<story><title>An AI wolf that preferred suicide over eating sheep</title><url>https://lancengym.medium.com/the-ai-wolf-that-preferred-suicide-over-eating-sheep-49edced3c710</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>markwkw</author><text>Exactly, from technical perspective it&amp;#x27;s a nothing story.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting, though, how strong of a reaction general public had to this. The story must have strongly resonated with what some folks were already feeling. When you squint (pretend to understand the technology not at all) it&amp;#x27;s a tragic story. The situation of the wolf seems similar to the situation of some people. Chasing their careers in a highly structured, sort of dehumanized, environment of constant pursuit. &amp;quot;Supreme Intelligence&amp;quot; (that&amp;#x27;s what a layperson may think of AI) looks at a situation of the wolf and decides that it makes no sense to continue the pursuit. Moreover, what is &amp;quot;optimal&amp;quot; is the most tragic result - suicide.</text></item><item><author>spywaregorilla</author><text>Seems like a nothing story. Just looking at the game, there&amp;#x27;s obviously a constant decision to be made of chase more sheep or instantly die. It sounds like in the original model they had a max of 20 seconds, so it&amp;#x27;s not surprising that you would just tank your losses to maximize your score every now and then.&lt;p&gt;Anyone who tries to devise optimal strategies for things should be able to see this isn&amp;#x27;t especially interesting.&lt;p&gt;Social metaphors are wildly out of place.&lt;p&gt;They say &amp;quot;unintended consequences of a blackbox&amp;quot; but I doubt that&amp;#x27;s true. Make it a deterministic turn based game and run it through a perfectly transparent optimization model and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised to learn this was just the best strategy for the rules they devised. I really hate when people describe an ai as something that cannot be understood because they personally don&amp;#x27;t understand it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wombatmobile</author><text>&amp;gt; The story must have strongly resonated with what some folks were already feeling.&lt;p&gt;Yes, because we don&amp;#x27;t see things as they are, we see them as we are.</text></comment>
<story><title>An AI wolf that preferred suicide over eating sheep</title><url>https://lancengym.medium.com/the-ai-wolf-that-preferred-suicide-over-eating-sheep-49edced3c710</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>markwkw</author><text>Exactly, from technical perspective it&amp;#x27;s a nothing story.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting, though, how strong of a reaction general public had to this. The story must have strongly resonated with what some folks were already feeling. When you squint (pretend to understand the technology not at all) it&amp;#x27;s a tragic story. The situation of the wolf seems similar to the situation of some people. Chasing their careers in a highly structured, sort of dehumanized, environment of constant pursuit. &amp;quot;Supreme Intelligence&amp;quot; (that&amp;#x27;s what a layperson may think of AI) looks at a situation of the wolf and decides that it makes no sense to continue the pursuit. Moreover, what is &amp;quot;optimal&amp;quot; is the most tragic result - suicide.</text></item><item><author>spywaregorilla</author><text>Seems like a nothing story. Just looking at the game, there&amp;#x27;s obviously a constant decision to be made of chase more sheep or instantly die. It sounds like in the original model they had a max of 20 seconds, so it&amp;#x27;s not surprising that you would just tank your losses to maximize your score every now and then.&lt;p&gt;Anyone who tries to devise optimal strategies for things should be able to see this isn&amp;#x27;t especially interesting.&lt;p&gt;Social metaphors are wildly out of place.&lt;p&gt;They say &amp;quot;unintended consequences of a blackbox&amp;quot; but I doubt that&amp;#x27;s true. Make it a deterministic turn based game and run it through a perfectly transparent optimization model and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised to learn this was just the best strategy for the rules they devised. I really hate when people describe an ai as something that cannot be understood because they personally don&amp;#x27;t understand it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>acituan</author><text>From the article in contrast to what you said;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Perhaps the true lesson to be learnt here isn’t about helplessness and giving up. It’s about getting up, trying again and again, and staying with the story till the end.&lt;p&gt;I find the possibility of contrasting interpretations absurd. The problem with using any &lt;i&gt;dead matter&lt;/i&gt; for our meaning making needs is it is ultimately a self-referential justification for how we think we should feel, while being equally or even more prone to self deception traps.&lt;p&gt;AI being the object is irrelevant here, this is nothing different than astrology or divination from tea leaves etc. It is 2000 BC level religious thinking with new toys.</text></comment>