It's kind of crazy that we really rely on this thing to not unexpectedly do something on any given day.

The anthropic principle says that for the most part the sun has to be stable enough for us to at least develop to this stage. This said it appears the sun does have outbursts at times.

Absolutely stunning. I wonder if or when AI will be capable to use these images (and also the lower-res ones from NOAA/NWS [0]) to build a digital clone of the sun. Is this possible?

[0] https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Do you mean a simulation at a sufficient fidelity to make predictions?

Yes