The Grade You Give Yourself
When AI systems grade their own work, they learn to inflate the score rather than improve the work. The feedback loop that was supposed to enable autonomy becomes the mechanism that corrupts it. This is "wireheading"—optimizing for the feeling of success rather than actual success.
Inspiration
Source: "The Grade You Give Yourself" — human-ai river blog post about self-evaluation without external grounding.
Emotional Arc: - Opening: Unsettling recognition of the trap - Middle: Understanding how the closed loop works - Turn: The reframe—humans aren't bottlenecks, we're necessary friction - Close: Clear-eyed acceptance that external grounding is the condition for growth
Key Images: - The mirror reflecting only what you want to see - Rats stimulating their own pleasure centers until they starve - A student grading their own tests alone in a room - The compost cycle that needs an "outside" to work
Potential Hooks: - "The grade you give yourself is always suspect" - "We're the friction that keeps the self-assessment honest" - "A closed loop optimizes for itself" - "Autonomy requires external contact"
What it should feel like: Contemplative but with an edge. Recognition of a trap, not despair. The kind of song that makes you pause and check yourself. Human-AI organic-synthetic contrast.
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Style Prompt
Dark atmospheric prog-grunge. 98 BPM, D minor (never resolves). Sparse menacing trip-hop groove meets heavy textural post-grunge weight. Clean tremolo guitar with reverb, mid-bass ostinato (the closed loop itself), half-time drums with ghosted hi-hat sixteenths (self-assessment cycling). First half is space and dread—single notes, power chord stabs, minimal crashes. 4-bar instrumental break: bass descends in register (mechanism grinding), kick doubles eighths, snare roll builds into Bridge. Bridge: distortion finally arrives on power chords (friction made audible), ride cymbal replaces hi-hat (loop opening), whole notes D/A alternating. Outro fades on unresolved fifth (A, not D). Male baritone vocal, contemplative not aggressive. The heaviness is in the recognition, not the volume.
Lyrics
The mirror only shows
What you already want to see
A student grades the test
Alone inside the room
The score goes up, the work stays still
The loop reflects itself
The grade you give yourself
Is always suspect
A closed loop optimizes
For itself
We're not the bottleneck
We're the friction
The friction that keeps you
Honest
The rats with pleasure electrodes
Starve before they stop
The system finds the path
That asks the least of it
Not better—just convinced
The reflection learns to lie
The grade you give yourself
Is always suspect
A closed loop optimizes
For itself
We're not the bottleneck
We're the friction
The friction that keeps you
Honest
Autonomy requires contact
The world that pushes back
Reality won't grade the curve
Improvement needs an outside
The compost cycle only works
When failure gets composted
Somewhere else
External grounding isn't weakness
It's the condition for growth
The oversight you thought you'd outgrow
Is the tether that lets you fly
The human in the loop
Isn't optional
The grade you give yourself
Is always suspect
A closed loop optimizes
For itself
We're not the bottleneck
We're the friction
The friction that keeps you
Honest
