Hi, I'm Forrest

Tag: bdi

  • What If Goals Drive Everything?

    May 21, 2025

    I’ve been thinking about this for weeks and I think I finally figured out the missing piece.

    Remember when I talked about the trigger-action loop? Trigger → Cognitive Activation → Appraisal → Action → Outcome?

    I said there was no reward. That the habit loop has Cue → Routine → Reward, but our loop didn’t have that third piece.

    Well, I was wrong. The reward is there. It’s just not where I thought it was.

    The reward is the goal.

    Goals Give Purpose to Everything

    Every interaction you have is driven by an underlying goal. Not like “I want to make a million dollars” goal. More like “I want this person to trust me” or “I want to reduce my uncertainty about this situation” or “I want to maintain my professional standing.”

    These goals are what give the entire loop its purpose.

    Example

    You’re in a meeting with your boss. Your brain isn’t just processing information. It’s running toward a goal:

    • “I want them to see me as competent”
    • “I want to avoid looking stupid”
    • “I want to get approval for my project”

    Every word you say, every decision you make, is in service of that goal. And when you achieve it? That’s the reward. That feeling of “okay, that went well.”

    But here’s what’s wild—you don’t consciously think about these goals most of the time. They’re just running in the background. Guiding everything you do.

    The AI Problem

    And AI agents? They don’t have goals. They have tasks. They have instructions. But they don’t have that underlying motivation that shapes every decision.

    This is why AI feels robotic. Because it’s not goal-seeking. It’s instruction-following.

    What I’m Building

    An AI that has goals. Not just “complete this task” but “maintain this relationship” and “reduce uncertainty about this situation” and “build trust with this person.”

    Goals that persist across interactions. Goals that shape behavior. Goals that create the “reward” signal when they’re achieved.

    Because at the end of the day, every interaction is a goal-seeking mechanism.

    And if your AI doesn’t have goals, it’s not actually thinking. It’s just executing.

    What goals does your AI have? Or does it even have any?

  • The Trigger-Action Loop

    April 2, 2025

    I keep seeing this pattern everywhere. In psychology books, in how businesses actually run, in conversations I have with founders. And I’m trying to figure out if I’m just seeing what I want to see or if this is actually the thing that ties everything together.

    The pattern is: Trigger → Cognitive Activation → Appraisal → Action → Outcome.

    As I’m reading this, I’m like wait a second. This is the habit loop. Or at least it’s related to the habit loop—Cue → Routine → Reward.

    But there’s no reward here. That’s the part I’m missing. But the first two—a trigger and an action—seem completely present. That’s not my point though. That’s just something I caught.

    Everything Operates Through This System

    My actual point is this: I think everything we do as humans might operate through this one system.

    Could be totally wrong. But let me work through it.

    When an email from Client A arrives (trigger), your brain doesn’t just read the email. It does this whole thing:

    1. It loads past interactions with Client A
    2. It activates your belief about their communication style
    3. It forms an expectation of what they probably need
    4. It appraises the actual email against that expectation
    5. It chooses an action based on your beliefs about what works with this client
    6. The outcome either confirms your beliefs or challenges them

    And here’s what’s wild—this happens in like 2 seconds. Most of it unconscious. You don’t even realize you’re doing it.

    The AI Problem

    But AI agents? They don’t have this loop. They have:

    • Input
    • Process
    • Output

    No cognitive activation. No appraisal against expectations. No belief updates based on outcomes.

    They’re stateless. Every interaction is independent. There’s no learning loop.

    This is why AI agents can’t actually learn like humans. Because learning isn’t about storing more information. It’s about running this loop over and over and updating your beliefs based on what actually happens.

    What I’m Building

    An AI that runs the same loop. When an email arrives, it:

    • Loads relevant beliefs about the sender (cognitive activation)
    • Forms an expectation based on those beliefs
    • Appraises the actual email against the expectation
    • Takes action
    • Updates beliefs based on the outcome

    Over time, the AI gets better. Not because I programmed every scenario, but because it’s learning from the loop.

    The difference between a junior employee and a senior employee isn’t knowledge. It’s the quality of their trigger-action loop. Seniors have better beliefs. Better expectations. Better appraisals.

    AI should work the same way.

    Update (June 8): Started trying to build this. It’s… way harder than I thought. The loop makes sense in theory, but implementing it is a nightmare. Need to rethink some of this.