Why is everything so over-optimized now?
- Why is everything so over-optimized now?
- The Optimization Ratchet.
- The benefit of the optimization is clear, direct, concrete, immediate.
- The cost of the optimization is unclear, indirect, ambiguous, delayed.
- This creates a clear asymmetry, an unstoppable gradient.
- Like a reverse entropy.
- Each optimization step that is taken is extremely unlikely to ever be undone.
- So things get more optimized, until they get overfit, hollowed out, and then become prone to catastrophic failure.
- This is why society has gotten so over-optimized, to the point of being hollow.[fi]