Evaluating Human Drives and needs for a safe motivational system

1. Evaluating Human Drives and needs for a safe motivational system Morgan Waser Virginia Commonwealth University Dept. Computer Science

2. Decision making strategies • Automated Responses: actions performed with no thought or decision, necessary when speed is of the essence • Desires: feelings and emotions that push us towards something. Little thought and no long-term plans • Goals: thought-out, long-term plan that pull us towards an optimal situation

3. What factors weigh in on our decisions? • There are five main drives that have been evolved to fulfill and maintain sub-goals that further the pursuit of virtually any goal. These drives inspire our decision making strategies and they are: • Self-Preservation • Resource Hoarding (Collecting) • Community • Self-Improvement • Rationality

4. Automated Response (Reflex) • First strategy of decision making that was developed and it can be found in plants, animals and humans • Can be driven by: • Self- Preservation • Example: • Plants moving toward sunlight • Jumping at a loud noise

5. Desires Hunger, thirst, pain and fear Desires, emotions and feelings in animals are all derived from the drives for self-preservation, resource collection, and community. Desires are found in both animals and humans. The feeling of surprise in humans is driven by self-improvement in addition to being driven by self-preservation. Pride, disgust Empathy, love, loneliness, gratitude, trust and pity Greed

6. Goals • Rationality is a huge part of how we choose our goals, how we plan to achieve them and how we make well-thought-out decisions. Goals are based off of our desires. • Long-term goals are unique to humans and sets us apart because of the higher-level of thinking and planning that it requires. Of course there are numerous tool users (short-term goals) among birds and other animals. • Goals are driven by all five drives: Self-Preservation, Resource Hoarding, Community, Self-Improvement, Rationality

7. If they represent the same drives, why do we have all of the strategies? • Time available: Responses that require faster response times generally require reflexes to take an action • Desires motivate our actions without the urgency of reflexes • Cognitive complexity enables the creation of goals (a particular manifestation) to fulfill our desires

8. Motivational Drives and Needs Rationality Development of the drive for self-improvement Development of the drive for community Development of the drive for resource hoarding Development of the drive for resource collecting Development of the drive for self-preservation

9. So what really makes this motivational system safe? Rationality and Community

10. Rationality • The drive for rationality (effectiveness) is necessary for motivational system optimality as well as providing the reasoning that makes it safer. • Rationality: • Gives us the ability to make goals • Helps to better fulfill needs • Expands upon the drives we have already developed

11. Rationality • Are rational goals better than emotions, feelings and desires? We cannot say that one is necessarily better than the other because: • Feelings and emotions tell us how we are meeting our needs • Evolution has honed our emotions to be better long-term decision makers than rational thought • Emotions and feelings can be affected by past things which can be disabling

12. Community • Our society is community driven. Communities allow us to share resource, divide labor and play to differing strengths. • The loss of community can result in a devastating loss to resources, safety, stability, belonging and purpose. • Rule and law breaking generally results in losing community status and sometimes community all together. • Because of the long-term view that rationality provides, it is obviously more advantageous to work together in a community than to be independent (but it frequently requires emotion to force us to follow this good advice).