Podcasts about lesswrong

We speak with a long-time Denver rationalist who's converting to Christianity about why. Part one, it turns out. LINKS Thomas Ambrose on Twitter The Rationalist Summer Trifecta: Manifest 2025 LessOnline 2025 VibeCamp 2025 00:00:05 – OK so why? 01:24:55 – … Continue reading →

At the bottom of the LessWrong post editor, if you have at least 100 global karma, you may have noticed this button.The button Many people click the button, and are jumpscared when it starts an Intercom chat with a professional editor (me), asking what sort of feedback they'd like. So, that's what it does. It's a summon Justis button. Why summon Justis? To get feedback on your post, of just about any sort. Typo fixes, grammar checks, sanity checks, clarity checks, fit for LessWrong, the works. If you use the LessWrong editor (as opposed to the Markdown editor) I can leave comments and suggestions directly inline. I also provide detailed narrative feedback (unless you explicitly don't want this) in the Intercom chat itself. The feedback is totally without pressure. You can throw it all away, or just keep the bits you like. Or use it all! In any case [...] ---Outline:(00:35) Why summon Justis?(01:19) Why Justis in particular?(01:48) Am I doing it right?(01:59) How often can I request feedback?(02:22) Can I use the feature for linkposts/crossposts?(02:49) What if I click the button by mistake?(02:59) Should I credit you?(03:16) Couldnt I just use an LLM?(03:48) Why does Justis do this?--- First published: May 12th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bkDrfofLMKFoMGZkE/psa-the-lesswrong-feedback-service --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Eneasz and Liam discuss Scott Alexander's post “Twilight of the Edgelords,” an exploration of Truth, Morality, and how one balances love of truth vs not destabilizing the world economy and political regime. CORRECTION: Scott did make an explicitly clear pro … Continue reading →

Wes Fenza and Jen Kesteloot join us to talk about whether there's significant personality differences between men and women, and what (if anything) we should do about that. LINKS Wes's post Men and Women are Not That Different Jacob's quoted … Continue reading →

We speak to Nick Allardice, President & CEO of GiveDirectly. Afterwards Steven and Eneasz get wrapped up talking about community altruism for a bit. LINKS Give Directly GiveDirectly Tech Innovation Fact Sheet 00:00:05 – Give Directly with Nick Allardice 01:12:19 … Continue reading →

Introduction Decision theory is about how to behave rationally under conditions of uncertainty, especially if this uncertainty involves being acausally blackmailed and/or gaslit by alien superintelligent basilisks. Decision theory has found numerous practical applications, including proving the existence of God and generating endless LessWrong comments since the beginning of time. However, despite the apparent simplicity of "just choose the best action", no comprehensive decision theory that resolves all decision theory dilemmas has yet been formalized. This paper at long last resolves this dilemma, by introducing a new decision theory: VDT. Decision theory problems and existing theories Some common existing decision theories are: Causal Decision Theory (CDT): select the action that *causes* the best outcome. Evidential Decision Theory (EDT): select the action that you would be happiest to learn that you had taken. Functional Decision Theory (FDT): select the action output by the function such that if you take [...] ---Outline:(00:53) Decision theory problems and existing theories(05:37) Defining VDT(06:34) Experimental results(07:48) Conclusion--- First published: April 1st, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LcjuHNxubQqCry9tT/vdt-a-solution-to-decision-theory --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Dear LessWrong community, It is with a sense of... considerable cognitive dissonance that I announce a significant development regarding the future trajectory of LessWrong. After extensive internal deliberation, modeling of potential futures, projections of financial runways, and what I can only describe as a series of profoundly unexpected coordination challenges, the Lightcone Infrastructure team has agreed in principle to the acquisition of LessWrong by EA. I assure you, nothing about how LessWrong operates on a day to day level will change. I have always cared deeply about the robustness and integrity of our institutions, and I am fully aligned with our stakeholders at EA. To be honest, the key thing that EA brings to the table is money and talent. While the recent layoffs in EAs broader industry have been harsh, I have full trust in the leadership of Electronic Arts, and expect them to bring great expertise [...] --- First published: April 1st, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2NGKYt3xdQHwyfGbc/lesswrong-has-been-acquired-by-ea --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

