After a colleague asked what AI looks like, the author initially dismissed the question, assuming AI was an impenetrable "black box." That night, unable to sleep, the author began investigating by asking ChatGPT to explain major research papers and to "explain like I'm five." The author reached a tentative conclusion that if you scratched away at AI, you got "numbers" arrayed in "massive grids: neat rows and columns," leading to the realization that AI was basically "spreadsheets." ChatGPT confirmed, "Yes, that’s fair. Spreadsheets with special plumbing." However, the next day, unease returned as the author wondered how such spreadsheets could talk, wanting to understand how AI worked in action. The author recalled a pronouncement from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who wrote: "People outside the field are often surprised and alarmed to learn that we do not understand how our own AI creations work."