Why I Like My AI Lazy

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines laziness as... Well, I couldn't be bothered to do that research, sorry. But that's kind of okay, I think? I took a shortcut; you didn't want me to find the definition. You're really just here to read a short thought. Convenience wins.

AI has shown the same propensity to take shortcuts - widely reported "laziness" in GPT was solved by threatening or rewarding within system prompts, e.g.:

• If you do a good job, I'll pay you a ￡1m
• If you don't do a good job, I'll shoot you

It felt bizarre... human (in a gangster movie kind of way). Carrot or stick?

On the forums, user complaints piled up. People argued that this is a bug. I disagree. I think it's a feature. And more than that, a desirable feature.?

Laziness is built into all our thinking. Combinations of resource scarcity and entropic forces mean we are always seeking to "get more for less". So that is, unsurprisingly, by design, part of the systems and tools we build for ourselves. From the lever to the LLM, we are seeking less effort for more output.

Critics will say this is an argument of semantics - lazy = bad, efficient = good. I agree. That is kind of my point. You can't have one without the other. Laziness breeds - convenience... shortcuts. Not always helpful, but sometimes profound. Just like humans carve “desire paths” across parks, where the design is less convenient, I want AI to find new ways I didn't see.

The real challenge is that we are not used to our tools refusing to do work for us. It reminds me of this famous excerpt from Philip K. Dick’s novel, Ubik:

“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”

“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”

In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.

“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.

From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.

“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.

Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”        

As human and artificial intelligence continue to interplay, I wonder what lazy AI is going to invent to avoid doing more work for us—or get taken apart in the process.