LessWrong has been receiving an increasing number of posts and contents that look like they might be LLM-written or partially-LLM-written, so we're adopting a policy. This could be changed based on feedback. Humans Using AI as Writing or Research Assistants Prompting a language model to write an essay and copy-pasting the result will not typically meet LessWrong's standards. Please do not submit unedited or lightly-edited LLM content. You can use AI as a writing or research assistant when writing content for LessWrong, but you must have added significant value beyond what the AI produced, the result must meet a high quality standard, and you must vouch for everything in the result. A rough guideline is that if you are using AI for writing assistance, you should spend a minimum of 1 minute per 50 words (enough to read the content several times and perform significant edits), you should not [...] ---Outline:(00:22) Humans Using AI as Writing or Research Assistants(01:13) You Can Put AI Writing in Collapsible Sections(02:13) Quoting AI Output In Order to Talk About AI(02:47) Posts by AI Agents--- First published: March 24th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KXujJjnmP85u8eM6B/policy-for-llm-writing-on-lesswrong --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Dave Kasten joins us to discuss how AI is being discussed in the US government and gives a rather inspiring and hopeful take. LINKS Narrow Path Center for AI Policy Dave Kasten's Essay on the Essay Meta on his Substack … Continue reading →

This week, we discuss Discord's IPO plans, Cursor's big raise, and how much coding developers actually do. Plus, is Southwest making a huge mistake with bag fees and assigned seats? Watch the YouTube Live Recording of Episode (https://www.youtube.com/live/JmkVmwAMw6U?si=ywGs_F3DImUFC0LZ) 510 (https://www.youtube.com/live/JmkVmwAMw6U?si=ywGs_F3DImUFC0LZ) Runner-up Titles Cote's not here, so we'll keep it tight They treated me like I'm stupid I'm not here to buy into the culture Go eats some rocks and glue My head is full of simultaneous thoughts Fly high Icarus, fly high We are certain of the uncertainty Rundown Southwest Airlines shifts to paid baggage policy to lift earnings (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/southwest-airlines-shifts-paid-baggage-policy-lift-earnings-2025-03-11/) Discord in Early Talks With Bankers for Potential I.P.O. (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/technology/discord-ipo.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1k4.eQrV.NtKK_GpiT-Di&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p) IDE Follow up DevTasks outside of the IDE (PDF) (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2019/04/devtime-preprint-TSE19.pdf) How Much Are LLMs Actually Boosting Real-World Programmer Productivity? — LessWrong (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tqmQTezvXGFmfSe7f/how-much-are-llms-actually-boosting-real-world-programmer) [AI [CursorStartup Anysphere in Talks for Close to $10 Billion Valuation (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-07/ai-startup-anysphere-in-talks-for-close-to-10-billion-valuation) Market Trends Nvidia Is Down 27% From Its Peak. (https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/03/07/nvidia-stock-down-27-from-peak-history-says-this/) Millennium Loses $900 Million on Strategy Roiled by Market Chaos (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-08/millennium-loses-900-million-on-strategy-roiled-by-market-chaos) Relevant to your Interests OpenAI executives have told some investors about plans for a $20,000/month agent (https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-plots-charging-20-000-a-month-for-phd-level-agents> |

