The Invisible Process of How We Unconsciously Pick Our Goals in Life, What Reinforces Them, Where We Get Our Beliefs and How We Can Change Them (Sometimes)
Thanks, Dan, for helping me find the energy to rededicate myself to meditation practice. I want to examine the way my mind works. I want to be the butterfly.
Recently I was asking myself what makes me fundamentally different from the advanced LLM. I'm also picking on fresh information easily, adopt ideas and my brain can act according to some recent inputs similar to instruct-LLMs following a prompt instructions. I like the idea in this article that unlike LLMs we are life-learners, self-adjusting systems that define our own goals and meaning. I wonder, how hard would this be to engineer LLM agent like this.
I didn't like the "status" == "reward" concept tho, I think that even in your examples there are rewards that is hard to call "status" thing:
>> The taste of a finely cooked meal rewards us with a delightful sensation of pleasure in our mouth and that is status.
Feeling of joy from something is not a status, but it's a positive reward. Sometimes it leads to addiction with substances, sometimes to a love of cooking. So, I think it's a bit of simplification.
I also would be happy to have some grounding on why the author just says that not many people look at themselves as a system at some point of their life. I really wonder if such research was done to have some ground. I'm sure people who are doing chemistry, biology, ai research certainly have some more hints to ask this question to themselves. But I'm sure there are many other ways to come to this and it might be more common question than it seems.
I also liked the concept of open world and the need to fill the existence with some meaning.
The example of a finely cooked meal is indeed about status. I agree with the point about a positive reward in a sensational pleasure, but that's a part of the story. Another part is the inner feeling of "Hell yeah, I'm a great cook!". You play this status game unconsciously, comparing yourself with friends and relatives in the cooking mastery. Status game is not necessarily something obvious, that everyone recognizes (like having a collection of luxury cars), it may exist solely in your head. But that's enough for the reward functions to tick.
I really liked your essay about the unavoidable arms race of AI, and the futility of trying to throttle the technology. I don't see the point of this piece, though. I've already read untold numbers of overlong white papers that could have been summarized in one sentence: "Why do all those other people have ideas that seem stupid to me?!?"
David I je is on point more often than not, though. 🤷
Thanks, Dan, for helping me find the energy to rededicate myself to meditation practice. I want to examine the way my mind works. I want to be the butterfly.
Recently I was asking myself what makes me fundamentally different from the advanced LLM. I'm also picking on fresh information easily, adopt ideas and my brain can act according to some recent inputs similar to instruct-LLMs following a prompt instructions. I like the idea in this article that unlike LLMs we are life-learners, self-adjusting systems that define our own goals and meaning. I wonder, how hard would this be to engineer LLM agent like this.
I didn't like the "status" == "reward" concept tho, I think that even in your examples there are rewards that is hard to call "status" thing:
>> The taste of a finely cooked meal rewards us with a delightful sensation of pleasure in our mouth and that is status.
Feeling of joy from something is not a status, but it's a positive reward. Sometimes it leads to addiction with substances, sometimes to a love of cooking. So, I think it's a bit of simplification.
I also would be happy to have some grounding on why the author just says that not many people look at themselves as a system at some point of their life. I really wonder if such research was done to have some ground. I'm sure people who are doing chemistry, biology, ai research certainly have some more hints to ask this question to themselves. But I'm sure there are many other ways to come to this and it might be more common question than it seems.
I also liked the concept of open world and the need to fill the existence with some meaning.
The example of a finely cooked meal is indeed about status. I agree with the point about a positive reward in a sensational pleasure, but that's a part of the story. Another part is the inner feeling of "Hell yeah, I'm a great cook!". You play this status game unconsciously, comparing yourself with friends and relatives in the cooking mastery. Status game is not necessarily something obvious, that everyone recognizes (like having a collection of luxury cars), it may exist solely in your head. But that's enough for the reward functions to tick.
I really liked your essay about the unavoidable arms race of AI, and the futility of trying to throttle the technology. I don't see the point of this piece, though. I've already read untold numbers of overlong white papers that could have been summarized in one sentence: "Why do all those other people have ideas that seem stupid to me?!?"