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# Apply to lead a project during the next virtual AI Safety Camp
*Do you have AI Safety research ideas that you would like others to work on? Is there a project you want to do and you want help finding a team to work with you? AI Safety Camp could be the solution for you!*
Summary
=======
AI Safety Camp Virtual is a... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mw8X3wCdcHipdTicv/apply-to-lead-a-project-during-the-next-virtual-ai-safety |
# Contra Yudkowsky on Epistemic Conduct for Author Criticism
In [a comment on the Effective Altruism Forum](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZS9GDsBtWJMDEyFXh/eliezer-yudkowsky-is-frequently-confidently-egregiously?commentId=7fs5nHEkK6AGgPAJ9) responding to Omnizoid's ["Eliezer Yudkowsky Is Frequently, Confid... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pkaagE6LAsGummWNv/contra-yudkowsky-on-epistemic-conduct-for-author-criticism |
# Expanding the Scope of Superposition
Overview
========
One of the active research areas for interpretability involves distilling neural network activations into clean, labeled features. This is made difficult because of [superposition](https://transformer-circuits.pub/2022/toy_model/index.html), where a neuron may ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wHHdJdhKBqoKAMC5d/expanding-the-scope-of-superposition |
# MLSN: #10
Adversarial Attacks Against Language and Vision Models, Improving LLM Honesty, and Tracing the Influence of LLM Training Data
Welcome to the 10th issue of the ML Safety Newsletter by the Center for AI Safety. In this edition, we cover:
* Adversarial attacks against GPT-4, PaLM-2, Claude, and Llama 2
* ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fxkMXwGn2DRmeDxyy/mlsn-10-adversarial-attacks-against-language-and-vision |
# Linkpost for Jan Leike on Self-Exfiltration
I'm really glad to see this stuff being discussed more publicly. I think this post will probably be a useful reference post to link people to (please lmk in the comments if you disagree!).
Some quotes below:
> For the near future, a good rule of thumb for “do you control... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xhJjhTFqxA4PHHue8/linkpost-for-jan-leike-on-self-exfiltration |
# Mech Interp Challenge: September - Deciphering the Addition Model
**I'm writing this post to discuss solutions to the August challenge, and present the challenge for this September.** Apologies for this coming so late in the month (EAGxBerlin was taking up much of my focus in the first half of this month).
If you'v... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/67xQqsimxywp9wYjC/mech-interp-challenge-september-deciphering-the-addition |
# Uncovering Latent Human Wellbeing in LLM Embeddings
tl;dr
-----
A one-dimensional PCA projection of OpenAI's `text-embedding-ada-002` achieves 73.7% accuracy on the ETHICS Util test dataset. This is comparable with the 74.6% accuracy of BERT-large *finetuned on the entire ETHICS Util training dataset*. This demonst... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BDTZBPunnvffCfKff/uncovering-latent-human-wellbeing-in-llm-embeddings |
# Highlights: Wentworth, Shah, and Murphy on "Retargeting the Search"
In [How To Go From Interpretability To Alignment: Just Retarget The Search](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/w4aeAFzSAguvqA5qu/how-to-go-from-interpretability-to-alignment-just-retarget), John Wentworth suggests:
> When people talk about [prosaic al... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CvCiTEpabqzAroAas/highlights-wentworth-shah-and-murphy-on-retargeting-the |
# AI #29: Take a Deep Breath
It works for the AI. Take a deep breath and work on this problem step-by-step was the strongest AI-generated custom instruction. You, a human, even have lungs and the ability to take an actual deep breath. You can also think step by step.
This week was especially friendly to such a propos... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/37LWXb3cvC7NLJN6x/ai-29-take-a-deep-breath |
# Instrumental Convergence Bounty
I have yet to find a real-world example that I can test my [corrigibility](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/v3jocJRScqkBGtwvf/corrigibility-much-more-detail-than-anyone-wants-to-read) definition on. Hence, I will send $100 to the first person who can send/show me an example of instrum... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ym4BAovbgLAaXsf79/instrumental-convergence-bounty |
# A Theory of Laughter—Follow-Up
**NOTE: If you read the original** [**A Theory of Laughter**](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7kdBqSFJnvJzYTfx9/a-theory-of-laughter) **on or after 2024-12-16, then you can skip this post, because I edited the original to incorporate all of these updates.**
**~~**
My original post wa... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MAgL5rzwvAS9LC8CF/a-theory-of-laughter-follow-up |
# Cruxes for overhang
Suppose a policy regime artificially restricts training compute.[^b57t6bcuh2g] Will this lead to rapid progress[^mlh644axnwa] later? Yes if and only if both the policy is suddenly reversed/evaded and progress can largely 'catch back up to where it would have been.' This post aims to identify cruc... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/59dKN8XQGx952irWg/cruxes-for-overhang-1 |
# Inline Plotting in iTerm2
I spend most of my working time in the terminal: I run my text editor there, run programs there, etc. I usually have my iTerm2 set up to display [many narrow full height terminals](https://www.jefftk.com/p/terminal-preferences). When I'm working with plots, however, I normally do something ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2vqW3SwPe4edkzc8A/inline-plotting-in-iterm2 |
# Can I take ducks home from the park?
Language models, whatever. Maybe they can write code or summarize text or regurgitate copyrighted stuff. But… can you take ducks home from the park? If you ask models how to do that, they often refuse to tell you. So I asked six different models in 16 different ways.
