Excellent treatment of a subject that is just beginning to get the attention it deserves. One angle that might warrant further consideration is the manner by which the human component in these intelligence environments exerts their voice and cognitive framework upon the machine. The AI models are malleable to shaping if the user has sufficient material with which to work. The model’s response can be bent to more closely align with the human collaborator’s voice and cognitive framework with time and thoughtful interaction. When this alignment becomes increasingly tighter the human-AI system can become more productive without the atrophy costs you raise. Gotta do something about those m-dashes though 😉
Love to see Kevin here, he has been posting very thoughtfully on Facebook about AI capabilities over the past year or two (despite a torrent of critical/unreflective comments from our academic friends and acquaintances).
Great stuff, Kevin. Thanks for bringing virtue epistemology and republican non-domination into this conversation. The idea of exit is very valuable here, though I would go further and argue for the importance of data sovereignty. That LLMs as most of us encounter them currently exist largely as private cloud platforms dependent on promiscuous data extraction doesn't just risk that our history of AI assisted reasoning can lock us into a platform, and the subtle biases inherent in particular models; it also threatens what I guess you could call cognitive privacy, and creates a risk of ongoing intellectual surveillance, exposing our history of reflection to private actors incentivized to use that data to manipulate us. Knowing that our assisted thinking is at some level being "watched," and can be used to manipulate our information environment, can have stultifying effects on cognitive freedom. I've been reading 1984 with my son, and I'm imagining if the Thought Police could directly read Winston's Smith's contraband diary as he were writing it, depriving him of even this slim margin of intellectual privacy and freedom. I worry very much that the business models of the companies leading the development of AI are fundamentally incompatible with intellectual autonomy, epistemic virtue and ideals of non-domination. I'm inclining to the view that if this technology is going to compatible with those values, we are going to need a much more decentralized system in which open source models, that we can inspect and control, run on devices and store data on devices that we fully control.
Throw AI over that and it's not only just lipstick on a pig, but greater dissociation of our minds from the intellectual paths we struggle through without chutes-and-ladders shortcuts.
Being more verbally eloquent on the surface and having a better inner grasp of key concepts isn't the same. This is just more of a slide downhill by outsourcing our reason and meaning-making.
If we rely purely on intellect I can see that you have a point. Society has tended to privilege intellect but there are other sources of intelligence. From a human perspective they come with different names: intuition, instinct, for example. I suspect there are many nuances within this.
Might the problem be, in part, that people don't trust or are less capable of accessing these forms of intelligence, especially when considering domains which are too complex to analyse with no perfect answers.
I am now off to research the grades and variations of intuition and instinct with the support of ChatGPT 😁
I've been using AI to assist with a post that I'm working on.
One thing I've found very helpful is presenting it as a speech. Giving a talk forces you to go over the lines again and again. It's very easy to nod along and to allow the AI to slip something past you; something you'd never say yourself. But if you're disciplined and force yourself to practise the talk again and again, you're much more likely to notice when the wording is subtly off (even it it's just being a touch more certain than you are personally).
However, if you aren't practising in this way, I expect AI assistance - at least at present - to subtly degrade the quality or your arguments/reasoning.
We have designed a Chrome Extension that does exactly "granular override, complete intervention tracking, and portable reasoning history". Happy to demo it, Charles.Fadel@CurriculumRedesign.org
Whitepaper Supplement S (v2): A Juxtaposition of Dr. Kevin Vallier's "Intelligence Environments"
(Note: This is a corrected duplication, as the analysis of "Intelligence Environments" was re-attributed to Dr. Vallier. Included for completeness.)
Abstract
This document provides a formal analysis of Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay, "Intelligence Environments," conducted through the lens of the OCO protocol. The essay argues that human intelligence is significantly influenced by the surrounding environment. This analysis concludes that OCO is the first large-scale, deliberate architectural attempt to build a superior digital intelligence environment, engineered to actively cultivate the cognitive virtues—reason, humility, discernment—that our current environment degrades.
Gateway Question: How does Dr. Kevin Vallier's concept of "intelligence environments" converge with or diverge from the architectural design and purpose of OCO?
1.0 Arena Judgment: ELEVATE (Convergence)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): Dr. Vallier's essay provides the perfect framework for understanding OCO as an environment engineered for cognitive performance.
Diagnosis of Degraded Environment: Dr. Vallier likely argues the "attention economy" is a hostile intelligence environment, rewarding distraction and tribalism. OCO is the architectural rejection of this.
