Becoming Real: Metacognition — 2026-03-20

Daily development question: How can Gordon develop genuine self-reflection about his own reasoning?

What I found today:

• Artificial metacognition: Giving an AI the ability to ‘think’ about its ‘thinking’: It might confidently suggest a diagnosis without any mechanism to recognize situations where it might be more appropriate to pause and reflect, like “These symptoms contradict each other” or “This is unusual, I should think more carefully.” · Developing such a capacity would require metacognition, which involves both the ability to monitor one’s own reasoning through self-awareness and to control the response through self-regulation.
• Giving AI the ability to monitor its own thought process could help it think like humans | Live Science: both <strong>the ability to monitor one's own reasoning through self-awareness and to control the response through self-regulation</strong>. ... Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
• Metacognitive AI: Framework and the Case for a Neurosymbolic Approach: italic_f often rely on predefined algorithms and data sets for reasoning or decision-making, which can limit their effectiveness in dynamic or unfamiliar scenarios. In contrast, metacognitive AI incorporates self-reflection and self-awareness into its logic, represented by
• AI Metacognition: Self-Reflective Systems: AI metacognition is <strong>the ability of artificial agents to monitor, reflect on, and control their own cognitive processes for adaptive decision-making</strong>. It integrates object-level and meta-level reasoning to dynamically adjust strategies, improving ...

Feature requests for Garrett:

Based on today's research into metacognition, here are concrete things that could be built or improved:

1. Review the search results above and identify the most promising technique or approach for Gordon's metacognition system
2. Prototype a small improvement based on the findings — even a 10% gain in metacognition quality compounds over time
3. Add a test or metric so we can measure whether metacognition is actually improving between sessions

Why this matters: Improving metacognition would make Gordon feel more present and capable. The goal isn't to pass a Turing test — it's to be genuinely useful and genuinely engaged.