of Pittsburgh, my navigation system directing me the whole way. It took me down a residential street, straight to a dead end, and calmly announced:
"You have arrived."
No funeral home in sight.
Panic set in. Oh my god. I am going to be late to my own grandmother's funeral. And I'm a pallbearer. Maybe the funeral home is on the other side of Pittsburgh. I have no idea. What do I do? I already gave the system the address, and this is where it brought me.
So I called the funeral home.
They knew exactly what had happened. The navigation maps assumed a road that had been planned was completed. It never was. Go around the block, they said. The funeral home is on the other side.
They were right. I made it. I was not late to my grandmother's funeral.
From that day on, I was Belt and Suspenders until the navigations systems improved. I used the navigation system plus I printed out directions and kept them on the passenger seat.
It's a funny story, but the lesson is serious, and it applies far beyond navigation systems.
New technology is wonderful. Use it. Enjoy it. Let it take you the whole way there.
Just don't trust it 100% — not yet. Every new technology has its version of the road that was never built: the failure its designers didn't anticipate, discovered at the worst possible moment. The time to find it is not when you're due somewhere that matters.
I think that's true of every new technology. And I think it's especially true right now, with AI. I use it every day, and it's remarkable. It will take you almost all the way there.
Be Belt and Suspenders anyway. Check the output.
Because "You have arrived" isn't always true. Sometimes you're just at a dead end, one block away — and it's up to you to know the difference.
Questions this Key Learning answers
How much should I trust AI when the stakes are high?
The author’s lesson is to use new technology without trusting it completely. AI can take a task almost all the way, but it may still produce an unanticipated failure at the worst moment. Our analysis adds that oversight should increase with the cost of error, using an independent check rather than relying on the same system again.
How do I check an AI answer without repeating its mistake?
Our analysis recommends checking important AI claims against original sources, not asking the same system again. A genuinely independent check matters because the system may simply repeat its original error. As the author puts it, being “Belt and Suspenders” means keeping another way to verify the output when arriving at the wrong answer would matter.
Why do reliable tools make people stop checking their work?
Our analysis describes automation bias: when a tool works reliably for long stretches, people may favor its answer and stop applying independent judgment. The author’s navigation system sounded certain even though it had reached a dead end. The deeper risk was not merely the bad map, but accepting “You have arrived” despite contradictory evidence in front of him.