Nice post. Approval reward seems like it helps explain a lot of human motivation and behavior.

I'm wondering whether approval reward would really be a safe source of motivation in an AGI though. From the post, it apparently comes from two sources in humans:

• Internal: There's an internal approval reward generator that rewards you for doing things that other people would approve of, even if no one is there. "Intrinsically motivated" sounds very robust but I'm concerned that this just means that the reward is coming from an internal module that is possible to game.
• External: Someone sees you do something and you get approval.

In each case it seems the person is generating behaviors and they there is an equally strong/robust reward classifier internally or externally so it's hard to game.

The internal classifier is hard to game because we can't edit our minds.

And other people are hard to fool. For example, there are fake billionaires but they are usually found out and then get negative approval so it's not worth it.

But I'm wondering would an AGI with an approval reward modify itself to reward hack or figure out how to fool humans in clever ways (like the RLHF robot arm) to get more approval.

Though maybe implementing an approval reward in an AI gets you most of the alignment you need and it's robust enough.

Thank you for the reply!

Ok but I still feel somewhat more optimistic about reward learning working. Here are some reasons:

• It's often the case that evaluation is easier than generation which would give the classifier an edge over the generator.
• It's possible to make the classifier just as smart as the generator: this is already done in RLHF today: the generator is an LLM and the reward model is also based on an LLM.
• It seems like there are quite a few examples of learned classifiers working well in practice:
  • It's hard to write spam that gets past an email spam classifier.
  • It's hard to jailbreak LLMs.
  • It's hard to write a bad paper that is accepted to a top ML conference or a bad blog post that gets lots of upvotes.

That said, from what I've read, researchers doing RL with verifiable rewards with LLMs (e.g. see the DeepSeek R1 paper) have only had success so far with rule-based rewards rather than learned reward functions. Quote from the DeepSeek R1 paper:

We do not apply the outcome or process neural reward model in developing DeepSeek-R1-Zero, because we find that the neural reward model may suffer from reward hacking in the large-scale reinforcement learning process, and retraining the reward model needs additional training resources and it complicates the whole training pipeline.

So I think we'll have to wait and see if people can successfully train LLMs to solve hard problems using learned RL reward functions in a way similar to RL with verifiable rewards.
 

In the post you say that human programmers will write the AI's reward function and there will be one step of indirection (and that the focus is the outer alignment problem).

But it seems likely to me that programmers won't know what code to write for the reward function since it would be hard to encode complex human values. In Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom calls this manual approach "direct specification" of values and argues that it's naive. Instead, it seems likely to be that programmers will continue to use reward learning algorithms like RLHF where:

1. The human programmers have a dataset of correct behaviors or a natural language description of what they want and they use this information to create a reward function or model automatically (e.g. Text2Reward).
2. This learned reward model or generated code is used to train the policy.

If this happens then I think the evolution analogy would apply where there is some outer optimizer like natural selection that is choosing the reward function and then the reward function is the inner objective that is shaping the AI's behavior directly.

Edit: see AGI will have learnt reward functions for an in-depth post on the subject.

After spending some time chatting with Gemini I've learned that a standard model-based RL AGI would probably just be a reward maximizer by default rather than learning complex stable values:

The "goal-content integrity" argument (that an AI might choose not to wirehead to protect its learned task-specific values) requires the AI to be more than just a standard model-based RL agent. It would need:

1. A model of its own values and how they can change.
2. A meta-preference for keeping its current values stable, even if changing them could lead to more "reward" as defined by its immediate reward signal.

The values of humans seem to go beyond maximizing reward and include things like preserving personal identity, self-esteem and maintaining a connection between effort and reward which makes the reward button less appealing than it would be to a standard model-based RL AGI.

Thanks for the clarifying comment. I agree with block-quote 8 from your post:

Also, in my proposed setup, the human feedback is “behind the scenes”, without any sensory or other indication of what the primary reward will be before it arrives, like I said above. The AGI presses “send” on its email, then we (with some probability) pause the AGI until we’ve read over the email and assigned a score, and then unpause the AGI with that reward going directly to its virtual brain, such that the reward will feel directly associated with the act of sending the email, from the AGI’s perspective. That way, there isn’t an obvious problematic…target of credit assignment, akin to the [salient reward button]. The AGI will not see a person on video making a motion to press a reward button before the reward arrives, nor will the AGI see a person reacting with a disapproving facial expression before the punishment arrives, nor anything else like that. Sending a good email will just feel satisfying to the AGI, like swallowing food when you’re hungry feels satisfying to us humans.

I think what you're saying is that we want the AI's reward function to be more like the reward circuitry humans have, which is inaccessible and difficult to hack, and less like money which can easily be stolen.

Though I'm not sure why you still don't think this is a good plan. Yes, eventually the AI might discover the reward button but I think TurnTrout's argument is that the AI would have learned stable values around whatever was rewarded while the reward button was hidden (e.g. completing the task) and it wouldn't want to change its values for the sake of goal-content integrity:

We train agents which intelligently optimize for e.g. putting trash away, and this reinforces the trash-putting-away computations, which activate in a broad range of situations so as to steer agents into a future where trash has been put away. An intelligent agent will model the true fact that, if the agent reinforces itself into caring about cognition-updating, then it will no longer navigate to futures where trash is put away. Therefore, it decides to not hit the reward button. 

Though maybe the AI would just prefer the button when it finds it because it yields higher reward.

For example, if you punish cheating on tests, students might learn the value "cheating is wrong" and never cheat again or form a habit of not doing it. Or they might temporarily not do it until there is an opportunity to do it without negative consequences (e.g. the teacher leaves the classroom).

I also agree that "intrinsic" and "instrumental" motivation are more useful categories than "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" for the reasons you described in your comment.

