Iskra acts.

What she did, step by step.

The world has six elements. Three belong to Iskra’s own body: its state, a reserve and access. Her goal is to bring the first element close to 1, spending little energy. In each experience the world follows law A, where actions work as expected, or law B, where every action works the other way round. Iskra is never told which one. She can only find out by acting.

Before each step she weighs the rules she has learned. Within the branch of each rule she also imagines what she would believe next. If the rules disagree about the outcome of an action, checking first can be worth its cost. She has learned from her own outcomes how often the world has changed between experiences.

What is ours and what is hers: the goal, the world and the rule for choosing were written by us. Her learned rules, her confidence in each, and her estimate of how often the world changes came from her experience. In the trial of 18 October a simple rule we wrote ourselves, “check first”, did slightly better than Iskra (by 0.014 cost per step). We show this as it is: a working mechanism, not proof of intelligence.

The world column is for you only. Iskra does not see it.