C.3 Agent Foundations: TA Guide

TA guide for the Agent Foundations session — facilitation notes, timing, common sticking points, and exercise solutions.

Session overview

Time	Block	Format
10:00–11:00	Introductory lecture: bird’s eye view and motivation	Lecture
11:00–12:30	Readings and discussions	Structured reading + cross-topic discussion
12:30–1:30	Lunch
1:30–2:30	Guest lecture (TBD)	Lecture
2:30–3:45	Exercises	Individual / small group work
3:45–4:15	Break
4:15–5:15	Guest lecture (TBD)	Lecture
5:15–6:00	Exercises (continued)	Individual / small group work

Lecture: Bird’s eye view and motivation

Key points to cover

Common questions / sticking points

Readings and discussion block

Format

Separate into fundamental readings vs topic-specific readings. Each participant reads the fundamentals plus one topic, then cross-pollinates in discussion.

Fundamental readings (everyone): - Embedded agency - Why agent foundations - General purpose search

Topic tracks (one per participant): 1. Consequentialist foundations (coherence + complete class theorems) 2. Lob’s theorem and tiling agents 3. Logical induction 4. Decision theory 5. Optimization and thermodynamics 6. Descriptive agent foundations

Facilitation notes

Per-topic notes

Guest lecture 1 (TBD)

Context for TAs

Exercise block

Facilitation notes

Exercise solutions

Exercise 1: Godel’s second incompleteness theorem

Exercise 2: Lob’s theorem

Exercise 3: The complete class theorem

Exercise 4: The do-divergence theorem

Exercise 5: Channel additivity

Guest lecture 2 (TBD)

Context for TAs