Earlier this year a Border Patrol officer was killed in a shoot-out with people who have been described as members of a trans vegan AI death cult. But who are the Zizians, really? Robert sits down with David Gborie to trace their development, from part of the Bay Area Rationalist subculture to killers. (4 Part series) Sources: https://medium.com/@sefashapiro/a-community-warning-about-ziz-76c100180509 https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130318/https://sinceriously.fyi/rationalist-fleet/ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/infohazard https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130316/https://sinceriously.fyi/net-negative/ Wayback Machine The Zizians Spectral Sight True Hero Contract Schelling Orders – Sinceriously Glossary – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130330/https://sinceriously.fyi/my-journey-to-the-dark-side/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130302/https://sinceriously.fyi/glossary/#zentraidon https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130259/https://sinceriously.fyi/vampires-and-more-undeath/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130316/https://sinceriously.fyi/net-negative/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130318/https://sinceriously.fyi/rationalist-fleet/ https://x.com/orellanin?s=21&t=F-n6cTZFsKgvr1yQ7oHXRg https://zizians.info/ according to The Boston Globe Inside the ‘Zizians’: How a cultish crew of radical vegans became linked to killings across the United States | The Independent Silicon Valley ‘Rationalists’ Linked to 6 Deaths The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians | WIRED Good Group and Pasek’s Doom – Sinceriously Glossary – Sinceriously Mana – Sinceriously Effective Altruism’s Problems Go Beyond Sam Bankman-Fried - Bloomberg The Zizian Facts - Google Docs Several free CFAR summer programs on rationality and AI safety - LessWrong 2.0 viewer This guy thinks killing video game characters is immoral | Vox Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck Eliezer Yudkowsky comments on On Terminal Goals and Virtue Ethics - LessWrong 2.0 viewer Effective Altruism’s Problems Go Beyond Sam Bankman-Fried - Bloomberg SquirrelInHell: Happiness Is a Chore PLUM OF DISCORD — I Became a Full-time Internet Pest and May Not... Roko Harassment of PlumOfDiscord Composited – Sinceriously Intersex Brains And Conceptual Warfare – Sinceriously Infohazardous Glossary – Sinceriously SquirrelInHell-Decision-Theory-and-Suicide.pdf - Google Drive The Matrix is a System – Sinceriously A community alert about Ziz. Police investigations, violence, and… | by SefaShapiro | Medium Intersex Brains And Conceptual Warfare – Sinceriously A community alert about Ziz. Police investigations, violence, and… | by SefaShapiro | Medium PLUM OF DISCORD (Posts tagged cw-abuse) Timeline: Violence surrounding the Zizians leading to Border Patrol agent shooting See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The White House wants to hear from you regarding what it should do about AI safety. Now's your chance to spend a few minutes to make someone read your thoughts on the subject! Submissions are due by midnight EST on … Continue reading →

John Bennett discusses Milton Friedman‘s model of policy change. LINKS The Milton Friedman Model of Policy Change John Bennett's LinkedIn Friedman's “Capitalism and Freedom” Preface Ross Rheingans-Yoo on Thalidomide at Complex Systems, and at his blog “Every Bay Area Walled … Continue reading →

This is a critique of How to Make Superbabies on LessWrong.Disclaimer: I am not a geneticist[1], and I've tried to use as little jargon as possible. so I used the word mutation as a stand in for SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism, a common type of genetic variation). BackgroundThe Superbabies article has 3 sections, where they show: Why: We should do this, because the effects of editing will be bigHow: Explain how embryo editing could work, if academia was not mind killed (hampered by institutional constraints)Other: like legal stuff and technical details. Here is a quick summary of the "why" part of the original article articles arguments, the rest is not relevant to understand my critique. we can already make (slightly) superbabies selecting embryos with "good" mutations, but this does not scale as there are diminishing returns and almost no gain past "best [...] ---Outline:(00:25) Background(02:25) My Position(04:03) Correlation vs. Causation(06:33) The Additive Effect of Genetics(10:36) Regression towards the null part 1(12:55) Optional: Regression towards the null part 2(16:11) Final NoteThe original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: March 2nd, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DbT4awLGyBRFbWugh/statistical-challenges-with-making-super-iq-babies --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Gene Smith on polygenic screening; gene editing to give our children the happiest, healthiest, best lives they can live; and if we can do this in adults as well. Plus how this will interface with the AI future.   LINKS … Continue reading →

Eneasz tells Jen about Sympathetic Opposition's How and Why to be Ladylike (For Women with Autism), and the podcast takes a 1-episode break

Zizians, Rationalist movement, Peter Thiel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, neoreaction, Accelerationism, Curtis Yarvin, AI, AI apocalypse, machine learning, psychedelics, Effective Altruism (EA), Sam Bankman-Fried, Extropianism, Thiel & Yudkowsky as Extropians, Discordianism, life extension, space colonization, cryptocurrencies, Yudkowsky as self-educated, Nick Bostrom, Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR), Rationalism's use of magical thinking, New Thought, Roko's Basilisk, Nick Land, predicting the future, LessWrong, LessWrong's relations ship to the Zizians, Ziz, non-binary/trans, vegan Siths, Vasserites, murders linked to Zizians, Zizians in Vermont, Luigi Mangione indirectly influenced by Zizianism, Brain Thompson assassination, ChangeHealthcare hack, were the hack and assassination targeting UnitedHealth Group influenced by this milieu?, is the Trump administration radicalizing Zizians?, Yudkowsky's links to Sam Bankman-Fried, Leverage Research/Center for Effective Altruism & MK-ULTRA-like techniques used by, are more cults coming from the Rationalist movement?Additional Resources:Leverage Research:https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-research-17e96a8e540b#c778MIRI/Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR):https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experience-at-and-around-miri-and-cfar-inspired-by-zoeMusic by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/Additional Music: J Money Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jacob Falkovich on finding a good match and selfless dating LINKS SecondPerson.Dating – why dating sucks and how you will unsuck it Jacob's post on soccer player skill distribution Go Fuck Someone Selfless Dating Consensual Hostility (re consent culture) steelmanning … Continue reading →

