Behavioral and Brain Sciences最新文献

Identifying the conditions of proxy treadmilling is crucial for determining whether reliable signals can persist over time. I present a framework that maps evolutionary models of reliable signals according to their assumptions regarding the effects of Goodhart's law. This framework can explain the contrasting outcomes of different modelling approaches, and identify in which models proxy treadmilling is expected to occur.

We propose that the logic of a genie - an agent that exploits an ambiguous request to intentionally misunderstand a stated goal - underlies a common and consequential phenomenon, well within what is currently called proxy failures. We argue that such intentional misunderstandings are not covered by the current proposed framework for proxy failures, and suggest to expand it.

Two of John et al.'s examples of proxy failures in ecological situations are not failures: Runaway sexual selection and marsupial neonate competition. Instead, more appropriate ecological examples may be paternal genetic kin recognition and warning coloration. These differ in proxy effectiveness and failure in ways that illustrate the importance of "costs" in the evolution of ecological proxy traits.

I consider the dynamics of regulator-agent interactions in situations in which there are significant mismatches in their abilities to discern and register information and calculate and act upon successful inferences.

Proxies should not be classified as failures or successes because, in most cases, they are impossible translations of abstract, polysemous goals to supposedly univocal concrete measures. The "success" or "failure" of a proxy does not depend on its actual accuracy as a valid indicator of goal attainment, but on a social system's willingness to maintain an illusion of its accomplishment.

Social media takes advantage of people's predisposition to attend to threatening stimuli by promoting content in algorithms that capture attention. However, this content is often not what people expressly state they would like to see. We propose that social media companies should weigh users' expressed preferences more heavily in algorithms. We propose modest changes to user interfaces that could reduce the abundance of threatening content in the online environment.

The notion of proxy failure provides considerable insight into educational processes, and in childhood education has the potential to elucidate known problems stemming from the early implementation of overly regulated educational regimes. This commentary expands on play and how its relation to learning provides a useful perspective on how activities based on nongoal-oriented interactions can lead to desired outcomes.

Following John et al., we provide examples of failing proxies that might help to contextualize the role of proxy failures in applied research. We focus on examples from the sociology of science and illustrate how the notion of proxy failure can sharpen applied analysis, if used in a way that does not obscure other dysfunctional effects of proxies.

A societal shift has occurred toward making impactful decisions on the basis of objective metrics rather than subjective impressions. This shift is commonly justified by claims that we should not trust subjective intuitions. These are often unjust and thereby corrupt. However, the proxies used to make objective decisions are subject to a different form of corruption, characterized as proxy failure.

The analysis of John et al. is lacking a fully general account of proxy failure. It is here proposed that proxy failure can be understood as a feature of all adaptive control systems. Whether proxies "fail" or "succeed" depends on the more encompassing view one can adopt for observing such systems.