As a psychologist exploring the EA movement I was quite curious about the Scout Mindset predominance within the community. This surprised me (both for good and not so good reasons), reminding me about Daniel Kahneman's famous book "Thinking fast and slow" and the debate around our rational and emotional paths of processing reality.
Inspired by that debate, this post will showcase a defense of motivated reasoning, or as Julia Galef called in her book: "Soldier Mindset". Rather than trying to convince about its dominance over "Scout Mindset", my aim will be to show how both can be integrated as necessary parts of an effective human psyche.
If Scout Mindset is "the motivation to see things as they are, not as you wish they were", Soldier Mindset would imply the motivation to see things as you desire them to be. That is the definition given by Julia Galef, and if enlightening, it is painfully incomplete.
The view presented by Galef of motivated reasoning implies the denial of reality. A soldier who is blind to what is in front of them, trying to convince themselves and the ones around of their desire as it was the truth, reality itself. However, an actual soldier that denies reality and goes straight to a bloody battle would die outrightly.
An effective soldier demands acknowledgment of reality, acceptance of things as they are at first (yes, Scout Mindset). And then, the soldier fights for what reality could be based on their desires.
Reflect thoroughly about the next, because this is the weakest point I found in Galef's argument:
A pure Scout is someone that observes reality at it is. But that is the only thing it does; gather and convey information.
A pure Soldier is someone that acts based on their desires. But that is what is only capable of; fight for those desires and beliefs.
A scout by its own is unable to change or improve reality. A soldier by its own will likely harm or break reality. They both need each other to effectively shape the world around us.
Galef tries to attribute the virtues of the Soldier into the Scout while omitting the flaws of the latter, when both mindsets have different purposes, strengths and weaknesses. Even if her book acknowledges some benefits of Soldier Mindset (persuasion, comfort, self-esteem...) to explain why we maintain it, she does a poor job on exposing its major function: to mould reality at our will.
That is the Soldier's job, while the Scout's is informing them about the reality they are trying to shape. Both mindsets can (and should) be complemented and integrated, especially if we aim to take effective actions to improve the world.
Soldier Mindset is what allows us to create a better future. From a vision of what could be, we defend and convince others of what is possible to drive collective change into reality.
Sometimes, this requires a little of self-deception (as Galef noted as part of motivated reasoning). However, this pinch of blindness should not be about reality itself, but rather the apparent logical conclusions derived from that reality.
An effective soldier will acknowledge the information given by the scout, and even if the chances of success are a single digit, he might still fights against the odds for what he believes is right. Consciously ignoring the "noise" around them to act fostered by their desire.
History is full of these examples. Henry Ford defying the assumed limits of speed, Martin Luther revolutionizing the religious establishment through Protestantism, or Nelson Mandela succeeding in the movement against racial segregation.
This is also true for Effective Altruism. One of the causes many of us (including myself) are motivated to fight for is the safe deployment of AI into society. However, AI Safety counts with a fraction of the resources and talent available compared with frontier AI labs, lacking by far their speed and power. No matter how you look at it, we are fighting this battle against the odds.
Does it make a futile try? Should we surrender? Not at all, this is were true warriors shine.
We might need to look away from the odds. Focusing our attention on what we can do, and how we want reality to be shaped by our actions.
A Scout observes reality to find what is truth. A Soldier exerts will into reality to create a different truth.[1]
The dilemma never was Scout vs Soldier mindsets. A big problem was believing to be a scout when you were indeed behaving like a soldier. As Galef said: "A key factor preventing us from being in Scout Mindset more frequently is our conviction that we're already in it."
However, as grave of a problem was neglecting the soldier inside you, pretending the scout could do everything by its own.
When in reality both need each other.
There is one last implication for Soldier Mindset I would like to discuss, a view that might result uncomfortable at first. If the Scout is a seeker of truth and tries to comprehend the order (rules, features, dynamics...) by which reality functions, the Soldier has the ability to act as an agent of chaos.[2]
To shape reality means at some extent breaking the order that maintained that reality. This is also the case for effective soldiers (those who acknowledged reality as it is, as we discussed), who in the process of exerting their will might cause chaos as a natural consequence of changing one order into another. And they may risk committing mistakes through that process.
As rare as it might seem, mistakes can be desirable for several reasons.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines "mistake" as an "action, decision or judgment that produces an unwanted, unintentional or incorrect result". Something unexpected, unintended, chaotic, far from our aim. Is that something absolutely bad?
