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The evidence is clear that the environment a brain is grown within plays an outsized role on the ceiling and capabilities of that brain Oliver Cameron July 8th, 2026 In recent years, the AI community has spent a disproportionate amount of attention replicating intelligence directly through static training, and comparatively little investing in intelligent, dynamic worlds and collectives that influence and produce such an intelligence.
The evidence is clear that the environment a brain is grown within plays an outsized role on the ceiling and capabilities of that brain.
The Worlds We Learn Within Historically in AI, RL agents have gained intelligence through interaction within predefined, off-the-shelf game environments like Minecraft and StarCraft.
These RL agents learn from the experience of existing within a deterministic game world, and sometimes from other intelligences grown within that same environment.
Although these game environments have become more complex over time—raising the ceiling of intelligence that can emerge within them—they remain static and deterministic, and do not evolve as the agent’s intelligence improves.
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