Painful intelligence: What AI can tell us about human suffering
arXiv (Cornell University) May 27, 2022 Aapo Hyvärinen 3 citations
Suffering arises from frustration, defined as the failure to achieve a desired goal or reward, which is inevitable due to the world's complexity, limited computational resources, and scarcity of good data. Both humans and AI agents process information to pursue goals, making AI a useful model for the human mind. Frustration itself serves as an error signal for learning and adaptation. The book examines learning algorithms and their limitations to explain suffering, then derives interventions—such as mindfulness meditation—that reduce frustration, expressed by a simple equation. These interventions align with Buddhist and Stoic philosophy, offering a computational justification for their effectiveness.