We can get rid of all of this deception by getting rid of agency. That should be possible with methods based on Gradient Routing or Self-Other Overlap Finetuning or variants thereof. For example, you could use gradient routing to route agency and identity to one part that gets later ablated. 

The problem is that we want the model to have agency. We want actors that can solve complex tasks, do things on our behalf, and pursue our goals for us. 

I see two potential ways out:

1. Extensions of current self-other overlap finetuning that ensure that the agent indeed takes our goals as its own. It would be deceptive only if we would.
2. Finding ways to make good use of LLMs that are not agentic. Oracle or tool AIs could still be useful.  

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link is missing

Much of marketing and sales is intended to make us think fast and go by intuition. The former by using deadlines and the latter by appealing to emotions and how we'd feel about the decision. Or by avoiding the decision altogether, e.g., by making us think past the sale or creating situations where each outcome is a win.

Small variations can make a notable differences with pancakes. I still haven't managed to reproduce even close to my grandma's pancakes' sweet spot, though I think the island of stability is somewhere with more eggs and more heat. I usually don't use baking powder, but it is possible to create some fluffiness with more oil, more heat, and frequent mixing.

I do not follow German/EU politics for that reason. I did follow the US elections out of interest and believed that I would be sufficiently detached and neutral - and it still took some share of attention.  

In terms of topics (generally, not EU or US), I think it makes sense to have an idea of crime and healthcare etc. - but not on the day-by-day basis, because there is too much short-term information warfare going on (see below). Following decent bloggers or reading papers about longer-term trends makes sense though.

• Politicians' political beliefs
• Politicians' personal lives  

I think that is almost hopeless without deep inside knowledge. There is too much Simulacrum Levels 3 and 4 communication going on. When a politician says: "I will make sure that America produces more oil." What does that mean? It surely doesn't mean that the politician will make sure that America produces more oil. It means (or could mean):

• The general population hears: "Oil prices will go down."
• Oil-producers hear: "Regulations may be relaxed about producing oil in America."
• Other countries hear: "America wants to send us a signal that they may compete on oil."
• ...  

Who are the parties the message is directed to, and how will they hear it? It is hard to know without a lot of knowledge about the needed messaging. It is a bit like the stock/crypto market: When you buy (or sell), you have to know why the person who is selling (or buying) your share doing so? If you don't know, then, likely, you are the one making a loss. If you don't know who the message is directed to, you cannot interpret it properly. 

And you can't go by the literal words. Or rather, the literal words are likely directed to somebody too (probably intellectuals, but what do I know) and likely intended to distract them.

he desire to fit in, to be respected, liked and admired by other people, is one of the core desires that most (virtually all?) people have. It's approximately on the same level as e.g. the desire to avoid pain.

I think the comparison to pain is correct in the sense that some part of the brain (brainstem) is responding to bodily signals in the same mechanistic way as it is to pain signals. The desire to fit in is grounded in something. Steven Byrnes suggests a mechanism in Neuroscience of human social instincts: a sketch. 

We call it  "peer pressure" when it is constraining the individual (or at least some of them) without providing perceived mutual value. It is the same mechanism that leads to people collaborating for the common good. The interesting question is which forces or which environments lead to a negative sum game.

some people would just develop a different persona for each group

That is possible but maybe only more likely if the groups are very clearly separate, such as when you are in a faraway country for a long time. But if you are e.g. in a multi-cultural city where there are many maybe even overlapping groups or where you can't easily tell which group it is, it is more difficult to "overfit" and easier to learn a more general strategy. I think universal morality is something of the more general case of this.

I would be interested in what the questions of the uncertain imitator would look like in these cases.

Never saw "SUVAT" before. Might be a term known specifically in the US?