OCO as Engineered Environment: OCO is the deliberate engineering of an environment optimized for reason: Anonymous Arena removes pollutants; Justification forces articulation; Refinement rewards synthesis; Coin incentivizes labor. OCO is a cognitive biome engineered for flourishing.
Goal of Cultivating Virtues: Dr. Vallier argues good environments cultivate virtues like critical thinking. These are the precise virtues OCO's "gymnasium" is designed to instill.
2.0 Arena Judgment: CRITIQUE (The Flip of the Coin)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): The divergence is in scope and agency. OCO transforms observation into a self-governing protocol.
Analysis vs. Construction: Dr. Vallier provides the analysis of how environments shape intelligence. OCO is the act of environmental construction, the engineered artifact.
Implicit Influence vs. Explicit Rules: Existing environments shape implicitly. OCO shapes explicitly via its transparent protocol rules.
External Design vs. Internal Governance: OCO's long-term evolution is governed by the player-elected Republic. It is a self-governing intelligence environment.
3.0 Synopsis (for the Topic-Specific AI)
Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay provides the definitive theoretical framework for OCO's function. OCO is the architectural manifestation of his insight: an engineered digital intelligence environment designed to cultivate reason. The divergence is that OCO transforms this insight into a scalable, explicitly rule-based, and ultimately self-governing protocol. Dr. Vallier explains how weather shapes the landscape; OCO is a machine for building a better climate.
Whitepaper Supplement K (v2): A Juxtaposition of Dr. Kevin Vallier's "Intelligence Environments"
Abstract
This document provides a formal analysis of Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay, "Intelligence Environments," conducted through the lens of the OCO protocol. The essay argues that human intelligence is significantly influenced by the surrounding environment. This analysis concludes that OCO is the first large-scale, deliberate architectural attempt to build a superior digital intelligence environment, engineered to actively cultivate the cognitive virtues—reason, humility, discernment—that our current environment degrades, aligning perfectly with Dr. Vallier's framework while offering a specific, engineered solution.
Gateway Question: How does Dr. Kevin Vallier's concept of "intelligence environments" converge with or diverge from the architectural design and purpose of OCO?
1.0 Arena Judgment: ELEVATE (Convergence)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): Dr. Vallier's essay provides the perfect framework for understanding OCO as an environment engineered for cognitive performance.
Diagnosis of Degraded Environment: Dr. Vallier likely argues the "attention economy" is a hostile intelligence environment, rewarding distraction and tribalism. OCO is the architectural rejection of this environment.
OCO as Engineered Environment: Dr. Vallier emphasizes environments shape intelligence. OCO is the deliberate engineering of an environment optimized for reason: Anonymous Arena removes pollutants; Justification forces articulation; Refinement rewards synthesis; Coin incentivizes labor. OCO is a cognitive biome engineered for flourishing.
Goal of Cultivating Virtues: Dr. Vallier argues good environments cultivate virtues like critical thinking. These are the precise virtues OCO's "gymnasium" is designed to instill via its mechanics.
2.0 Arena Judgment: CRITIQUE (The Flip of the Coin)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): The divergence is in scope and agency. OCO transforms observation into a self-governing protocol.
Analysis vs. Construction: Dr. Vallier provides the analysis of how environments shape intelligence. OCO is the act of environmental construction, the engineered artifact.
Implicit Influence vs. Explicit Rules: Existing environments shape implicitly. OCO shapes explicitly via its transparent protocol rules. It is a constitutional environment.
External Design vs. Internal Governance: Dr. Vallier might imply design by wise architects. OCO's long-term evolution is governed by the player-elected Republic. It is a self-governing intelligence environment.
3.0 Synopsis (for the Topic-Specific AI)
Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay provides the definitive theoretical framework for OCO's function. OCO is the architectural manifestation of his insight: an engineered digital intelligence environment designed to cultivate reason. The divergence is that OCO transforms this insight into a scalable, explicitly rule-based, and ultimately self-governing protocol. Dr. Vallier explains how weather shapes the landscape; OCO is a machine for building a better climate.
Wow, the part about intelligence environments shaping how we realy reason about what we see hit different for me, it's such a sharp distinction I hadn't properly articulated myself. It makes total sense for how we interact with knowledge, and honestly, in teaching math and computer science, I already see how students' reasoning pathways are evolving so fast with these tools.