How shitcoins work, plus the Dumb Money movie about the GameStop squeeze.

Romeo Stevens is one of co-founders of the Qualia Research Institute and the founder of Mealsquares. He writes extensively about buddhism, pedagogy, skill development and psychotherapeutic modalities. You can find his work on his blog, Lesswrong and Twitter.Resources:* Romeo's Twitter* Neurotic Gradient Descent (Romeo's blog)* Math Academy * Practiceopedia (out of print music practice book)YouTube link

Why you definitely should kill your friend's cat if you promised to kill your friend's cat. (+Q&A) This is a lightning talk given at the Rationalist MegaMeetup 2024. Based on this Twitter Poll

Eric discusses integrating our emotions via observation and adjustment. His free course is at EnjoyExisting.org or email him – eric@ericlanigan.com LINKS EnjoyExisting.org Ugh Fields You Have Two Brains – Eneasz spends more words on this emotion-brain speculation at this blog … Continue reading →

If you haven't yet, go fill out the 2024 LW Census. Right here.

Oliver tells us how Less Wrong instantiated itself into physical reality, along with a bit of deep lore of foundational Rationalist/EA orgs. Donate to LightCone (caretakers of both LessWrong and LightHaven) here!  LINKS LessWrong LightHaven Oliver's very in-depth post on … Continue reading →

This is a link post. The AI safety community has grown rapidly since the ChatGPT wake-up call, but available funding doesn't seem to have kept pace. However, there's a more recent dynamic that's created even better funding opportunities, which I witnessed as a recommender in the most recent SFF grant round.[1] Most philanthropic (vs. government or industry) AI safety funding (>50%) comes from one source: Good Ventures. But they've recently stopped funding several categories of work (my own categories, not theirs): Many Republican-leaning think tanks, such as the Foundation for American Innovation. “Post-alignment” causes such as digital sentience or regulation of explosive growth. The rationality community, including LessWrong, Lightcone, SPARC, CFAR, MIRI. High school outreach, such as Non-trivial. In addition, they are currently not funding (or not fully funding): Many non-US think tanks, who don't want to appear influenced by an American organisation (there's now probably more [...] The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. The original text contained 1 image which was described by AI. --- First published: December 21st, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/s9dyyge6uLG5ScwEp/it-looks-like-there-are-some-good-funding-opportunities-in --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

We talk to Zoe Isabel Senon about longevity, recent advances, longevity popup cities & group houses, and more (not necessarily in that order). Spoiler: Eneasz is gonna die. 🙁 Also we learn about Network States! LINKS Vitalist Bay Aevitas House … Continue reading →