For starters, many relevant scientific discoveries were produced by mistakes. A fortunate chance that we refer as "serendipity", that altered the course of our known reality. Both scouts and soldiers can despise mistakes by different reasons,[3] but avoiding errors at all costs might deviate us from these fortunate encounters.
However, I would consider mistakes desirable for a more important reason. In a likely world where advanced AI does almost everything better than us (flawless, optimal, perfect...), mistakes alongside genuine compassion and moral honesty are humanity last keep.
I recently read this anecdote that shows this exact point:[4]
"A few months ago, I attended a piano recital at the National Auditorium. The pianist was a man in his sixties, grey-haired, with large, somewhat arthritic hands. He was playing Chopin. During a passage of the Nocturne in C minor, he missed a note. Just one wrong note among thousands. And in that very moment, something changed in the concert hall. It was as though the entire audience had held its breath at once. Not because of the perfection of the music, but because its fragility. Knowing this man was there, with his imperfect fingers, risking failure in front of five hundred people. The wrong note made everything sound more genuine.
An AI could play that nocturne without making a single mistake. It could play it at any speed, in any key, with nuances resembling Rubinstein, Horowitz or Argerich. It could generate ten thousand different interpretations in the time it takes the pianist to sit down at the bench. And none of those ten thousand interpretations would evoke what that wrong note evoked."
Striving to be a "perfect Scout" could be a lost cause in a world where AI will process everything more rationally than us. Being an imperfect Scout that advices an imperfect Soldier could be what humans are best at doing.
Motivated reasoning could be a more valuable asset than we might have thought of. To stand for what we believe is morally correct, to embrace a vision of what reality could be in a better world, and to fight for that vision against the odds. Soldier Mindset could entail one of humanity's most precious gifts.
However, an effective soldier needs to accept reality as it is first, in order to successfully transform it. As Julia Galef stated, embracing Scout Mindset is hard, as we might be subconsciously deceiving ourselves only behaving through the lenses of a defensive soldier.
But maybe, the path to embrace the scout in ourselves goes through being at peace with the soldier that inhabits us first.
Because then, the soldier would not have to pretend being someone he is not.
This is my first post in the EA forum and I am excited for participating in this community. I would love to hear your thoughts about it, since I am aware "Scout Mindset" is one of this space cornerstones. Any feedback will be appreciated from the lenses of true scouts!
In next posts I will share more insights from my psychological background, that I believe will be valuable for the community. I am also entering the AI Safety field trying to find a high-impact job to contribute as a field builder, so you can also expect to see posts about AIS sector and talent related topics.
This might be a hard assumption for those who pursue "The Truth" as a moral compass, since what is true now could not be what is true in the future. By these lenses, "Truth" is a dynamic and ever-changing goal, that can be altered by the actions and will of living beings, motivated by their desires and inner beliefs of right and wrong.
Yes, they also can be the keeper and defender of one order, but that power enables them to break that same order.
The scout by seeking a rational and "perfect" model of reality unable to deal with uncertainty, and the soldier by protecting their fragile ego and poor self-esteem.
From "La escalera rota" by Javier Pardo, a Spanish CTO who wrote a touching essay about his worries and fears of the world to come with advanced AI already deployed. Honestly, it was heart-warming how he started writing the book during nights he could not sleep, out of desperation, and ended it with a note of hope.
Strongly upvoted because I agree that often the highest leverage opportunities may not be about taking the world as it is for granted, but rather looking for levers to change even large systems within our world.
But I wonder if Julia would agree with your characterization of the scout mindset ossifying the current state of being. I think a good scout might look for latent qualities in the world which might be expressed upon certain conditions.
Thanks for your view Brad! For the scout mindset ossifying, I would say is a consequence of an "exaggeration" of the mindset. Both rational and motivated reasoning are abilities that helps us navigate effectively through the world, neither absent of caveats.
The problem (by my viewpoint) would start when the Scout in their seek for "The Truth" do not allow the change of a reality they once knew (because would imply "Truth" is impossible to achieve completely). Since curiosity is in many instances driven by a motivation to reduce uncertainty, changing realities would only bring again more uncertainty and thus, discomfort to this kind of Scout.
The Soldier also can become rigid in their beliefs, but the reasons why would be different (Julia Galef explained those motives quite well in her book).
Don´t know if Galef would agree with this framework since she only stated this rigidity to the Soldier Mindset, but neither of these psychological functions is better than the other, neither lack the danger of being rigidified by our ego.