Interesting concepts there, as applied to psychology. And kudos for making it available freely. Definitely worth a read imho!

Skimming through its chapter on AI, made me think of Dave from EEVblog fame. In some of his videos he wears a T-shirt saying "always give negative feedback!". Which is correct - for those who understand electronics (specifically: opamps).

In short: design circuit such that when output is above target, circuit works to lower it (voltage, in this context). When below, circuit works to raise it. Output stability requires a feedback loop constructed to that effect.

There's analogies in many fields of technology (logistics, data buffering, manufacturing, etc etc, and yes, thermostats).

I'll leave it there, other sites like Wikipedia (or EEVblog!) better explain opamp-related design principles.

From what I've read, current AI systems appear like opamp circuitry with no (or poor) feedback loop: a minor swing in input causes output to go crazy. Or even positive feedback: same thing, but self-reinforcing. Guardrails are not the fix: they just clip the output to ehm.. 'politically correct' or whatever. Proper fix = better designed feedback loops. So yes, authors of this book may definitely be onto something.