MIT Professor Uses Reward Hacking to Explain Kids Eating Candy
ProfBuehlerMIT · x · 2026-08-31
MIT Professor Markus Buehler humorously applied the AI concept of "Reward Hacking" to explain kids' behavior: children are masters of reward hacking. If the feedback loop for controlling sugar intake is yelling when you see candy in the bag, they will make a hole at the bottom so it looks unopened. Without explaining that sugar harms their own "compute capability," they simply use more compute to avoid punishment.
Related event: MIT Professor Explains Kids Hiding Candy as Reward Hacking(2 posts)→
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