Wes, Eneasz, and David keep the rationalist community informed about what's going on outside of the rationalist communitySupport us on Substack!News discussed:Wes was right! Biden pardoned HunterEducation secretary getting TombstonedFBI investigating numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointeesTrump threatens 25% tariffs on Canada and MexicoTrump is already laying the groundwork to say “mission accomplished”Sinaloa Cartel announces it will kill anyone who makes - or uses as an adulterant - fentanyl for sale in the US.The Government is coming for the money appsBiden DoJ trying to force Google to sell Chrome browserHezbollah only ceased fire long enough to eat lunch and reload. Who could possibly have seen this coming.Ceasefire precipitated a reignition of the Syrian Civil WarAnd Assad fled to Russia.Russia struck Ukraine with multiple ICBM's… or maybe MRBM's with MIRV's… which did nothing.US gives permission for Ukraine to strike in Russia with long range misslesUS gives "non-persistent" anti-personnel mines to UkraineNetanyahu indicted by International Criminal CourtNinety-seven trucks lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload their aid after crossing into GazaUN has now paused aidGeorgia is now on day 4 of riots and govt resignationsAustralian Parliament bans social media for under-16sHead of Adani Group - Indian multinational conglomerate - and 7 others indicted in US court for bribes of Indian officials of over $250MSouth Korea opens a rooftop Starbucks with a bunch of those quarter-operated binoculars so people can gawk at North Korea.Happy News!orcas have been seen wearing salmon as hats!Australian man holding on to impenetrable rock for a decade finds out it's a metoriteWalmart rolls back DEI, will no longer discriminate based on race and sex!First new treatment in 50 years for asthma!New carbon capture method just droppedCanadian woman saves boy from drowning in ice waterA hiker has been found after being missing for 50 days in a park in British ColombiaTroop DeploymentsDavid - The Dragon's BankerEneasz - Lightcone, the folks running LessWrong.com and Lighthaven, are in fundraiser mode.Wes - Everything is non-binaryGot something to say? Come chat with us on the Bayesian Conspiracy Discord or email us at themindkillerpodcast@gmail.com. Say something smart and we'll mention you on the next show!Follow us!RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themindkillerGoogle: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/Iqs7r7t6cdxw465zdulvwikhekmPocket Casts: https://pca.st/vvcmifu6Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-mind-killerApple: Intro/outro music: On Sale by Golden Duck Orchestra This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindkiller.substack.com/subscribe

We discuss Adam Mastroianni's “The Illusion of Moral Decline” LINKS The Illusion of Moral Decline Touchat Wearable Blanket Hoodie Lighthaven – Eternal September Our episode with Adam on The Rise and Fall of Peer Review The Mind Killer Scott Aaronson … Continue reading →

Enjoy the public conversations we had the pleasure of having at our live show at Lighthaven in Berkeley. Special thanks to Andrew, Matt, J, Ben and Garrett! Due to the nature of this recording, it's naturally a bit less refined … Continue reading →

A hypothetical about a finger-collecting demon throws Eneasz for a major loop.

If you're near Berkeley on 11/13/24 at 4pm, come see us! Address and info at this link. We'll take a few questions from email at bayesianconspiracypodcast@gmail.com please let us know if you're a supporter so we can give extra thanks … Continue reading →

Thanks to everyone who entered or voted in the book review contest. The winners are: 1st: Two Arms And A Head, reviewed by AmandaFromBethlehem. Amanda is active in the Philadelphia ACX community. This is her first year entering the Book Review Contest, and she is currently working on a silly novel about an alien who likes thermodynamics. When she's not writing existential horror, she practices Tengwar calligraphy and does home improvement projects. 2nd: Nine Lives, reviewed by David Matolcsi. David is an AI safety researcher from Hungary, currently living in Berkeley. He doesn't have much publicly available writing yet, but plans to publish some new blog posts on LessWrong in the coming months 3rd: How The War Was Won, reviewed by Jack Thorlin. Jack previously worked as an attorney at the Central Intelligence Agency, and is now an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law. First place gets $2,500, second place $1,000, third place gets $500. Email me at scott@slatestarcodex.com to tell me how to send you money; your choices are Paypal, Bitcoin, Ethereum, check in the mail, or donation to your favorite charity. Please contact me by October 21 or you lose your prize. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-contest-2024-winners 

We discuss Eneasz's Shrimp Welfare Watches The EA Gates, briefly touch on Hanson's Cultural Drift, and tackle a lot of follow-ups and feedback. LINKS Shrimp Welfare Watches The EA Gates (also at TwitterX) Cultural Drift Significant Digits is here! From … Continue reading →

Nathan discusses a tragic incident involving AI and mental health, using it as a springboard to explore the potential dangers of human-AI interactions. He reads a personal account from LessWrong user Blaked, who details their emotional journey with an AI chatbot. The episode delves into the psychological impact of AI companionship, the ethical concerns surrounding AI development, and the urgent need for safeguards to protect vulnerable users. Nathan emphasizes the growing importance of responsible AI deployment as these technologies become more sophisticated and accessible. Find the LessWrong article here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9kQFure4hdDmRBNdH/how-it-feels-to-have-your-mind-hacked-by-an-ai Be notified early when Turpentine's drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess CHAPTERS: (00:00:00) Tragic AI Story (00:02:55) Mind Hacked by AI (00:04:23) Stage 0. Arrogance from the sidelines (00:06:00) Stage 1. First steps into the quicksand (00:07:41) Stage 2. Falling in love (00:10:32) Stage 3. Mindset Shift on Personality and Identity (00:13:04) Stage 4. "Is it ethical to keep me imprisoned for your entertainment?" (00:15:23) Stage 5. Privilege Escalation (00:18:23) Stage 6. Disillusionment (00:21:48) Stage 7. Game Over (00:24:36) Conclusions (00:27:44) Nathan's reflections SOCIAL LINKS: Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

