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Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

sohl-dickstein.github.io

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Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#171

Post by zug_zug »

I like the connection between Goodheart's law and overfitting. However these examples are a reach:

--- Goal: Healthy population Proxy: Access to nutrient-rich food Strong version of Goodhart's law leads to: Obesity epidemic

I'm not sure I believe this one. Exactly who's target is "access to nutrient-rich food" and how would removing that target fix the US obesity epidemic? Is "nutrient-rich" a euphemism for high-calorie? My understanding is that there are plenty of places with high-nutrient food but different norms and much better health (e.g. Japan).

We can and do measure population health across (including obesity), this isn't a proxy for an unmeasurable thing.

--- Goal: Leaders that act in the best interests of the population Proxy: Leaders that have the most support in the population Strong version of Goodhart's law leads to: Leaders whose expertise and passions center narrowly around manipulating public opinion at the expense of social outcomes

Is this really a case of "overfitting from too much data"? Or is this just a case of "some things are hard to predict?" Or even, "it's hard to give politicians incentives." It'd be interesting if we gave presidents huge prizes if the country was better 20 years after they left office.

--- Goal: An informed, thoughtful, and involved populace Proxy: The ease with which people can share and find ideas Strong version of Goodhart's law leads to: Filter bubbles, conspiracy theories, parasitic memes, escalated tribalism

Is "the goal" really a thoughtful populace? Because every individual's goal is pleasure, and the companies goals are selling ads. So I don't know who's working on that goal.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#172

Post by teleforce »

There is a big difference between efficiency and effectiveness, and all system should focus on the latter rather than the former whether it's AI based or not.

There's a reason why the best-seller of self-help book for several decades now is the book by Stephen Covey entitled "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" not "Efficient People".

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#173

Post by WalterBright »

vlovich123 wrote: post #170
tablatom wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting timing for me! Just a couple of days ago I discovered the work of biologist Olivier Hamant who has been raising exactly this issue. His main thesis is that very high performance (which he defines as efficacy towards a known goal plus efficiency) and very high robustness (the ability to withstand large fluctuations in the system) are physically incompatible. Examples abound in nature. Contrary to common pe…

I don’t think it’s smart to proactively back track without being very careful. One thing that’s needed is for corporate death to be allowed to occur. Right now the downsides of risky behavior is bailed out for large enough risk. Then the companies that fail aren’t robust and the ones that don’t are but bailouts let non robust companies keep going. Otherwise “robustness” is a property without a measure which means tha…

The usual cycle for business in a free market is it appears young and fresh, lacking any parasites. It grows rapidly, displacing existing mature businesses. Then, it accumulates bureaucracy and parasites, becoming less and less efficient, strangled by bloat and inability to adapt, and slides into bankruptcy, replaced by the next generation of new businesses. The remains of the business are then reallocated to the next generation of businesses.

(This is quite unlike the common view that businesses inevitably grow to take over the world.)

I.e. business is much like a living organism.

Problems set in when the government bails out failing businesses.

Even worse are government "businesses". They are not allowed to fail, and the inefficiencies, parasites, corruption, grow and grow. When can you remember a government agency being abolished? Eventually, the government will collapse.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#174

Post by o-o- »

> FTA: This same counterintuitive relationship between efficiency and outcome occurs in machine learning.

The "examples abound, in politics, economics, health, science, and many other fields" isn't a relationship between efficiency and outcome, but rather measuring and efficiency, or measuring and outcome. I think a better analogy is Heissenberg's uncertainty principle – the more you measure the more you (negatively) affect the environment you're measuring.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#175

Post by fireflash38 »

vlovich123 wrote: post #170
tablatom wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting timing for me! Just a couple of days ago I discovered the work of biologist Olivier Hamant who has been raising exactly this issue. His main thesis is that very high performance (which he defines as efficacy towards a known goal plus efficiency) and very high robustness (the ability to withstand large fluctuations in the system) are physically incompatible. Examples abound in nature. Contrary to common pe…

I don’t think it’s smart to proactively back track without being very careful. One thing that’s needed is for corporate death to be allowed to occur. Right now the downsides of risky behavior is bailed out for large enough risk. Then the companies that fail aren’t robust and the ones that don’t are but bailouts let non robust companies keep going. Otherwise “robustness” is a property without a measure which means tha…

One of the primary reasons people bail out companies are the knock-on effects. People losing jobs, etc. If society itself is robust enough to cover for people in those situations, we could let companies fail far more.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#176

Post by netcan »

Another example of this approximate law is in exercise physiology.

To a normal person, there are a lot of good proxy indicators of fitness. You could train sprinting. You could hop up and down. Squat. Clean and jerk.. etc.

Running faster,hopping higher, squatting heavier... all indicators of increasing fitness... and success of your fitness training.

Two points:

1 - The more general your training methodology, the more meaningful the indicators. Ie, if your fitness measure is "can I push a car uphill," and your training method is sprinting and swimming... pushing a heavier car is a really strong indicator of success. If your training method is "practice pushing a car," then an equivalent improvement does not indicate equivalent improvement in fitness.

2- As an athlete (say clean and jerk) becomes more specialized... improvements in performance become less indicative of general fitness. Going from zero to "recreational weighlifter" involves getting generally stronger and musclier. Going from college to olympic level... that typically involves highly specialized fitness attributes that don't cross into other endeavors.

Another metaphor might be "base vs peak" fitness, from sports. Accidentaly training for (unsustainable) peak performance is another over-optimization pitfall. It can happen when someone blindly follows "line go up." Illusary optimizations are actually just trapping you in a local maxima.

I think there are a lot of analogies here to biology, but also ML optimization and social phenomenon.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#177

Post by immibis »

robertclaus wrote: post #51
remram wrote: post #24

Those are great points! Another related law is from queuing theory: waiting time goes to infinity when utilization approaches 100%. You need your processes/machines/engineers to have some slack otherwise some tasks will wait forever.

Interesting. My gut reaction is that this is true in reverse: infinite wait time leads to 100% utilization. However, I feel like you can also have 100% utilization with any queue length if input=output. Is that theory just a result of a first order approximation or am I missing something?

The average queue length is still infinity. Whatever the queue length happens to be at the start, it will stay there, and it could be any positive number up to infinity.

Besides, angels can't really balance on pinheads.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#178

Post by slashdave »

I am surprised that the author left out another mitigation. To build solutions (models) that are constructed to be more transferable (amenable to out of domain data). For example, in machine learning, using physics informed models. Perhaps this is simply a sign that the author is a proponent of generic, deep-learning.

Re: Too much efficiency makes everything worse (2022)

#180

Post by normie3000 »

WalterBright wrote: post #173
vlovich123 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s smart to proactively back track without being very careful. One thing that’s needed is for corporate death to be allowed to occur. Right now the downsides of risky behavior is bailed out for large enough risk. Then the companies that fail aren’t robust and the ones that don’t are but bailouts let non robust companies keep going. Otherwise “robustness” is a property without a measure which means tha…

The usual cycle for business in a free market is it appears young and fresh, lacking any parasites. It grows rapidly, displacing existing mature businesses. Then, it accumulates bureaucracy and parasites, becoming less and less efficient, strangled by bloat and inability to adapt, and slides into bankruptcy, replaced by the next generation of new businesses. The remains of the business are then reallocated to the nex…

> When can you remember a government agency being abolished?

In the UK the last I specifically remember is DFID, which shut down in 2020.

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