AI is Throwing a Roadside Picnic

I recently finished a philosophical science-fiction novel by Soviet authors Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky called “Roadside Picnic”. Aliens visit certain places on Earth; those places (“the zones”) become riddled with alien artifacts that are incomprehensible to humans, and an entire subculture and black market develop around discovering and re-selling those artifacts. As an example, they found eternal accumulators (called “so-so” or “«этак»” in the original) that people would procure to power their cars and houses. Yet, they didn’t understand how they worked.Roadside Picnic — Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Cover: Apple Books.One of the scientist characters in the book suggests that the alien visit can be understood as a sort of a “roadside picnic”:But what about the Visitation? What do you think about the Visitation?”“My pleasure. Imagine a picnic.”Noonan shuddered.“What did you say?”“A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car drives off the country road into…