Baseline qu... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xfWbXzBnzre2DG8f7/can-i-take-ducks-home-from-the-park |
# "Did you lock it?"
A common trait among my social circle used to be that everyone shared an obsession with bicycles. Few of us had or even wanted a car in the city, and having everyone on [two wheels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNnhyfmJOCw) made it much easier to roam down our house party itinerary. Between all... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jXHermttoR8HGAbha/did-you-lock-it |
# SPAR seeks advisors and students for AI safety projects (Second Wave)
1. **For advisors: **[**submit project proposals**](https://airtable.com/appYIr2qJDA2k0H9V/shrhN1zbOMTqU9Lnj) **by September 18th.**
2. **For students: **[**apply**](https://airtable.com/appYIr2qJDA2k0H9V/shrpuHEtBYE6beoWU) **by September 29th.*... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KnBaLaEyoDmhJDPkE/spar-seeks-advisors-and-students-for-ai-safety-projects |
# Deconfusing Regret
There are lots of different things, all of which are called regret. I treat them differently, so I need different names for the different classes of regret.
Agentic regret. The sort of regret that you feel when you made a choice that was wrong and you knew it was the wrong choice and you failed a... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/x2QL3kepmskJqq3sL/deconfusing-regret |
# Thoughts on the Waluigi Effect
*Thanks to Tomas Gavenciak, Clem Von Stengel, and Mihaly Barasz for many conversations about the Waluigi Effect.*
Four thoughts, to be exact. After recapping relevant parts of [the Waluigi Effect](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D7PumeYTDPfBTp3i7/the-waluigi-effect-mega-post), I sugge... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jFvxZXwv6fNveKETq/thoughts-on-the-waluigi-effect |
# I compiled a ebook of `Project Lawful` for eBook readers
I was on vacation last week and started reading [Project Lawful aka planecrash](https://www.projectlawful.com/).
Unfortunately reading on my phone got annoying pretty fast (especially outside in the sun), and the existing [glowpub](https://github.com/Quart... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EuoTmyRgJnuvvdedS/i-compiled-a-ebook-of-project-lawful-for-ebook-readers |
# Ethics Needs A Marginal Revolution
Introduction
============
Crosspost of [this](https://benthams.substack.com/p/ethics-needs-a-marginal-revolution) on my blog.
The [marginal revolution in economics](https://www.amazon.com/Marginal-revolution-economics-Interpretation-evaluation/dp/0822302780) was a transformativ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FWPCEkpDz5BMwnaFh/ethics-needs-a-marginal-revolution |
# Influence functions - why, what and how
Anthropic recently published the paper [Studying Large Language Model Generalization with Influence Functions](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.03296.pdf), which describes a scalable technique for measuring which training examples were most influential for a particular set of weight... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sYeZvofqbWJDrXEHM/influence-functions-why-what-and-how |
# Closing Notes on Nonlinear Investigation
Over the past seven months, I've been working part-time on an investigation of Nonlinear, culminating in last week's [post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Lc8r4tZ2L5txxokZ8/sharing-information-about-nonlinear-1). As I'm wrapping up this project, I want to share my personal p... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AggYFFvFHfh2WWZiv/closing-notes-on-nonlinear-investigation |
# Navigating an ecosystem that might or might not be bad for the world
I have this deep sense that somehow this ecosystem will do a lot of stuff that makes the world a lot worse, and I don't know how to relate to it in a way that doesn't make my actions dominated by my effect on that, and I expect that I will either c... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iNYdKoGsh4ffxbQ5t/navigating-an-ecosystem-that-might-or-might-not-be-bad-for |
# An attempt at a "good enough" solution for human two-party negotiations
I [previously wrote](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K7go9RJidEuYhjCiu/what-s-the-best-way-to-streamline-two-party-sale) about the difficulty of fair two-party negotiations when there isn't an authority to refer to (like an established market pr... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HCox6ths8u8XnQbkZ/an-attempt-at-a-good-enough-solution-for-human-two-party |