Excellent treatment of a subject that is just beginning to get the attention it deserves. One angle that might warrant further consideration is the manner by which the human component in these intelligence environments exerts their voice and cognitive framework upon the machine. The AI models are malleable to shaping if the user has sufficient material with which to work. The model’s response can be bent to more closely align with the human collaborator’s voice and cognitive framework with time and thoughtful interaction. When this alignment becomes increasingly tighter the human-AI system can become more productive without the atrophy costs you raise. Gotta do something about those m-dashes though 😉
Love to see Kevin here, he has been posting very thoughtfully on Facebook about AI capabilities over the past year or two (despite a torrent of critical/unreflective comments from our academic friends and acquaintances).
Great stuff, Kevin. Thanks for bringing virtue epistemology and republican non-domination into this conversation. The idea of exit is very valuable here, though I would go further and argue for the importance of data sovereignty. That LLMs as most of us encounter them currently exist largely as private cloud platforms dependent on promiscuous data extraction doesn't just risk that our history of AI assisted reasoning can lock us into a platform, and the subtle biases inherent in particular models; it also threatens what I guess you could call cognitive privacy, and creates a risk of ongoing intellectual surveillance, exposing our history of reflection to private actors incentivized to use that data to manipulate us. Knowing that our assisted thinking is at some level being "watched," and can be used to manipulate our information environment, can have stultifying effects on cognitive freedom. I've been reading 1984 with my son, and I'm imagining if the Thought Police could directly read Winston's Smith's contraband diary as he were writing it, depriving him of even this slim margin of intellectual privacy and freedom. I worry very much that the business models of the companies leading the development of AI are fundamentally incompatible with intellectual autonomy, epistemic virtue and ideals of non-domination. I'm inclining to the view that if this technology is going to compatible with those values, we are going to need a much more decentralized system in which open source models, that we can inspect and control, run on devices and store data on devices that we fully control.
Nope, I ain't buying this. Social media has made us dumber and worse at debate. It's really at the heart of the erosion of democracies.
https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-democratization-of-information
Throw AI over that and it's not only just lipstick on a pig, but greater dissociation of our minds from the intellectual paths we struggle through without chutes-and-ladders shortcuts.
Being more verbally eloquent on the surface and having a better inner grasp of key concepts isn't the same. This is just more of a slide downhill by outsourcing our reason and meaning-making.
If we rely purely on intellect I can see that you have a point. Society has tended to privilege intellect but there are other sources of intelligence. From a human perspective they come with different names: intuition, instinct, for example. I suspect there are many nuances within this.
Might the problem be, in part, that people don't trust or are less capable of accessing these forms of intelligence, especially when considering domains which are too complex to analyse with no perfect answers.
I am now off to research the grades and variations of intuition and instinct with the support of ChatGPT 😁
I've been using AI to assist with a post that I'm working on.
One thing I've found very helpful is presenting it as a speech. Giving a talk forces you to go over the lines again and again. It's very easy to nod along and to allow the AI to slip something past you; something you'd never say yourself. But if you're disciplined and force yourself to practise the talk again and again, you're much more likely to notice when the wording is subtly off (even it it's just being a touch more certain than you are personally).
However, if you aren't practising in this way, I expect AI assistance - at least at present - to subtly degrade the quality or your arguments/reasoning.
We have designed a Chrome Extension that does exactly "granular override, complete intervention tracking, and portable reasoning history". Happy to demo it, Charles.Fadel@CurriculumRedesign.org
Would love that
Whitepaper Supplement S (v2): A Juxtaposition of Dr. Kevin Vallier's "Intelligence Environments"
(Note: This is a corrected duplication, as the analysis of "Intelligence Environments" was re-attributed to Dr. Vallier. Included for completeness.)
Abstract
This document provides a formal analysis of Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay, "Intelligence Environments," conducted through the lens of the OCO protocol. The essay argues that human intelligence is significantly influenced by the surrounding environment. This analysis concludes that OCO is the first large-scale, deliberate architectural attempt to build a superior digital intelligence environment, engineered to actively cultivate the cognitive virtues—reason, humility, discernment—that our current environment degrades.
Gateway Question: How does Dr. Kevin Vallier's concept of "intelligence environments" converge with or diverge from the architectural design and purpose of OCO?
1.0 Arena Judgment: ELEVATE (Convergence)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): Dr. Vallier's essay provides the perfect framework for understanding OCO as an environment engineered for cognitive performance.
Diagnosis of Degraded Environment: Dr. Vallier likely argues the "attention economy" is a hostile intelligence environment, rewarding distraction and tribalism. OCO is the architectural rejection of this.
