this is a complete beginner q, how does rl scale given the reward hypothesis (sutton & barto) holds:
that an agent's entire purpose is just the maximization of the expected value of the cumulative sum of the reward, a single scalar signal.
surely, formulating goals in terms of a single number is extremely limiting. to accept that, no no matter how effective of a reward signal you design, it will always be "your way of communicating to the agent what you want achieved, not how you want it achieved"
if this is all you have how could you ever hope to solve alignment or reward hacking?
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