Upon Reflection, Ep. 16: Strategic Reflectivism

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Upon Reflection

Nick Byrd

17 episodes

2 days ago

Welcome to the Upon Reflection podcast with Nick Byrd, a podcast about what we think as well as how and why we think it. Nick studies the philosophy of cognitive science and the cognitive science of philosophy. This podcast will share Nick's and others' research. For instance, the podcast will discuss the differences between intuition and reflection as well as the ways in which intuitive reasoning predicts different philosophical, moral, and religious judgments than reflective reasoning. The podcast will also discuss topics like implicit bias—e.g., contrary to what you may have heard, implicit bias may not be entirely unconscious and involuntary. If you want to hear more about this research, you can subscribe wherever you find podcasts. And if you end up enjoying the Upon Reflection podcast, then feel free to tell people about it, online, in person, or in your review.

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Upon Reflection, Ep. 16: Strategic Reflectivism

Upon Reflection

29 minutes

1 month ago

Upon Reflection, Ep. 16: Strategic Reflectivism

In late 2025, artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI popularized the idea of automating the process of selecting which model is best for a task. This allowed users to simply send their prompt or request and let the system determine whether to respond using a "fast" or a "slow" reasoning model.

In a 2022 paper, I suggested that this kind of strategic deployment of slow, more reflective reasoning could be crucial to good judgment and decision-making. This year I am fleshing out the argument for this view in a paper titled, "Strategic Reflectivism in Intelligent Systems".

In this episode, I'll read the paper, which argues that one key to intelligence in humans and machines is pragmatic switching between intuitive and reflective thinking based on the goals of the system. The paper has a wide range of implications for applied science, computer science, decision science, and epistemology.

Byrd, N. (2025). Strategic Reflectivism In Intelligent Systems. Lecture Notes In Computer Science. Preprint: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.22987

As always, free preprints of my papers are available on my CV at byrdnick.com/cv under "Publications".

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You can find the Upon Reflection podcast here or in your podcast app. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe wherever you find podcasts, follow on BlueSky at @ByrdNick.com, on Mastadon (@ByrdNick), and all the other platforms. If you end up enjoying the Upon Reflection podcast, then feel free to tell people about it, online, in person, or in your review.

Related posts

* The Bias Fallacy
* The Base Rate Fallacy
* The Appeal to Intuition: A Fallacy?
* Upon Reflection, Ep. 9: Bounded Reflectivism & Epistemic Identity
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