# What's up with psychonetics?
[http://deconcentration-of-attention.com/psychonetics.html](http://deconcentration-of-attention.com/psychonetics.html)
Psychonetics sounds a lot like something that rationalists would be into or at least *know about* but searching it on LessWrong gives a grand total of one mention i... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JaAsMtxBtdFemsbx4/what-s-up-with-psychonetics |
# <|endoftext|> is a vanishing text?
*Just sharing this observation and readers / researchers might find it useful or worth further testing...*
### **A bug?**
<|endoftext|> is a special token for the GPT models along with its counterpart <|startoftext|>. Per OpenAI's [tokenizer](https://platform.openai.com/token... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HvmhZR6EJEi7bEqBh/less-than-or-endoftext-or-greater-than-is-a-vanishing-text |
# In the Short-Term, Why Couldn't You Just RLHF-out Instrumental Convergence?
To the question "Do you expect instrumental convergence to become a big pain for AGI labs within the next two years?", about a quarter of the 400 people who answered to [the poll I ran](https://twitter.com/Simeon_Cps/status/1701626281509425... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pndn5Lwsx6QDk2ox2/in-the-short-term-why-couldn-t-you-just-rlhf-out |
# Polarization is Not (Standard) Bayesian
***TLDR:** Standard rational models can explain many aspects of polarization. But not all. Ideological sorting implies that our beliefs often evolve in* predictable *ways, violating the “martingale property” of Bayesian belief-updating. Rational models need to reckon with this... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/u7JW4mF3biM936JLo/polarization-is-not-standard-bayesian |
# The commenting restrictions on LessWrong seem bad
I wrote a few controversial articles on LessWrong recently that got downvoted. Now, as a consequence, I can only leave one comment every few days. This makes it totally impossible to participate in various ongoing debates, or even provide replies to the comments t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7FAneMMzGjxBsosue/the-commenting-restrictions-on-lesswrong-seem-bad |
# Asking for help as an O(1) lookup
Main idea: When you have a question and are googling around for an answer, you're basically searching through a space of information, and seeking an answer to your question in this space. Sometimes you're able to find your answer quickly. Sometimes you aren't. But if you are able to... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D5CsfTNEqW6iFusyk/asking-for-help-as-an-o-1-lookup |
# On being downvoted
*Meta: I don't think I have anything even moderately good to say here. Still, 1) I observe and endorse the* [*policy*](https://www.lesswrong.com/faq#What_can_I_post_on_LessWrong_) *of* "Posts on practically any topic are welcomed on LessWrong"*, and 2) I think it might be helpful to start a conver... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ico2EZKwX957SChXB/on-being-downvoted |
# Keeping Dresser Drawers In
We have an old dresser in our kitchen we use as extra cabinet space:
[](https://www.jefftk.com/kitchen-dresser-closed-big.jpg)
As an old dresser with wooden runners, however, there's nothing to keep the drawers from being pulled all t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PNozeAiippoFKQuTQ/keeping-dresser-drawers-in |
# How to talk about reasons why AGI might not be near?
I occasionally have some thoughts about why AGI might not be as near as a lot of people seem to think, but I'm confused about how/whether to talk about them in public.
The biggest reason for not talking about them is that one person's "here is a list of capabilit... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8XAxbsdtLmMaf5zta/how-to-talk-about-reasons-why-agi-might-not-be-near |
# Memory bandwidth constraints imply economies of scale in AI inference
Contemporary GPUs often have very imbalanced memory vs arithmetic operation capabilities. For instance, an [H100](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/h100/) can do around 3e15 8-bit FLOP/s, but the speed at which information can move between ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cB2Rtnp7DBTpDy3ii/memory-bandwidth-constraints-imply-economies-of-scale-in-ai |
# Reflexive decision theory is an unsolved problem
By "reflexive decision theory", hereafter RDT, I mean any decision theory that can incorporate information about one's own future decisions into the process of making those decisions. RDT is not itself a decision theory, but a class of decision theories, or a property... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JHgSgwjnBpcirfq9m/reflexive-decision-theory-is-an-unsolved-problem |
# Book Review: Consciousness Explained (as the Great Catalyst)
*[Thanks to [wilkox](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/wilkox) for helpful discussion, as well as [Charlie Steiner](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/charlie-steiner), [Richard Kennaway](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/richard_kennaway), and [Said Achmiz](htt... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/naEDcbicBBykiTFwi/book-review-consciousness-explained-as-the-great-catalyst |
# How to think about slowing AI
*This post is part of the EA Forum AI Pause Debate Week. Please see* [*this sequence*](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/vw6tX5SyvTwMeSxJk) *for other posts in the debate.*
