THE EXPENSIVE-LOOP PROBLEM

Summary from the TLDR AI newsletter

Cheap-loop domains are domains where experiments are quick, deterministic, and cheap. Expensive-loop domains are restricted by real-world constraints or costs. Most high-value human labor is done in expensive-loop domains. Expensive-loop tasks require the ability to build theories, manage proxies, budget time and compute, and diagnose what went wrong when feedback is scarce, something models don't learn in cheap-loop training.