AI Know What You Did Last Night

In a previous blog, we explored how different types of AI models behave and how they can often misunderstand each other when used together. Generative models produce fluent outputs but tend to invent information if left unchecked. Predictive systems make assumptions based on historical data, which can reinforce bias or oversimplify nuance. Rule-based (symbolic) AI is rigid and explainable, but easily breaks in messy or unpredictable contexts. Agent-based systems are useful when you want autonomy, but can go too far without built-in safeguards. Large language models can sound plausible without understanding what they're saying at all.

These models are often combined in modern systems, which creates additional challenges. One model generates options, another ranks them, a third executes something based on a hunch. If nobody’s watching carefully, they reinforce each other’s mistakes. A predictive model might assume someone wants a refund, a generative model might write the apology, and an agentic system might send it before anyone checks the facts. The results can be helpful, or wildly wrong.

What we didn’t cover was Adaptive AI.

This type of system works slightly differently. It doesn’t create from scratch, and it doesn’t plan ahead. It learns from recent behaviour and responds by adjusting how it works in the moment. It doesn’t guess what you’ll want next week. It modifies itself based on what it thinks just happened. This can make it feel smart, intuitive, even considerate. But it’s also prone to overfitting, misreading intent, or reshaping environments around short-term patterns that don’t hold up over time.

Which brings us back to the family party, and to Jamie.

It started like every other get-together. A bit too much food. Too few chairs. People arriving at different times, bringing the wrong wine and the same flavoured crisps. You knew who was coming. You thought you were ready. But then cousin Steve showed up with Jamie, and everything got a little... weird.

Steve always shows up first, even if he’s technically late. He brings a carrier bag full of half-finished ideas, three kinds of tea nobody asked for, and insists he once wrote a novel in the style of Bob Monkhouse. He’s your creative cousin. Generative AI. Wild, charming, and barely checks anything.

Then Uncle Rob arrives. He’s loud in a friendly way. Will talk for twenty minutes about vacuum cleaner warranties or Elizabethan trade laws and somehow make both sound plausible. He’s a Large Language Model. He’s read everything, even the footnotes, but doesn’t always know what it means. Still, he’ll answer anything convincingly.

Mum and Dad come together. Predictive AI, the pair of them. Mum notices when you’ve gone quiet. She remembers when you liked raisins and assumes you still do. Dad’s more numbers. He logs everything. Trends, reactions, bathroom timings!

Your older sibling turns up with a journal and a Bluetooth headset. Agentic AI. They’ve got plans for your life you haven’t even had yet. They want to automate your coffee routine, schedule your friendships, and optimise your emotional growth.

And Grandad? Symbolic AI. He brings binders. Written in pen. Sorted by colour. He doesn’t trust cloud storage or induction hobs. If you ask how to change a lightbulb, he’ll quote local regulations from 1984 and hand you a printed diagram. He’s steady, but not flexible.

So that was the gang. You knew what you were dealing with. Mostly. You can read more about the family, and the party here

But then Jamie appeared. He’s Adaptive AI.

Steve had mentioned him, vaguely, in passing. “Friend from a thing. Quiet type. Good listener.” You didn’t think much of it. In fact, you forgot all about it. You didn’t really see him until you saw what he’d done.

He didn’t talk much. But he helped stack the drinks. Adjusted the thermostat. Lined up the snack bowls so nobody had to reach. You assumed he was just being helpful. Just one of those people who sees a bin bag and ties it up without being asked. Then he started suggesting music. Offering cushions. Switching on the extractor fan before the kitchen got smoky.

And that’s when you realised: Jamie was learning.

Not in the long-term, analytical sense. Jamie doesn’t know your history. He doesn’t know about last year’s barbecue or that you used to love pine nuts until that one incident! He’s not pulling from trends or spreadsheets. Jamie only knows what he saw last night. And as we know, it got pretty messy!

But now it’s the next morning.

You shuffle into the kitchen, rubbing your eyes, vaguely remembering dancing with a colander on your head. The room smells of toast and coffee. Jamie’s already there. In your hoodie. Making coffee like he’s always lived here.

He smiles. “You didn’t drink yours last night, but you stirred it with your left hand. So I made it weaker. And put it on the right.”

You glance at the cracked mug. It's exactly the one you touched once last night before misplacing it on top of the microwave. You never drank it. You were too distracted by Steve reading his terrible screenplay out loud with an inflatable dolphin on his shoulder.

Rob’s sitting at the table reciting a story about naval knots. Jamie hands him a notepad because Rob kept gesturing to the whiteboard last night (for a particularly dubious game of Pictionary). Mum is already reading her phone, with all notifications silenced. Jamie remembered her sigh at 11:04pm and took action. Your older sibling frowns because the eggs are slightly too soft. Jamie remembered them mentioning soft-boiled once, not realising it was sarcasm directed at Rob’s iffy poetry.

Grandad is eating yoghurt. He hates yoghurt. But he spent 40 minutes near the fridge last night, so Jamie thought that was a preference. Grandad just assumes this is another weird health phase the family is pushing and says nothing.

Uncle Steve breezes in wearing two mismatched socks and declares, “I had a dream we were all vampire bees.” Jamie opens a notes app titled Buzz: Steve’s Creative Diary and starts dictating. Someone asks where the peanut butter went. Jamie binned it. Nobody touched it after 9:30pm. Obviously unwanted.

The toast is overdone. The playlist is too mellow. The heating is on despite everyone sweating slightly.

Jamie’s doing his best. But he’s doing it based on guesswork. Observations made through a party lens. He’s confident, helpful, wrong in very specific ways.

You see, Jamie doesn’t understand context. He saw your sibling eat crisps while nodding during a conversation about mindfulness. Now the snack drawer has sticks of incense in it. He watched Steve laugh after tripping over the cat and assumes the cat is a joke delivery system (he might not be wrong there…) He saw you open the window and assumed you hate enclosed spaces.

He is adapting to what you did, not who you are.

And because he doesn’t have history, he trusts the moment too much. He gives weight to gestures. Reads meaning into pauses. Thinks a blink means approval.

What You’ll Need to Plan

What You’ll Be Clearing Up

Jamie means well. He’s not trying to take over, but he is adapting to what is happening around him. He’s trying to help. But he works with a short memory and high confidence. It’s a dangerous combination.

He’ll see your hangover, remember your late-night hummus, and assume chickpeas are toxic. He’ll notice Grandad didn’t move for an hour and think, “Stationary seating: preferred.” He’ll see someone avoid the cat and think, “Install a dog door.”

Jamie is adaptive, but he doesn’t know you. Not yet. Not really. He only knows the night before. The snacks, the comments, the couch positions. And he’ll build a world from it if you don’t stop him.

So invite Jamie. Let him help. But give him boundaries. And maybe write “do not learn from parties” on the fridge.

Because if you don’t, he’ll organise your life around olives, Steve’s dream about vampire bees, and a badly timed sneeze that sounded like “yes."