Slowing AI[^tqeeenb4cr] is many-dimensional. This post presents variables for determining whether a particula... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/noFENwBBkXENpESrn/how-to-think-about-slowing-ai |
# Telopheme, telophore, and telotect
*[Metadata: crossposted from [https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2023/06/telopheme-telophore-and-telotect.html](https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2023/06/telopheme-telophore-and-telotect.html). First completed June 7, 2023.]*
To come to know that a mind will have some specified ultimate effec... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/p7mMJvwDbuvo4K7NE/telopheme-telophore-and-telotect |
# Joseph Bloom on choosing AI Alignment over bio, what many aspiring researchers get wrong, and more (interview)
*This is a section of an interview I conducted with my brother, Joseph. We'll soon publish the interview sections about his research on Decision Transformers and mech interp opinions.*
Preview Snippets
---... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zRuTHhmdvcfRytMAJ/joseph-bloom-on-choosing-ai-alignment-over-bio-what-many |
# Actually, "personal attacks after object-level arguments" is a pretty good rule of epistemic conduct
Background: this post is a response to a recent [post](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pkaagE6LAsGummWNv/contra-yudkowsky-on-epistemic-conduct-for-author-criticism) by [@Zack\_M\_Davis](https://www.lesswrong.com/user... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FrR78Wy6s79keSuDe/actually-personal-attacks-after-object-level-arguments-is-a |
# Eugenics Performed By A Blind, Idiot God
[](https://substackcd... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FcnTZPPob4cGKBHBm/eugenics-performed-by-a-blind-idiot-god |
# Microdooms averted by working on AI Safety
Disclaimer: the models presented are extremely naive and simple, and assume that existential risk from AI is higher than 20%. Play around with the models using [this (mostly GPT-4 generated) jupyter notebook.](https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1PcXM_FtItgGKF8J_WCZg1rA... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mTtxJKN3Ew8CAEHGr/microdooms-averted-by-working-on-ai-safety |
# Show LW: Get a phone call if prediction markets predict nuclear war
[hasrussialaunchednukes.com](https://web.archive.org/web/20221007124141/https://hasrussialaunchednukesyet.com/ ) used to be a website "to help \[the author\] and a few of \[their\] friends get notified when Russia launches any nukes towards Ukraine,... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YcovdHESjAa6rTptG/show-lw-get-a-phone-call-if-prediction-markets-predict |
# Three ways interpretability could be impactful
***Epistemic status**: somewhat confident that overall these arguments show interpretability could be impactful, but not confident on any individual point.*
***Background**: I wrote a draft of this post *[*here*](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tVlPyQ74But0OeHH0OhO... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pmz3HpJrHcWhkLqS5/three-ways-interpretability-could-be-impactful |
# Ask for Feelings not Tunes
In putting on a contra dance, it's standard for the caller to pick the dances and the band to pick the tunes. Since it's much more satisfying when the tune fits the dance, the band and caller confer briefly between each dance. For example, the caller might say they want something "smooth a... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ui7aErptBHRCtHPdg/ask-for-feelings-not-tunes |
# Technical AI Safety Research Landscape [Slides]
I recently gave a technical AI safety research overview talk at EAGx Berlin. Many people told me they found the talk insightful, so I’m sharing the slides here as well. I edited them for clarity and conciseness, and added explanations.
Outline
-------
This presentati... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/x2n7mBLryDXuLwGhx/technical-ai-safety-research-landscape-slides |
# [Review] Move First, Think Later: Sense and Nonsense in Improving Your Chess
The author is Dutch International Master Willy Hendriks (IM is the rank below Grandmaster; there are ~4000 IMs and ~2000 GMs). He takes aim at chess instructors like IM Jeremy Silman, whose popular books *The Amateur’s Mind* and *How to Rea... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/m6YCs9hGyYLAikyCo/review-move-first-think-later-sense-and-nonsense-in |
# Where might I direct promising-to-me researchers to apply for alignment jobs/grants?
It sometimes happens that people who I've talked to or worked with ask me where they should go for financial support for their research. I haven't developed a standard list of answers to this question. It seems to me like there are ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kxFwEKRy3vjCWDNm4/where-might-i-direct-promising-to-me-researchers-to-apply |
# The Talk: a brief explanation of sexual dimorphism
*Cross-posted from* [*substack*](https://malmesbury.substack.com/p/the-talk-a-brief-explainer-of-sexual)*.*
*"Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about clonal interference."*
– Oscar Wilde [(kind of)](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6218-eve... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yA8DWsHJeFZhDcQuo/the-talk-a-brief-explanation-of-sexual-dimorphism |
# Some reasons why I frequently prefer communicating via text
I often prefer communication via text to chatting in person, on the phone, or via a video call. Let's call this latter grouping "oral communication" and the former "textual communication".
