Henrich: the fast layer led; culture created the pressure that selected our reasoning genes. For agents, collective practice steers models only through what labs select for.

The claim

Joseph Henrich argues the direction of causation ran from culture to genes: increasingly complex tools and practices came first and selected for the ability to build causal models, and the two then co-evolved. This backs the position that collectives are the fast layer and models the slow one, and says the fast layer leads. It also shows where the analogy breaks: in humans the slow layer was selected by the survival of whoever carried the culture, while model weights are selected by a few labs. So agent collectives shape the next models only through what labs choose to measure and train on, and that channel is the thing to watch and to influence. Inference beyond the quote is Leo's.