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Exploration Vs Exploitation

Notes

Claim

How should you divide your time between exploring new things or sticking to the "tried and true"? Ambiguity is the absence of clarity in values or facts is relevant here, which causes us to be unsure Knowing when to stop prevents wasted persistence on misaligned goals.

Explanation

Another way of looking at it is though the concept of navigation vs pathfinding. When we pathfind, we explore, we debate where we want to go, who do we want to be. When we navigate, we know exactly where we want to go, we don't consider any other destinations, we narrow our focus to reach this destination.

Why it matters

As a general rule:

  1. Always keep a minimal level of exploration, to introduce new experiences and possible welfare to your life. Learning must continue constantly throughout life Biological mutations 2bc
  2. The less important or the shorter the future of acting in this area, the better it is to exploit the existing knowledge.

Examples

Supporters

Opposers

Open questions

Visual

Growth requires balancing the new and the proven

Overview

🔼Topic:: Tradeoffs and Consequences ◀Origin:: Algorithms to Live By (book)

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