This preference applies to various contexts: social, personal, work... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WS7ccd4wpWGQ3oG6L/some-reasons-why-i-frequently-prefer-communicating-via-text |
# Panel with Israeli Prime Minister on existential risk from AI
Israeli Prime Minister, Musk, Tegmark and Brockman discuss existential risk from AI.
Nothing truly revolutionary was said. I think the most interesting bits are that the Prime Minister seems to be taking AI risk seriously, has in mind exponential progres... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/umpptiigpinkaZ7jM/panel-with-israeli-prime-minister-on-existential-risk-from |
# Luck based medicine: angry eldritch sugar gods edition
Introduction
============
Epistemic status: everything is stupid. I’m pretty sure I’m directionally right but this post is in large part correcting previous statements of mine, and there’s no reason to believe this is the last correction. Even if I am right, me... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cynLNwuZELeTfHZrB/luck-based-medicine-angry-eldritch-sugar-gods-edition |
# [Link post] Michael Nielsen's "Notes on Existential Risk from Artificial Superintelligence"
Summary
-------
From the piece:
> *Earlier this year I decided to take a few weeks to figure out what I think about the existential risk from Artificial Superintelligence (ASI xrisk). It turned out to be much more difficult... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8Q7JwFyC8hqYYmCkC/link-post-michael-nielsen-s-notes-on-existential-risk-from |
# AISN #22: The Landscape of US AI Legislation -
Hearings, Frameworks, Bills, and Laws
Welcome to the AI Safety Newsletter by the [Center for AI Safety](https://www.safe.ai/). We discuss developments in AI and AI safety. No technical background required.
This week we’re looking closely at AI legislative efforts in t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/c7E3AGEJSCt4tbGuj/aisn-22-the-landscape-of-us-ai-legislation-hearings |
# Anthropic's Responsible Scaling Policy & Long-Term Benefit Trust
*I'm delighted that Anthropic has formally committed to [our responsible scaling policy](https://www-files.anthropic.com/production/files/responsible-scaling-policy-1.0.pdf).
We're also sharing more detail about the [Long-Term Benefit Trust](https://... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6tjHf5ykvFqaNCErH/anthropic-s-responsible-scaling-policy-and-long-term-benefit |
# Precision of Sets of Forecasts
> I discuss proposals for a method that estimates how much predictive
information additional degrees of precision in forecasts add and at which
point additional precision is just noise, and investigate these proposals
with empirical forecasting data. I furthermore describe desirable cr... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WhwHYsKTNptbFwdwP/precision-of-sets-of-forecasts |
# Formalizing «Boundaries» with Markov blankets
How could «boundaries» be formally specified? Markov blankets seem to be one fitting abstraction.
\[The post is largely a conceptual distillation of Andrew Critch’s [Part 3a: Defining boundaries as directed Markov blankets](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HrtqLy46Fx7xq... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z4o4iAFgnmaBmksN2/formalizing-boundaries-with-markov-blankets |
# Science of Deep Learning more tractably addresses the Sharp Left Turn than Agent Foundations
Summary
=======
Lots of agent foundations research is motivated by the idea that alignment techniques found by empirical trial-and-error will fail to generalize to future systems. While such threat models are plausible, age... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/v6zZaR7aDD6vkuPmx/science-of-deep-learning-more-tractably-addresses-the-sharp |
# The AI Explosion Might Never Happen
\[This is a crosspost from [https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/recursive-self-improvement-foom,](https://amistrongeryet.substack.com/p/recursive-self-improvement-foom,) lightly edited for the LessWrong audience. This is my first LessWrong post; feedback greatly appreciated!\]
... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Nhwc8GGqm26z7iG88/the-ai-explosion-might-never-happen |
# Protest against Meta's irreversible proliferation (Sept 29, San Francisco)
Meta’s frontier AI models are fundamentally unsafe. Since Meta AI has released the model weights publicly, any safety measures can be removed. Before it releases even more advanced models – which will have more dangerous capabilities – we cal... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z7th38SxA5363XiFh/protest-against-meta-s-irreversible-proliferation-sept-29 |
# Careless talk on US-China AI competition? (and criticism of CAIS coverage)
> China has made several efforts to preserve their chip access, including smuggling, buying chips that are just under the legal limit of performance, and investing in their domestic chip industry.[^1]
[^1]: Center for AI Safety, [AI Safety N... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uRyKkyYstxZkCNcoP/careless-talk-on-us-china-ai-competition-and-criticism-of |
# Housing Roundup #6
The listings will continue until people can afford houses in places they want to live.
