search

one of the first video games i ever saw and played was super mario 64 and zelda ocarina of time. i was around 5 years old and was instantly mesmorized.

a while back i listened to geohot say the true ai intelligence test was having it complete super mario 64 the way a kid would, using the controller and the screen, without using harnesses which can look into the game’s state, as was done when Claude and Gemini played pokemon.

this got me thinking how i even managed to beat these games when i was younger. i mean i remember having to ask my mom to read the text on the tv screen because i couldn’t even read at that point x3

anyway, for zelda, i think how i beat the game (except the water temple, had to use youtube as a guide), was through search.

i basically immersed myself in the world, and just explored until something happened. when i managed to get the kokiri sword in zelda i was amazed.

slowly but surely i was forming a world model and got accustomed to the physics, but the majority of the game was purely exploration, and then exploitation.

“As you progress in life, you will usually perform less exploration … and more exploiting …” - near.blog personality basins