The marshmallow experiment
Created on 2025-05-18 07:08
Published on 2025-05-18 08:17
Somewhere in the 70s psychologists at Stanford University made an experiment about "delayed gratification". Children were offered marsh mallows that they could eat immediately or, if they delayed it for 15 minutes, they would also get some extra treat as a bonus. Following up the results they found a correlation between those that were able to delay gratification and their later results in life being better in comparison to those who were not able to do it.
On the other hand we are pushed towards immediate gratifications by a lot of factors that our society is based. We are sold the idea that everything should be "Bigger, better, faster, more" and we need to "want it all, and want it now". If things are fast we pat ourselves on the back considering ourselves "efficient". Is it true? Are the results similar to the Marshmallow experiment?
The current trend for boosting efficiency is the use of AI everywhere. The most relevant trend is now the "vibe coding" - fast results with minimal effort. Yes, results are impressive, the assistants are able to produce code, sometimes better code than the humans in a fraction of the time as they have indexed HUGE amounts of ALREADY WRITTEN CODE. Hence a task that used to take days could be theoretically be finished in hours if not even in minutes. That is great and saved a lot of time.
But the question is what we do with that time? How do we spend it? Do we take just another task from the Jira board and throw it to the army of assistants asking the correct prompts or prompting an assistant to prompt another assistant to do it? Or we try to "grok" it ourselves? Do we invest the gained time in something creative and new? In my opinion creativity doesn't boost in the same way, contrariwise, creativity comes generally from scarcity not from abundance. Having everything served immediately reduces the need for searching and understanding the solutions for the problem at hand. As a recent Microsoft study revealed we are just trusting the response as it seems plausible and after a while we take it for granted as being correct without double checking it.
Doing something good as a human requires effort, delayed gratification. Try learning a new instrument. It will take a long time to produce something that resembles music, especially for those that at their first musical experience. I was, and I still am, an horrible player, practiced for years until I was able to play something that sounded good (depending to whom you ask). But I enjoyed the trip. Before playing that solo i had to learn not only the instrument, chords, and finger-picking but I learnt about bands, trends , music in general and, probably the most important thing, I got to know people with similar interests. Putting effort into doing something is the key to progress as Derek Muller explains it.
The lack of delayed gratification leads to stagnation, lack of desire to do something, no imagination for what might be the end of the trip. A general state of INFANTILIZATION might appear as the skills needed to obtain something will be underdeveloped and tantrums will be satisfied unconditionally. The issue is that also decision makers will be affected by the same symptom as all their goals will apparently be satisfied instantly with no rebuttals.
AI is a wonderful tool, I am all in for that. The issue is not AI, as it is not sentient, it is us in our infantile way of using it to get immediate gratification instead using it wisely - try first, get feedback or advice, try again cycle. If we are more efficient day after day, we should take some time to understand it. How embedding works, what is quantization, what risks MCP poses. Try replicate and understand the mathematics behind it, go back to the Algebra and Calculus one neglected earlier in life, verify the responses by reading the literature suggested as source (if it really exist) or try learning to draw something with pen and paper just to understand the techniques after asking the AI to do it as an example. Try to delay the gratification and dream of some better reward. Most of the time it worth it.
To finish in a darker note:
Somewhere in the '30s Radium suppositories were seen as a great thing, as Radium was something novel at that time as a cure to slowness as their advertising was reading. Not understanding something completely and using it JUST BECAUSE IT WAS ADVERTISED is dangerous at least. Short term gratification cycle is just followed once again.
Weak Discouraged Men! Now Bubble Over with Joyous Vitality Through the Use of Glands and Radium
“If YOU are showing signs of “slowing up” in your actions and duties, perhaps long before you should—if you have begun to lose your charm, your personality, your normal manly vigor—certainly you want to stage a “comeback.” The man who has lost these precious attributes of youth knows how to appreciate their value. He realizes that happiness depends on his ability to perform the duties of a REAL MAN. Sweet, glorious pleasures of life. Nature intended that you should enjoy them.”
“Now is the time to act! Today! RIGHT NOW! Tomorrow may never come.”
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