Disengage your autopilot

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the concept of disengaging from autopilot mode in life and actively exploring the unknown, drawing parallels from the field of reinforcement learning (RL) in AI. It emphasizes the importance of breaking out of local optima and comfort zones to discover new perspectives and better align with one's true values and goals.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Disengage your autopilot

1. What is the author's main message about living on autopilot?

• Living on autopilot is both a luxury and a curse
• Autopilot can lead to being stuck in a local optimum, where the solution seems good in the moment but may not be the best overall outcome
• The author encourages readers to actively disengage from autopilot and explore the unknown, even if it means going against their intuition

2. How does the author compare the process of training an RL model to raising a child?

• The author states that training an RL model feels more like raising a child than any other form of machine learning
• The RL model starts as a "baby" with an infinitely malleable brain, trying anything it can but often failing to make meaningful progress
• The model presents its first solution, which may be a local optimum, and the author needs to guide it to find the better overall solution

3. What is the exploration-exploitation trade-off in RL, and how does the author suggest addressing it?

• The exploration-exploitation trade-off refers to the need for the RL model to both exploit the knowledge it has already gained and explore new potential solutions
• The author suggests a simple strategy of forcing the model to explore a certain percentage of the time, starting at 100% and gradually decreasing to 5%
• This allows the model to find better overall solutions beyond its initial local optimum

[02] Applying RL lessons to human life

1. What does the author suggest humans should do to avoid getting stuck in local optima like the RL model?

• The author encourages readers to "disengage your autopilot, enter free-fall, and see what landscape lives below the clouds"
• This means actively disregarding your intuition and moving orthogonal to your judgment, such as taking a random walk, talking to someone from another country, or doing everything except what you think you should be doing

2. What challenges does the author acknowledge in applying this exploration strategy to human life?

• Humans are notoriously bad at generating random numbers, making it difficult to truly explore beyond our comfort zones
• Disregarding intuition requires a level of meta-cognition that few possess, and the author admits to struggling to replicate true exploration themselves

3. What potential benefits does the author see in the pursuit of exploration and breaking out of autopilot?

• The author states that the pursuit of exploration has improved their understanding of what they truly value
• Even though there will be times when you fall back into autopilot, the author emphasizes the importance of disengaging from it to discover new perspectives and better align with your goals