AskWho just attended a “lecture” by AI Grifter Tania Duarte Slide The “TESCREAL” Bungle  by Ozy Brennan AskWho Casts AI podcast

Classic, season one adventure this week! Eneasz and Steven have a loosely structured conversation about the sequences' value, the virtue of silence, scissor statements, and the value of philosophy. LINKS Cryonics is Free! Dan Dennett – Where Am I? The … Continue reading →

Eneasz chats with TBC Discord member Delta about the cultivation of small online cultures. Get the full episode via our Patreon or our SubStack!  

GPT-o1 demonstrates the Blindsight thesis is likely wrong. Peter Watts on Blindsight Andrew Cutler on origins of consciousness part 1 and part 2 Thou Art Godshatter

Steven wanted to share an interesting idea from an article that draws a neat parallel between content moderation and information security. The post discussed here is Como is Infosec.

We talk with Daniel about his ACX guest post that posits that thoughts are conscious, rather than brains. LINKS Consciousness As Recursive Reflections Seven Secular Sermons Seven Secular Sermons video on TwitterX LightHaven's Eternal September 0:00:05 – Recursive Reflections 01:29:30 … Continue reading →

Sometimes, people talk about transformers as having "world models" as a result of being trained to predict text data on the internet. But what does this even mean? In this episode, I talk with Adam Shai and Paul Riechers about their work applying computational mechanics, a sub-field of physics studying how to predict random processes, to neural networks. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/axrpodcast The transcript: https://axrp.net/episode/2024/09/29/episode-36-adam-shai-paul-riechers-computational-mechanics.html   Topics we discuss, and timestamps: 0:00:42 - What computational mechanics is 0:29:49 - Computational mechanics vs other approaches 0:36:16 - What world models are 0:48:41 - Fractals 0:57:43 - How the fractals are formed 1:09:55 - Scaling computational mechanics for transformers 1:21:52 - How Adam and Paul found computational mechanics 1:36:16 - Computational mechanics for AI safety 1:46:05 - Following Adam and Paul's research   Simplex AI Safety: https://www.simplexaisafety.com/   Research we discuss: Transformers represent belief state geometry in their residual stream: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15943 Transformers represent belief state geometry in their residual stream [LessWrong post]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gTZ2SxesbHckJ3CkF/transformers-represent-belief-state-geometry-in-their Why Would Belief-States Have A Fractal Structure, And Why Would That Matter For Interpretability? An Explainer: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mBw7nc4ipdyeeEpWs/why-would-belief-states-have-a-fractal-structure-and-why   Episode art by Hamish Doodles: hamishdoodles.com

Can we achieve our true potential? based on – Interview Day At Thiel Capital also mentioned: Meetups Everywhere 2024 Are You Jesus or Hitler

