Why do even top-tier AI engineers struggle to forecast the explosive growth of systems they themselves created? The answer lies in a fundamental quirk of human cognition: our brains are wired to process linear progression, not exponential expansion. We naturally expect things to grow in straight lines, but transformative technologies explode along curves that our intuition simply can't grasp. This cognitive blindspot causes researchers and architects to repeatedly underestimate breakthrough capabilities. As the saying goes—and it captures this perfectly—most people dramatically miscalculate where exponential systems will land, because we're stuck thinking in incremental steps rather than multiplicative jumps. The gap between our linear instincts and exponential reality keeps catching even the brightest minds off guard.