On self-reward shaping
In this post, I’ll share some informal thoughts about the “self-reward shaping”, i.e. doing things in order to have more rewarding experiences of behaviour which helps to achieve one’s goals.
Needs v. preferences
I think that treating needs and preferences as two different kinds of human desire facilites more understanding and compassionate decision making. In this post, I’ll explain why.
A critique of the European Commission’s white paper on AI
The European Commission recently published a white paper (summarised here) outlining their current thinking on policies and strategies to help Europe harness the benefits of AI, whilst mitigating its risks. After reading the paper, I have three main critiques of its proposals.
How to read a book
When reading non-fiction, I’d never had a very clear sense of what I’m optimizing for. Sure, I probably wanted some combination of information, retention and enjoyment. But I’d never translated those high-level goals into a more concrete or measurable target. Accordingly, it had never really occurred to me that perhaps I could optimize better for what I want.
An intuitive introduction to active learning
Learning from data, efficiently.
Beware the will-o’-the-wisp! and other lessons
Last year I wrote a master’s thesis, which proved to be a pretty challenging experience. If I could go back in time and help out Sam-one-year-ago, this is the advice I would have given him.