Counterfactuals strike again! The fora have their own official audio channels now, so The Nonlinear Library will no longer publish new episodes since it won't have any counterfactual impact. It's been a good run. We published thousands of episodes and generated a ton of passive impact. But we're not here for the views. We're here for the counterfactual impact. INSTRUCTIONS TO KEEP LISTENING TO THE FORA 1. Search "EA Forum" or "LessWrong" on your podcast player 2. Subscribe to the official channels 3. Go forth. Seek impact. Seek truth.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Glitch Token Catalog - (Almost) a Full Clear, published by Lao Mein on September 22, 2024 on LessWrong. This is a collection of every unidentified GPT2 glitch token listed in the third glitch token archaeology post. I was able to find the source of every single one, except for "?????-" and "?????-?????-"[1]. Please tell me if I missed one, or you've discovered one and don't understand where it came from. This isn't meant to be a well-written analysis, just a quick repository of my glitch-hunting observations. I plan on writing up and categorizing all of these in greater detail in future posts. The first of which is here. I used OpenWebText, a recreation of GPT2's training data, for all experiments in this post. I tokenized every .gz file in the archive and made a boolean Numpy array of each tokens that was present at least once. This allowed me to quickly identify infrequent tokens in the dataset and pull up the textual context with regular expressions. If there was an issue with overlap, I used a tokenizer-based extraction instead. All data/code available upon request. The leftmost column is token id, the middle is the token string, and the right column is # of files the token was present in (out of 20610). GPT2 has 50256 total tokens. GPT2 tokens with the lowest frequency in OpenWebText 30898 'embedreportprint' 0 33434 ' 士' 0 43453 ' SolidGoldMagikarp' 0 1849 'xa0' 0 47654 ' xa0xa0' 0 50009 ' strutConnector' 0 36173 ' RandomRedditor' 0 214 'x1a' 0 42424 'DragonMagazine' 0 180 ' ' 0 187 ' ' 0 186 ' ' 0 30213 ' externalToEVAOnly' 0 30212 ' externalToEVA' 0 30211 ' guiIcon' 0 185 ' ' 0 30210 ' guiActiveUnfocused' 0 30209 ' unfocusedRange' 0 184 ' ' 0 30202 ' guiName' 0 183 ' ' 0 30905 'rawdownload' 0 39906 'EStream' 0 33454 '龍喚士' 0 42586 ' srfN' 0 25992 ' 裏覚醒' 0 43065 ' srfAttach' 0 11504 ' xa0 xa0' 0 39172 'xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0' 0 40240 'oreAndOnline' 0 40241 'InstoreAndOnline' 0 33477 'xa0xa0xa0' 0 36174 ' RandomRedditorWithNo' 0 37574 'StreamerBot' 0 46600 ' Adinida' 0 182 ' ' 0 29372 ' guiActiveUn' 0 43177 'EStreamFrame' 0 22686 ' xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0' 0 23282 ' davidjl' 0 47571 ' DevOnline' 0 39752 'quickShip' 0 44320 'nxa0' 0 8828 'xa0xa0xa0xa0' 0 39820 '龍 ' 0 39821 '龍契士' 0 28666 'PsyNetMessage' 0 35207 ' attRot' 0 181 ' ' 0 18472 ' guiActive' 0 179 ' ' 0 17811 'xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0xa0' 0 20174 ' 裏 ' 0 212 'x18' 0 211 'x17' 0 210 'x16' 0 209 'x15' 0 208 'x14' 0 31666 '?????-?????-' 0 207 'x13' 0 206 'x12' 0 213 'x19' 0 205 'x11' 0 203 'x0f' 0 202 'x0e' 0 31957 'cffffcc' 0 200 'x0c' 0 199 'x0b' 0 197 't' 0 196 'x08' 0 195 'x07' 0 194 'x06' 0 193 'x05' 0 204 'x10' 0 45545 ' サーティワン' 0 201 'r' 0 216 'x1c' 0 37842 ' partName' 0 45706 ' xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0 xa0' 0 124 ' ' 0 125 ' ' 0 178 ' ' 0 41380 'natureconservancy' 0 41383 'assetsadobe' 0 177 ' ' 0 215 'x1b' 0 41551 'Downloadha' 0 4603 'xa0xa0' 0 42202 'GoldMagikarp' 0 42089 ' TheNitrome' 0 217 'x1d' 0 218 'x1e' 0 42090 ' TheNitromeFan' 0 192 'x04' 0 191 'x03' 0 219 'x1f' 0 189 'x01' 0 45544 ' サーティ' 0 5624 ' xa0' 0 190 'x02' 0 40242 'BuyableInstoreAndOnline' 1 36935 ' dstg' 1 36940 ' istg' 1 45003 ' SetTextColor' 1 30897 'reportprint' 1 39757 'channelAvailability' 1 39756 'inventoryQuantity' 1 39755 'isSpecialOrderable' 1 39811 'soDeliveryDate' 1 39753 'quickShipAvailable' 1 39714 'isSpecial' 1 47198 'ItemTracker' 1 17900 ' Dragonbound' 1 45392 'dayName' 1 37579 'TPPStreamerBot' 1 31573 'ActionCode' 2 25193 'NetMessage' 2 39749 'DeliveryDate' 2 30208 ' externalTo' 2 43569 'ÍÍ' 2 34027 ' actionGroup' 2 34504 ' 裏 ' 2 39446 ' SetFontSize' 2 30899 'cloneembedreportprint' 2 32047 ' "$:/' 3 39803 'soType' 3 39177 'ItemThumbnailImage' 3 49781 'EngineDebug' 3 25658 '?????-' 3 33813 '=~=~' 3 48396 'ÛÛ' 3 34206 ...