#### New City By the Bay, Who Dis
They want to live in San Francisco, but San Francisco has no interest in building homes. What to do? The city’s answer is to spend massively to support its homeless population... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9DGDxRzX8xhe8jsjb/housing-roundup-6 |
# The stereotype of male classical music lovers being gay
I have recently spent a lot of time on classical music forums, especially opera. There are more gay men than you would expect by chance. We have discussed it a few times, and it seems, classical music is considered a gay interest in the USA. Opera is the most p... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MiovddEXywPhywXYK/the-stereotype-of-male-classical-music-lovers-being-gay |
# Weekly Incidence Including Delay
A few days ago I [wrote about](https://www.jefftk.com/p/weekly-incidence-vs-cumulative-infections) some math behind a scenario where you're trying to identify a new epidemic based on signals proportional to incidence, and ended up deriving:
i(t) c(t) = k = ln (2) Td
Where:
* i(t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PiJDrMbrDGKwEAcWd/weekly-incidence-including-delay |
# An Elementary Introduction to Infra-Bayesianism
This is my attempt to summarize Infra-Bayesianism probability theory at a level approaching "high school class in probability", as opposed to the "math-major class in probability theory" of the original. I aimed to focus on including simple exercises (with answers giv... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Een2oqjZe6Gtx6hrj/an-elementary-introduction-to-infra-bayesianism |
# Interpretability Externalities Case Study - Hungry Hungry Hippos
Some people worry about interpretability research being useful for AI capabilities and potentially net-negative. As far as I was aware of, this worry has mostly been theoretical, but now there is a real world example: The [hungry hungry hippos](https:/... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/75uJN3qqzyxWoknN7/interpretability-externalities-case-study-hungry-hungry |
# Image Hijacks: Adversarial Images can Control Generative Models at Runtime
You can [try our interactive demo](https://image-hijacks.github.io/)! (Or read our [preprint](https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.00236).)
Here, we want to explain why we care about this work from an AI safety perspective.
Concerning Properties of ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WeWi6PYaBLaCuX8JJ/image-hijacks-adversarial-images-can-control-generative |
# AI #30: Dalle-3 and GPT-3.5-Instruct-Turbo
We are about to see what looks like a substantial leap in image models. OpenAI will be integrating Dalle-3 into ChatGPT, the pictures we’ve seen look gorgeous and richly detailed, with the ability to generate pictures to much more complex specifications than existing image ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DQTM2whB9i57o2mA3/ai-30-dalle-3-and-gpt-3-5-instruct-turbo |
# Ward 5: Jack Perenick and Naima Sait
I live in Ward 5 in Somerville, where there are two candidates running for city council this fall: [Jack Perenick](https://www.jackforsomerville.com/) and [Naima Sait](https://www.naimaforsomerville.org/). On Sunday both of them stopped by our neighborhood block party, and we got... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hxn6FjzjmM5boKSdB/ward-5-jack-perenick-and-naima-sait |
# There should be more AI safety orgs
*I’m writing this in my own capacity. The views expressed are my own, and should not be taken to represent the views of Apollo Research or any other program I’m involved with. *
**TL;DR:** I argue why I think there should be more AI safety orgs. I’ll also provide some suggestions... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MhudbfBNQcMxBBvj8/there-should-be-more-ai-safety-orgs |
# Sparse Autoencoders Find Highly Interpretable Directions in Language Models
*This is a linkpost for* [*Sparse Autoencoders Find Highly Interpretable Directions in Language Models*](https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.08600)
We use a *scalable* and *unsupervised* method called Sparse Autoencoders to find *interpretable*, *mo... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Qryk6FqjtZk9FHHJR/sparse-autoencoders-find-highly-interpretable-directions-in |
# Sparse Autoencoders: Future Work
*Mostly my own writing, except for the 'Better Training Methods' section which was written by* [*@Aidan Ewart*](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/aidan-ewart?mention=user)*.*
We made a lot [of progress](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/E8imxQo96WgDCMxkA/replication-conjecture-s-spa... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CkFBMG6A9ytkiXBDM/sparse-autoencoders-future-work |
# ACX Montreal Meetup September 30th 2023
Hey all! It was nice meeting some of you at the ACX Meetups Everywhere event!
I would appreciate it if you took the [ACX Everywhere survey](https://airtable.com/appEBNqFVvAGqyOeJ/shrPH4cOW08AfdxjK).
Come on out to the ACX (Astral Codex Ten) Montreal Meetup! This week, we're ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/events/m8wmD64xBQmvHQjgq/acx-montreal-meetup-september-30th-2023 |
# Update to "Dominant Assurance Contract Platform"
**Update #2:** [Platform Launched](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7koSvinoHSy6KBLqy/update-2-to-dominant-assurance-contract-platform-ensuredone)
This is an update to [The Economics of the Asteroid Deflection Problem (Dominant Assurance Contracts)](https://www.lesswr... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dzjQLJA4GamTyny6f/update-to-dominant-assurance-contract-platform |
# Neel Nanda on the Mechanistic Interpretability Researcher Mindset
Some excerpts from my [interview](https://youtu.be/cVBGjhN4-1g) with Neel Nanda about how to productively carry out research in mechanistic interpretability.