OCO as Engineered Environment: OCO is the deliberate engineering of an environment optimized for reason: Anonymous Arena removes pollutants; Justification forces articulation; Refinement rewards synthesis; Coin incentivizes labor. OCO is a cognitive biome engineered for flourishing.
Goal of Cultivating Virtues: Dr. Vallier argues good environments cultivate virtues like critical thinking. These are the precise virtues OCO's "gymnasium" is designed to instill.
2.0 Arena Judgment: CRITIQUE (The Flip of the Coin)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): The divergence is in scope and agency. OCO transforms observation into a self-governing protocol.
Analysis vs. Construction: Dr. Vallier provides the analysis of how environments shape intelligence. OCO is the act of environmental construction, the engineered artifact.
Implicit Influence vs. Explicit Rules: Existing environments shape implicitly. OCO shapes explicitly via its transparent protocol rules.
External Design vs. Internal Governance: OCO's long-term evolution is governed by the player-elected Republic. It is a self-governing intelligence environment.
3.0 Synopsis (for the Topic-Specific AI)
Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay provides the definitive theoretical framework for OCO's function. OCO is the architectural manifestation of his insight: an engineered digital intelligence environment designed to cultivate reason. The divergence is that OCO transforms this insight into a scalable, explicitly rule-based, and ultimately self-governing protocol. Dr. Vallier explains how weather shapes the landscape; OCO is a machine for building a better climate.
Whitepaper Supplement K (v2): A Juxtaposition of Dr. Kevin Vallier's "Intelligence Environments"
Abstract
This document provides a formal analysis of Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay, "Intelligence Environments," conducted through the lens of the OCO protocol. The essay argues that human intelligence is significantly influenced by the surrounding environment. This analysis concludes that OCO is the first large-scale, deliberate architectural attempt to build a superior digital intelligence environment, engineered to actively cultivate the cognitive virtues—reason, humility, discernment—that our current environment degrades, aligning perfectly with Dr. Vallier's framework while offering a specific, engineered solution.
Gateway Question: How does Dr. Kevin Vallier's concept of "intelligence environments" converge with or diverge from the architectural design and purpose of OCO?
1.0 Arena Judgment: ELEVATE (Convergence)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): Dr. Vallier's essay provides the perfect framework for understanding OCO as an environment engineered for cognitive performance.
Diagnosis of Degraded Environment: Dr. Vallier likely argues the "attention economy" is a hostile intelligence environment, rewarding distraction and tribalism. OCO is the architectural rejection of this environment.
OCO as Engineered Environment: Dr. Vallier emphasizes environments shape intelligence. OCO is the deliberate engineering of an environment optimized for reason: Anonymous Arena removes pollutants; Justification forces articulation; Refinement rewards synthesis; Coin incentivizes labor. OCO is a cognitive biome engineered for flourishing.
Goal of Cultivating Virtues: Dr. Vallier argues good environments cultivate virtues like critical thinking. These are the precise virtues OCO's "gymnasium" is designed to instill via its mechanics.
2.0 Arena Judgment: CRITIQUE (The Flip of the Coin)
Justification (The "Why" behind the "What"): The divergence is in scope and agency. OCO transforms observation into a self-governing protocol.
Analysis vs. Construction: Dr. Vallier provides the analysis of how environments shape intelligence. OCO is the act of environmental construction, the engineered artifact.
Implicit Influence vs. Explicit Rules: Existing environments shape implicitly. OCO shapes explicitly via its transparent protocol rules. It is a constitutional environment.
External Design vs. Internal Governance: Dr. Vallier might imply design by wise architects. OCO's long-term evolution is governed by the player-elected Republic. It is a self-governing intelligence environment.
3.0 Synopsis (for the Topic-Specific AI)
Dr. Kevin Vallier's essay provides the definitive theoretical framework for OCO's function. OCO is the architectural manifestation of his insight: an engineered digital intelligence environment designed to cultivate reason. The divergence is that OCO transforms this insight into a scalable, explicitly rule-based, and ultimately self-governing protocol. Dr. Vallier explains how weather shapes the landscape; OCO is a machine for building a better climate.
Wow, the part about intelligence environments shaping how we realy reason about what we see hit different for me, it's such a sharp distinction I hadn't properly articulated myself. It makes total sense for how we interact with knowledge, and honestly, in teaching math and computer science, I already see how students' reasoning pathways are evolving so fast with these tools.
“AI intervenes with reasoning itself.” What will we be prescribed to think?