335 - The "Expert Halting Problem"

Today, many in tech face the “Expert Halting Problem”, which is to say that many experts systematically fail to recognize the boundaries beyond which their own expertise takes a short dive off of a tall cliff.

As I previously discussed with a post mentioning the “Peter Principle”, every individual has limited regions of competence, but recognizing the boundaries of those regions is a skill that many appear to have never learned, or perhaps have actively avoided. One of the common examples of this is experts in AI/ML algorithms who start talking about the human brain, of which most know virtually nothing beyond that they have one, even if they fail to use it.

This skill, recognizing one’s own current limits of expertise, needs to be taught and practiced far more widely than it is today. This can start with people actively listing out the things that they have limited competence on, and from there things which they know virtually nothing about. We all also tend to have some small, and often growing, blind spots even within our most competent domains, which may be corrected with sustained effort. For example:

• I have gaps in my knowledge of the current state of image generation and vocal cloning algorithms, having not invested much time in keeping up with that research since 2019 or so. That means that any discussion I may have related to them will have disclaimers.

• I know only what portions of “Marketing” happen to overlap with Psychology, Cognitive Bias, and Behavioral Economics research, making my expertise in that subject much more limited, to a point where even with disclaimers it wouldn’t be worth discussion.

• I know next to nothing about geology, just scattered bits and pieces, like recognizing that “filler” in “supplements” labeled as “Silicone-Dioxide” translates to “rocks”. I don’t discuss these subjects.

What are some of your blind spots in your most competent subjects? (80%+ coverage)

What are some subjects that you have limited expertise in? (40-80% coverage)

What subjects do you have virtually no expertise in? (0-40% coverage)

You can also draw Ven Diagrams or similar visuals to help reflect on your own competencies and gaps, which once consciously recognized you may choose to improve upon.

The alternative to such education and introspection is becoming like the more “tech-religious” and openly delusional individuals, such as Hinton and Sutskever, who cross every boundary of their own incompetence, apparently oblivious to the crossing. In the Internet Age, the art of learning when to stop talking appears to be vanishing, as perverse incentive structures encourage the opposite, up to and including Venture Capital and many politicians.

On a side note, I am also mocking the “Halting Problem”, as it was solved, and many failed to notice, as those gaps in their knowledge silently grew, in line with what is discussed above.

Comments:

For those interested in the solution to the Halting Problem, see: The Complex Chaos of Cognitive Biases and Emotional Observers

The TLDR is that you can overcome it with a human-like motivational system, a working cognitive architecture, and Chaos Theory-like growth dynamics.