system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why does electricity usually spread itself in a zig zag pattern when there's no concrete path to follow?
gpt
I assume you're talking about things like lightning.  Ordinarily, air is extremely resistive to electrical current flow.  But, when the electric field is strong enough, a narrow channel will ionize and conduct current.  This allows charge to advance a short distance, where the electric field builds up again, causing another ionization to occur.  Each breakdown happens in a semi-random direction (more or less following the background electric field, but not completely) and creates a narrow ionized channel.  This means that the full path taken by the current is a series of short, semi-randomly oriented steps--a zig-zag.

Importantly, following the path of least resistance is not very helpful for describing this.  By ionizing the otherwise resistive air in steps, it CREATES the path of least resistance, and does so in a chaotic way.