We all know that “context matters,” yet both intuitively and in the social sciences we fail to appreciate its impact and to take the effects of context sufficiently into account. Research and observation, starting with groundbreaking studies in the 60’s and extending to the present, have uncovered the overwhelming power of context, or of “the situation.” Context – the water in which we swim — profoundly influences our behaviors, preferences, capabilities, and beliefs, including our attributions of credit and responsibility, often in ways that we fail to recognize when trying to make sense of things. It remains a challenge for the social sciences to better incorporate context into our theorizing. Interestingly, AI seems built to be more sensitive to context. The extent to which that might help us think about context in new ways remains to be seen.