# Factored Cognition ## What is factored cognition? [Factored cognition](https://ought.org/research/factored-cognition) refers to the idea of breaking down (or factoring) sophisticated learning and reasoning tasks into many small and mostly independent tasks. We’ll call programs that describe how to break down a task *recipes*. ## Why factored cognition? We can think about machine learning systems on [a spectrum from process-based to outcome-based](https://ought.org/updates/2022-04-06-process): * Process-based systems are built on human-understandable task decompositions, with direct supervision of reasoning steps. * Outcome-based systems are built on end-to-end optimization, with supervision of final results. Factored cognition is a prerequisite for making the reasoning processes of large language models explicit so that they can be supervised more easily. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://primer.ought.org/intro/factored-cognition.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.