Open-world assumption

Okay, imagine you're playing a game like Minecraft or Roblox. You know how you can go anywhere and do almost anything you want in those games? That's kind of like the open-world assumption.

In computer science, the open-world assumption means that just because we don't know something is true, it doesn't mean that it's false. It's kind of like having a big open-world where anything is possible.

For example, if you're trying to write a program that can identify animals, you might list all of the animals you know about, like dogs, cats, and rabbits. But what if you come across an animal that you've never seen before? If you're using the open-world assumption, you would say, "Well, I don't know what that is, but that doesn't mean it's not an animal."

So, the open-world assumption is really just a way of saying that we don't want to limit ourselves to only what we know. We want to be open to new things and ideas, and not assume that just because we haven't seen something before means that it doesn't exist.