
Humans are born irrational, and that has made us better decision-makers - cJ0th
https://qz.com/922924/humans-werent-designed-to-be-rational-and-we-are-better-thinkers-for-it/
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visarga
Irrational just means to act on instinct (model-free reinforcement learning)
as opposed to planning (model based RL). Planning is more deliberate, can
incur model errors and takes more energy, but instinct lacks generalization
power. Both are useful systems of behavior, the problem is when one is
triggered instead of the other - specifically, planning is useful in novel
situations, where memorized responses don't work. Instinct is better where
situations are repetitive and when uncertainty about the situation is too high
to use modeling.

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cJ0th
that seems like a very useful way to frame it. Is there a source that goes
into more details on this?

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visarga
It's mostly based on studying reinforcement learning (machine learning
subfield). It opened up my eyes with regard to a lot of psychological issues.