I'm trying to understand how the RL story from this blog post compares with the one in Reward is not the optimization target.

Thoughts on Reward is not the optimization target

Some quotes from Reward is not the optimization target:

Suppose a human trains an RL agent by pressing the cognition-updater button when the agent puts trash in a trash can. While putting trash away, the AI’s policy network is probably “thinking about”[5] the actual world it’s interacting with, and so the cognition-updater reinforces those heuristics which lead to the trash getting put away (e.g. “if trash-classifier activates near center-of-visual-field, then grab trash using motor-subroutine-#642”).

Then suppose this AI models the true fact that the button-pressing produces the cognition-updater. Suppose this AI, which has historically had its trash-related thoughts reinforced, considers the plan of pressing this button. “If I press the button, that triggers credit assignment, which will reinforce my decision to press the button, such that in the future I will press the button even more.”

Why, exactly, would the AI seize[6] the button? To reinforce itself into a certain corner of its policy space? The AI has not had antecedent-computation-reinforcer-thoughts reinforced in the past, and so its current decision will not be made in order to acquire the cognition-updater!

My understanding of this RL training story is as follows:

1. A human trains an RL agent by pressing the cognition-updater (reward) button immediately after the agent puts trash in the trash can.
2. Now the AI's behavior and thoughts related to putting away trash have been reinforced so it continues those behaviors in the future, values putting away trash and isn't interested in pressing the reward button unless by accident:

1. But what if the AI bops the reward button early in training, while exploring? Then credit assignment would make the AI more likely to hit the button again. 1. Then keep the button away from the AI until it can model the effects of hitting the cognition-updater button. 2. For the reasons given in the “siren” section, a sufficiently reflective AI probably won’t seek the reward button on its own.

The AI has the option of pressing the reward button but by now it only values putting trash away so it avoids pressing the button to avoid having its values changed:

I think that before the agent can hit the particular attractor of reward-optimization, it will hit an attractor in which it optimizes for some aspect of a historical correlate of reward.

Thoughts on Reward button alignment

The training story in Reward button alignment is different and involves:

1. Pressing the reward button after showing a video of the button being pressed. Now the button pressing situation is reinforced and the AI intrinsically values the situation where the button is pressed.
2. Ask the AI to complete a task (e.g. put away trash) and promise to press the reward button if it completes the task.
3. The AI completes the task not because it values the task, but because it ultimately values pressing the reward button after completing the task.

Thoughts on the differences

The TurnTrout story sounds more like the AI developing intrinsic motivation: the AI is rewarded immediately after completing the task and values the task intrinsically. The AI puts away trash because it was directly rewarded for that behavior in the past and doesn't want anything else.

In contrast the reward button alignment story is extrinsic. The AI doesn't care intrinsically about the task but only does it to receive a reward button press which it does value intrinsically. This is similar to a human employee who completes a boring task to earn money. The task is only a means to an end and they would prefer to just receive the money without completing the task.

Maybe a useful analogy is humans who are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. For example, someone might write books to make money (extrinsic motivation) or because they enjoy it for its own sake (intrinsic motivation).

For the intrinsically motivated person, the sequence of rewards is:

1. Spend some time writing the book.
2. Immediately receive a reward from the process of writing.

Summary: fun task --> reward

And for the extrinsically motivated person, the sequence of rewards is:

1. The person enjoys shopping and learns to value money because they find using it to buy things rewarding.
2. The person is asked to write a book for money. They don't receive any intrinsic reward (e.g. enjoyment) from writing the book but they do it because they anticipate receiving money (something they do value).
3. They receive money for the task.

Summary: boring task --> money --> reward

The second sequence is not safe because the person is motivated to skip the task and steal the money. The first sequence (intrinsic motivation) is safer because the task itself is rewarding (though wireheading is a risk in a similar way) so they aren't as motivated to manipulate the task.

So my conclusion is that trying to build intrinsically motivated AI agents by directly rewarding them for tasks seems safer and more desirable than building extrinsically motivated agents that receive some kind of payment for doing work.

One reason to be optimistic is that it should be easier to modify AIs to value doing useful tasks by rewarding them directly for completing the task (though goal misgeneralization is another separate issue). The same is generally not possible with humans: e.g. it's hard to teach someone to be passionate about boring tasks like washing the dishes so we just have to pay people to do tasks like that.

This is brilliant work, thank you. It's great that someone is working on these topics and they seem highly relevant to AGI alignment.

One intuition for why a neuroscience-inspired approach to AI alignment seems promising is that apparently a similar strategy worked for AI capabilities: the neural network researchers from the 1980s who tried to copy how the brain works using deep learning were ultimately the most successful at building highly intelligent AIs (e.g. GPT-4) and more synthetic approaches (e.g. pure logic) were less successful.

Similarly, we already know that the brain has the capacity to represent and be directed by human values so arguably the shortest path to succeeding at AI alignment is to try to understand and replicate the brain's circuitry underlying human motivations and values in AIs.

The only other AI alignment research agenda I can think of that seems to follow a similar strategy is Shard Theory though it seems more high-level and more related to RL than neuroscience.

I think this section of the post is slightly overstating the opportunity cost of doing a PhD. PhD students typically spend most of their time on research so ideally, they should be doing AI safety research during the PhD (e.g. like Stephen Casper). If the PhD is in an unrelated field or for the sake of upskilling then there is a more significant opportunity cost relative to working directly for an AI safety organization.

LLMs aren't that useful for alignment experts because it's a highly specialized field and there isn't much relevant training data. The AI Safety Chatbot partially solves this problem using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) on a database of articles from https://aisafety.info. There also seem to be plans to fine-tune it on a dataset of alignment articles.