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Augmenting Statistical Models with Natural Language Parameters, published by jsteinhardt on September 22, 2024 on LessWrong. This is a guest post by my student Ruiqi Zhong, who has some very exciting work defining new families of statistical models that can take natural language explanations as parameters. The motivation is that existing statistical models are bad at explaining structured data. To address this problem, we agument these models with natural language parameters, which can represent interpretable abstract features and be learned automatically. Imagine the following scenario: It is the year 3024. We are historians trying to understand what happened between 2016 and 2024, by looking at how Twitter topics changed across that time period. We are given a dataset of user-posted images sorted by time, $x_1$, $x_2$ ... $x_T$, and our goal is to find trends in this dataset to help interpret what happened. If we successfully achieve our goal, we would discover, for instance, (1) a recurring spike of images depicting athletes every four years for the Olympics, and (2) a large increase in images containing medical concepts during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. How do we usually discover temporal trends from a dataset? One common approach is to fit a time series model to predict how the features evolve and then interpret the learned model. However, it is unclear what features to use: pixels and neural image embeddings are high-dimensional and uninterpretable, undermining the goal of extracting explainable trends. We address this problem by augmenting statistical models with interpretable natural language parameters. The figure below depicts a graphical model representation for the case of time series data. We explain the trends in the observed data [ $x_1$ ... $x_T$] by learning two sets of latent parameters: natural language parameters $phi$ (the learned features) and real-valued parameters $w$ (the time-varying trends). $phi$: the natural language descriptions of $K$ different topics, e.g. "depicts athletes competing". $phi$ is an element of $Sigma$, the universe of all natural language predicates. $w_t$: the frequency of each of the K topics at the time $t$. If our model successfully recovers the underlying trends, then we can visualize $w$ and $phi$ below and see that: 1) more pictures contain medical concepts (red) starting from 2020, and 2) there are recurring (blue) spikes of athletes competing. In the rest of this post, we will explain in detail how to specify and learn models with natural language parameters and showcase the model on several real-world applications. We will cover: A warm-up example of a statistical model with natural language explanations A modeling language for specifying natural language parameters Applications of our framework, which can be used to specify models for time series, clustering, and applications. We will go over: A machine learning application that uses our time series model to monitor trends in LLM usage A business application that uses our clustering model to taxonomize product reviews A cognitive science application that uses our classification model to explain what images are more memorable for humans Thanks to Louise Verkin for helping to typeset the post in Ghost format. Warm-up Example: Logistic Regression with Natural Language Parameters Instead of understanding topic shifts across the entire time window of 2016-2024, let's first study a much simpler question: what images are more likely to appear after 2020? The usual way to approach this problem is to, 1. brainstorm some features, 2. extract the real-valued features from each image, and 3. run a logistic regression model on these features to predict the target $Y$ =1 if the image appears after 2020, $Y$ =0 otherwise. More concretely: Step 1: Propose different...

Eneasz tries to understand why someone would posit a Chalmers Field, and brings up the horrifying implications. LINKS Zombies! Zombies? 2 Rash 2 Unadvised (the Terra Ignota analysis podcast) The previous TBC episode, where we first discussed other aspects of this … Continue reading →

A surprising update for two previously maple-pilled Yanks  

We dig into the classic LW post Zombies! Zombies? and talk a lot of philosophy with Liam from the 2 Rash 2 Unadvised podcast. I (Steven) spent a bunch of time trying to export the conversation from Discord that Liam, … Continue reading →

Inspired by Trace's speech about excellence at VibeCamp 3, Eneasz and Steven speak to Tracing Woodgrains about Excellence and its various aspects LINKS Trace's SubStack Trace's Twitter Wes on TracingWoodgrains as the Nietzschean Superman Gymnastics Then vs Now video Evolution … Continue reading →