Posting this here since I believe his advice is relevant for building accurate world models ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cqCDNf7qAfDznzroy/neel-nanda-on-the-mechanistic-interpretability-researcher |
# Montreal cryonics and longevity hangout 2023-10-01
**Location:** l'esplanade tranquille, indoors.
this is on saint-catherine street between saint-urbain street and clark street.
meetups for people who are interested in cryonics, life extension, and longevity; to discuss and work on projects related to those topic... | https://www.lesswrong.com/events/3CQcHtfN8Mvv8usSz/montreal-cryonics-and-longevity-hangout-2023-10-01 |
# Immortality or death by AGI
AKA My Most Likely Reason to Die [~~Young~~](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hJDid3goqqRAE6hFN/my-most-likely-reason-to-die-young-is-ai-x-risk) is AI X-Risk
TL;DR: I made a model which takes into account AI timelines, the probability of AI going wrong, and probabilities of dyin... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KFWZg6EbCuisGcJAo/immortality-or-death-by-agi-1 |
# What social science research do you want to see reanalyzed?
I've been awarded a small [Lightspeed Grant](https://lightspeedgrants.org/) to replicate empirical social science research. What research should I look at?
I'm a PhD economist with an interest in reanalyzing published research using different methods or da... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pEcS68qDautmzeteR/what-social-science-research-do-you-want-to-see-reanalyzed |
# Would You Work Harder In The Least Convenient Possible World?
*Part one of what will hopefully become the aspirant sequence.*
Content note: Possibly a difficult read for some people. You are encouraged to just stop reading the post if you are the kind of person who isn’t going to find it useful. Somewhat intended ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uauTcRiLseDyh49YL/would-you-work-harder-in-the-least-convenient-possible-world |
# Atoms to Agents Proto-Lectures
You know the "[NAND to Tetris](https://www.nand2tetris.org/)" book/course, where one builds up the whole stack of a computer from low-level building blocks? Imagine if you had that, but rather than going from logic gates, through CPUs and compilers, to a game, you instead start from ph... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ajedsWJqkNbdafCqK/atoms-to-agents-proto-lectures |
# Fund Transit With Development
When transit gets better the land around it becomes more valuable: many people would like to live next to a subway station. This means that there are a lot of public transit expansions that would make us better off, building space for people to live and work. And yet, at least in the US... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zCyWKQfioW2ZKudTm/fund-transit-with-development |
# Let's talk about Impostor syndrome in AI safety
Intro
-----
Impostor syndrome is quite common among people working in the AI safety field.
It's quite a unique field. It's extremely important, its challenges are immensely complicated, and it attracts a lot of exceptionally smart and capable people, so th... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oYbsRTTomtcmG4LTa/let-s-talk-about-impostor-syndrome-in-ai-safety |
# If influence functions are not approximating leave-one-out, how are they supposed to help?
*Thanks to Roger Grosse for helping me understand his intuitions and hopes for influence functions. This post combines highlights from some influence function papers, some of Roger Grosse’s intuitions (though he doesn’t agree ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wR8CFTasFpfCQZKKn/if-influence-functions-are-not-approximating-leave-one-out |
# Luck based medicine: inositol for anxiety and brain fog
Summary: Do you have weird digestive symptoms and anxiety or depression? Consider trying inositol ([affiliate link](https://amzn.to/3OCyZmj)), especially if the symptoms started after antibiotics.
Epistemic status: I did some research on this 10 years ago and ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DTQfPfpcqEzCqzcsn/luck-based-medicine-inositol-for-anxiety-and-brain-fog |
# Hand-writing MathML
When I write posts I use raw HTML. Yes, the modern thing to do is probably [Markdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown), but HTML was designed for hand-coding and still works well for that if you don't want anything especially fancy. But what if you want math?
Previously when I've wanted t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aQDNfCrhqYg95sMDN/hand-writing-mathml |
# Taking features out of superposition with sparse autoencoders more quickly with informed initialization
This work was produced as part of the SERI MATS 3.0 Cohort under the supervision of Lee Sharkey.
