Value Functions for Life Decisions: Can LLMs Learn to Optimize Long-Term Outcomes?
What if we could teach AI to make life decisions the way successful people do? Consider this scenario: You earn $1,000 a month and need $12,000 to pay off debt or medical expenses. What would you do? The answer isn’t just about maximizing immediate income—it’s about navigating a complex decision tree where each choice opens or closes future pathways. This is the domain of value functions—a concept from reinforcement learning that estimates the long-term expected reward of being in a particular state....