When a World Model’s prediction fails, we don’t call it a failure. We call it an “anomaly.” We retrain, we patch, we move on. But we should be conducting an autopsy. Not on the code, but on the corpse of the future-that-didn’t-happen. Why did reality refuse to follow the script? What flesh-and-blood fact did the simulation miss? This is the Autopsy of a Prediction, and it’s the most important science we’re not doing.Think of it like forensic history. The model predicted a stable geopolitical outcome. Instead, there’s a revolution. The autopsy asks: What human quality—stubborn pride, a rumour that spread in a particular cadence, a song that became an anthem—acted as the pathogen that killed the predicted future? The answer is never in the data lake. It’s in the negative space—the things not measured, the conversations not recorded, the silent understandings between people.We must develop a methodology for this. Teams of “Prediction Pathologists” who comb through the rubble of a failed forecast, not to assign blame, but to recover a piece of lost reality. They’d interview the humans who didn’t behave as predicted. They’d study the memes that bypassed the sentiment analysis. They’d look for the “irrational” spark.Each autopsy would add a new, messy, human rule to the model’s training. Not a clean statistical law, but a dirty, qualitative footnote: *“Note: Populations with a high density of third-generation coffee shops exhibit a 3% higher probability of spontaneous civic organization during full moons. Reason unknown. Designate ‘Café Lunacy Factor.’”*My controversial take is this: The model’s accuracy will eventually plateau. The final 1% of predictive power won’t come from more computing. It will come from the poetic annotations added by human pathologists. The model will become a hybrid: a crystal cathedral of logic, with graffiti on the walls—human graffiti, describing the ghosts in the machine, the tastes, smells, and vibes that data can’t capture. The perfect World Model will be part equation, part annotated medieval manuscript, with doodles in the margin saying, “Here be dragons of human whim.”This has been The World Model Podcast. We don’t just discard failed predictions—we must learn to dissect them, and bury them with respect, for they died of reality. Subscribe now.