Meanings
- uncountableliteratureThe artificial stimulation of the brain to experience pleasure.
- uncountableliteratureThe implantation of electrodes in the brain.
Mondo’s chaotic editorial blend ranges from stories on computer-chip jewelry to reports on computerized break-ins at automated-teller machines and “wireheading"--the implantation of electrodes in the brain.
1992 January 24, David Wharton, “The New Edge : Magazines: The New Age meets the PC Age in Mondo 2000. The quarterly’s topics range from latest in high-tech products, jewelry and culture.”, in The Los Angeles Times - uncountableartificial intelligenceThe strategy by an artificial intelligence of meeting goals by altering the perception of the current state rather than changing the state itself.
The tendency of animals to short-circuit normal behavior in favor of direct stimulation of their own reward system is called wireheading.
2019, Stuart J. Russell, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control, Penguin, →ISBN, page 2061 more example
The constraint is defined in terms of the agent's belief distributions, and does not require an explicit specification of which actions constitute wireheading.
2016 June 25, Tom Everitt, Marcus Hutter, “Avoiding Wireheading with Value Reinforcement Learning”, in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 9782, Springer, →DOI, pages 12–22
- gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of wirehead
Cite this entry
wireheading. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wireheading
“wireheading.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wireheading. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wireheading,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wireheading.
Source: wireheading on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.