Yes, seems like more anecdote than reality. Reality is, you wouldnt just 'code an AI', and leave it running for the weekend, and then act all surprised when it

Yes, seems like more anecdote than reality. Reality is, you wouldnt just 'code an AI', and leave it running for the weekend, and then act all surprised when it has bugs in. You'd work your way eg through Sutton's tasks, like drive a car up a hill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Car , try not to fall off a cliff, http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~sutton/book/ebook/node65.html http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~sutton/book/ebook/node65.html balance an arm http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~sutton/book/ebook/node110.html http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~sutton/book/ebook/node110.htm... , and so on. And since these mostly learn really quickly, and ones initial implementation will be buggy, you wouldnt go away for a weekend and leave it running, youd just sit there running it for a minute or two, fixing bugs, running again, and so on.