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Harness engineering for self-improvement
11–20 of 96 posts
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#12one form of very effective self-improvement that coding agents do all the time:
install or build stuff that they can then use
it changes the environment instead of the agent/harness but in a sense how separate is the agent from its environment and why do we apply this distinction re self-improvement?
animals and humans do the same thing and are great at it, without 'self-improvement' with emphasis on the 'self'
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#13The quest for Torment Nexus continues
If we don't create the Torment Nexus first, somebody else who is much less responsible is gonna create the Torment Nexus before us. It's outright irresponsible to not take the lead, we might have to even give up on all safety concerns to make sure we make it to Torment Nexus IPO first.
We cannot allow a Torment Nexus gap!
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#14[dead]
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#15[flagged]
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#16The simplicity is the point
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#17Really good points Lillian. Agreed on keeping the evaluator outside the loop that evolves the harness.
One practical failure mode I’ve have experienced in my agentic harness tasks similar to the “weak evaluators” point: an incomplete check suite that still reports full success. That’s was worse than a weak evaluator, because it made it look correct and decisive.
After several trial and error, what helped was fail-closed on coverage i.e if the fixed checks for each operation aren’t all there, nothing ships / nothing gets sent. Otherwise you can “pass” while never running the cases that would have failed.
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#18one form of very effective self-improvement that coding agents do all the time: install or build stuff that they can then use it changes the environment instead of the agent/harness but in a sense how separate is the agent from its environment and why do we apply this distinction re self-improvement? animals and humans do the same thing and are great at it, without 'self-improvement' with emphasis on the 'self'
Blame Descartes? I don't know. Extended theories of cognition all get shot down, even analytic philosophers who are accused of being more "continental" still primarily hold mind-body dualisms
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#19The quest for Torment Nexus continues
Eagerly waiting for the TormentBench.
Re: Harness engineering for self-improvement
#20The quest for Torment Nexus continues
If we don't create the Torment Nexus first, somebody else who is much less responsible is gonna create the Torment Nexus before us. It's outright irresponsible to not take the lead, we might have to even give up on all safety concerns to make sure we make it to Torment Nexus IPO first.
Since we all know that at this point, someone is definitely going to build the torment nexus, we all may as well get involved and help, so that at least we can exert some limited degree of control over the eventual character of the torment nexus. At least that way maybe we can make it a little less terrible. At any rate, it can’t make it worse than it would have been if we -didn’t- help build it!