Simple: It takes about thirty thousand genes, each hundreds of bases long,
plus thousands of hours interacting with all the complexity of the real
world, to produce human motivations. This is simple? It's immensely more
complex than any AI program I've ever seen the inside of.
Direct: It takes millions of neuron firings in a neural network at least
dozens of levels deep to produce even the tiniest human action.
They seem simple and direct because the conscious mind, whose purpose is to
think about what the rest of the mind is doing, and tweak it, has a very
simple and direct model. It took modern science to reveal what an
incredibly complicated mess the mind actually is. Don't let your
consciousness fool you into thinking motivations (or any other parts of
yourself) are simple. Introspection is profoundly deceptive.
As for intrinsic, natural and robust, I'll agree with you there. Evolution
is a more robust designer than humans are, because it's made so many more
mistakes. And of course the results are natural and intrinsic.
--CarlF