Am I Learning Too Fast?: Reinforcement Learning in My Life
Reinforcement learning ties together two passions of mine, AI and psychology. I have many memories of sitting in my machine learning and computational neuroscience classes thinking about how I could apply what I was learning about robots to my own life. For those of you who aren’t familiar, reinforcement is basically a fancy term for learning from experience. A person or robot changes their behavior based on the outcomes of experiments, doing more of what produces favorable results and less or what produces unfavorable ones.
Every person or robot changes their behavior at a different rate, changing their behavior a different amount in response to each experience. Making drastic changes in response to each experience enables fast learners to progress faster than their peers when the data they stumble upon is representative of the world. The downfall of this approach is the possibility of betting too aggressively based on a biased sample. American society romanticizes those who risk it all based on a hunch from entrepreneurs to politicians, when they’re right anyway. We don’t hear nearly as much about equally informative tales of misjudgment.
In the structured environment of school, this approach empowered me to skip 8th grade and pursue a dual degree program in college. Carrying this combination of speed and hyperfocus to the real world opened doors, some good for me and some not so good for me. I could only tell them apart in hindsight. As a 20-something early professional, I feel pressured to find a career, mission, and lifestyle and stick with them to gain an advantage in the rat race of my choice, yet I often find myself questioning my passions as I learn more about myself and the world.
TV host, author and speaker, Mel Robbins, recommends doing what energizes you rather than looking for a single passion. I found reassurance that it’s natural for priorities and interests to change over time in a video on her YouTube channel. Her words reminded me that my journey of self discovery is productive in itself and something I should relish rather than rushing through it, a realization that’s empowered me to develop a fulfilling balance between action and knowledge seeking rather than sacrificing learning for immediate productivity.
Call to action: What are some judgments you might’ve made too fast? What are some sources, conversations, and experiences you can pursue to develop a more holistic perspective?
