The Dilbert Challenge: you are working in a company in the world of Dilbert. Your pointy-haired boss comes to you with the following demand:

"One year from today, our most important customer will deliver us a request for a high-quality reliable software system. Your job and the fate of the company depends on being able to develop and deploy that software system within two weeks of receipt of the specifications. Unfortunately we don't currently know any of the requirements. Get started now."

I submit that this preposterous demand is really a deep intellectual challenge, the basic form of which arises in many different endeavors. For example, it's reasonable to believe that at some point in the future, humanity will face an existential threat. Given that we will not know the exact nature of that threat until it's almost upon us, how can we prepare for it today?