It reminds me of "At the time we drew boxes labeled 'perception', 'cognition' with arrows between them." An imprecise quote that I can't place.
I guess my box labelled 'subconsciousness' is trying to say that low-level mechanisms that give rise to the observed cognitive phenomena might have nothing to do with neat boxes.
bananaflagSep 28, 2026, 6:03 AM
You mean "Artificial Intelligence meets Natural Stupidity" by Drew McDermott
2021. Please remember the rule of HN to add the year if it’s not actual.
crorellaSep 28, 2026, 5:31 AM
It looks like a lot like how data bases query optimizers work, with the exception that in the paper there is also a learning/memory component that conditions the evaluation of the answer provided by the first model.
simianwordsSep 28, 2026, 6:20 AM
This has already been solved by GPT 5 Adaptive reasoning. A single model that knows when to reason or not based on a thinking parameter we provide (like xhigh). What’s the relevancy to post it today?
bpshaverSep 28, 2026, 6:28 AM
Surely that is obvious
bborSep 28, 2026, 4:43 AM
This is still a great paper, but it's missing the second axis of the quadric -- if the only two options are thinking fast or thinking about thinking, that leaves no room for thinking slow yet deliberately, AKA selfconsciousness. See https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4280/pg4280-images.html for details
I do wonder if any of these folks ever got a chance to try this at one of the big labs, tho...
I guess my box labelled 'subconsciousness' is trying to say that low-level mechanisms that give rise to the observed cognitive phenomena might have nothing to do with neat boxes.