The MIT Media Lab is celebrating its 40th anniversary, a place that was created to make space for new and unconventional ideas. The lab was designed to be interdisciplinary, bringing together people from different fields who didn't fit into traditional departments. Its purpose was to explore how computers could impact everyday life, not just computing, but living. The lab's approach was to develop solutions without knowing the problems, allowing for breakthroughs to happen at the edges of conventional thinking. This approach is similar to other innovative institutions like Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Bell Labs, which attracted visionaries and outsiders. Today, we are at a moment that requires a similar response, with the emergence of AI, which is not just a faster way to do things, but a new medium for thought, interaction, and aesthetics. However, instead of treating AI as a new substrate for thought, we are using it to reinforce legacy systems, rather than challenging assumptions. What is needed are new models that combine friction between disciplines, treat computation as a raw material, and allow design to lead, such as the AI Residency in New York. The goal of these efforts is not to create more apps, but to ask better questions and create new literacies, and to understand the impact of AI on human relationships and understanding. The future of technology will be determined by small groups with unusual perspectives and the freedom to follow them, and we should support the pursuit of these groups and build spaces that make them possible.