Aligned, but with whom?
We humans all want AIs to be ‘aligned’ with us. But what does alignment mean, and who is the ‘us’? I asked Claude himself* how he addresses this challenge
Psychology
Koenfucius.
Essays on behavioral economics, psychology, and the philosophy of everyday life.
Recent essays
30 of 57The greater of two (or more) evils
Identifying the best option is not always easy, but in politics we are increasingly faced with a much harder task: picking the lesser of two (or more) evils. Is that the wrong way to look at it?
Art-ificial Intelligence?
It is becoming ever harder to distinguish Artificial Intelligence output from the product of human creativity. Why do we still feel it matters, even if we struggle to tell the difference?
The pull of kin
We have only been able to read our genetic relationships for a few decades, but our ability to check for genetic matches has led to a remarkable paradox of fact-finding and secrecy
When the numbers don’t add up
“Not everything that counts can be counted”, wrote William Bruce Cameron. And not everything that can be counted can be added up.
Should decisions be driven by numbers?
No matter how many facts and figures we adduce to support a decision, it is rarely the numbers that ultimately drive our judgment. Should they?
Bounded wisdom
Wisdom is the ability to turn knowledge into good judgments and decisions, but we don’t always know when it does or doesn’t apply
The shapeshifting trap
Momentous change, from individual-level decisions to business-level policy making, sometimes doesn’t quite turn out as expected. Why do we never seem to learn?
Instant judges
We are lightning fast at passing categorical judgement about people, but as the proverb says, haste makes waste… or does it?
A price, just for you
How a jumble sale helps reveal our ambivalence to personalized pricing
The second strongest instinct
Our innate drive to survive is, unquestionably and self-evidently, the strongest of our many instincts. Only one other instinct comes anywhere near
Torn in traffic
Few environments are as illustrative of human behavioural tendencies as the nation’s highways and byways. And some are giving us mixed messages
There is such a thing as a free lunch
A remarkable proportion of what we value is given to us by others – and neither they, nor we, are aware of this
Gamblers up to a point
A simple survey question shows that we are natural gamblers — and that ‘expected value’, the tidy statistical logic economists reach for, has little to do with how we actually decide
The Resonance Premium
We tend to value stuff based on its cost – except when we don’t
Spoiled for choice, spoiled by choice?
Being able to choose is better than having no choice, but a wider choice can lure us into a frustrating trap
The weakness that strengthens our rules
Rules are useful in even the simplest of societies… but what if they go against our interest?
The value of everything
We non-accountants love pointing the finger at accountants for knowing the cost of everything, and the value of nothing. But are we as concerned with value as we think we are?
Why the warm glow needs fuel
Have we humans evolved a ‘noble’ form of motivation that stands apart from a baser, grubbier version?
The dead that barely matter
It is not only the value of a life that is hard to determine – so is the significance of a death: some deaths provoke outrage, while others, just as numerous and preventable, meet with indifference
Limited incentives for unlimited motivation?
Would a world without billionaires really look just like it looks now, only without billionaires?
Zigging to the bottom
How can a free, competitive market collapse into every player offering the same unsatisfactory offer? A story of three proverbs
Give me strength!
There is a limit to our physical capacity, but how close can we get to it… and how do we tap into our reserves?
The price of a principle
When we make a purchase, we often pay a surcharge for our principles. But how much precisely we are willing to spend on them is a mystery – even to ourselves
The groups we don’t realize we joined
We belong to far more groups than we realize — and we can acquire new ones in an instant. But what is it that activates our group instinct, and why?
Don’t fear the market
Markets are a powerful coordination mechanism. Why do we insist on getting in the way?
A tale of two buttons
A simple binary choice with no right answer reveals something far more interesting than selfishness or virtue
At second sight – when facts deceive
We may say we want the facts, but as soon as we get them, we give them meaning, and promptly treat fact and meaning as one
Paying to be right
How I paid a price for a retailer’s 99p pricing error, and why it was worth it (and not irrational)
Casting judgment
A controversy over a casting decision reveals how we sometimes try to rationalize ideological or identitarian positions, and allow peripheral concerns to eclipse the essence of the matter