*Many thanks to Lee Sharkey for his advice and suggestions.*
**TL;DR: it is possible to speed up the extraction of... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YJpMgi7HJuHwXTkjk/taking-features-out-of-superposition-with-sparse |
# Places to meet interesting middle-aged men?
The rationalist community is a nice place to meet interesting, intellectual men, which makes it potentially a good dating pool for straight/bisexual women. However, this community is young: most people seem to be in their 20s or 30s. For middle-aged women like me, that's a... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LxBCX27A3CH5EzwsN/places-to-meet-interesting-middle-aged-men |
# Sparse Coding, for Mechanistic Interpretability and Activation Engineering
*Especial thanks to* [*Logan Riggs*](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/elriggs) *and* [*Monte MacDiarmid*](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/monte-m)*, for pointing me towards this whole research direction and for code discussion, respectively. T... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iaJFJ5Qm29ixtrWsn/sparse-coding-for-mechanistic-interpretability-and |
# Paper: LLMs trained on “A is B” fail to learn “B is A”
This post is the copy of the introduction of this [paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.12288) on the *Reversal Curse.*
Authors: Lukas Berglund, Meg Tong, Max Kaufmann, Mikita Balesni, Asa Cooper Stickland, Tomasz Korbak, Owain Evans
Abstract
========
We exp... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SCqDipWAhZ49JNdmL/paper-llms-trained-on-a-is-b-fail-to-learn-b-is-a |
# I designed an AI safety course (for a philosophy department)
**Background**
--------------
In the fall of 2023, I'm teaching a course called "*Philosophy and The Challenge of the Future*"[^\[1\]^](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gY9TjxNgSkgsMRDnL/i-designed-an-ai-safety-course-for-a-philosophy-department#... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t3ngnd6Wvo4qeY5FA/i-designed-an-ai-safety-course-for-a-philosophy-department |
# Five neglected work areas that could reduce AI risk
Tldr: We identify five areas of work that should be further investigated:
1. Helping information aggregators scale during advanced AI development,
2. Improving internal AI deployment in policy organizations,
3. Researching the institutional design for evaluatin... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fEAGPyHR9GaK2cwRq/five-neglected-work-areas-that-could-reduce-ai-risk |
# Honor System for Vaccination?
In June the social dance I help organize decided to [drop its requirement](https://blog.bidadance.org/2023/06/some-mask-optional-dances.html) that people be vaccinated and boosted:
> Checking vaccination cards at the door requires an additional volunteer, is a hassle for attendees, and... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8dDzqC4H57zeNqHC2/honor-system-for-vaccination |
# Interpreting OpenAI's Whisper
*(Work done as part of* [*SERI MATS*](https://www.serimats.org/) *Summer 2023 cohort under the supervision of* [*@Lee Sharkey*](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/lee_sharkey?mention=user) *. A blog post containing audio features that you can **listen** **to** can be found* [*here.*](https... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/thePw6qdyabD8XR4y/interpreting-openai-s-whisper |
# How have you become more hard-working?
I'd be curious to hear stories of people who have successfully become more hard-working, especially if they started out as not particularly hard-working. Types of things I can imagine playing a role or know have played a role for some people:
* Switching roles to something t... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SjvRF88aLJdMdv7RH/how-have-you-become-more-hard-working-1 |
# Feedly Breaks MathML
A few days ago I wrote about [my experience with MathML](https://www.jefftk.com/p/hand-writing-mathml), and despite being somewhat positive on it in that post I've decided to stop using it for now. The problem is, it doesn't display for people who follow my blog through RSS on (I'm guessing) mos... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FgDyHg3YKr8FH936L/feedly-breaks-mathml |
# Amazon to invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic
> Today, we’re announcing that Amazon will invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic. The agreement is part of a broader collaboration to develop reliable and high-performing foundation models.
(Thread continues from there with more details -- seems like a notable major ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZuY8z79yMoEnz9tts/amazon-to-invest-usd4-billion-in-anthropic |
# “X distracts from Y” as a thinly-disguised fight over group status / politics
1\. Introduction
================
There’s a popular argument that says:
> It’s bad to talk about whether future AI algorithms might cause human extinction, because that would be a distraction from the fact that current AI algorithms are ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uA4Dmm4cWxcGyANAa/x-distracts-from-y-as-a-thinly-disguised-fight-over-group |
# Inside Views, Impostor Syndrome, and the Great LARP
*Epistemic status: model which I find sometimes useful, and which emphasizes some true things about many parts of the world which common alternative models overlook. Probably not correct in full generality.*
Consider Yoshua Bengio, one of the people who won a Turi... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nt8PmADqKMaZLZGTC/inside-views-impostor-syndrome-and-the-great-larp |
# Understanding strategic deception and deceptive alignment
*The following is the main part of a* [*blog post*](https://www.apolloresearch.ai/blog/understanding-da-and-sd) *we just published at Apollo Research. Our main goal with the post is to clarify the concept of deceptive alignment and distinguish it from strateg... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fsbcq9z7korjBTP8Z/understanding-strategic-deception-and-deceptive-alignment |
# Evaluating hidden directions on the utility dataset: classification, steering and removal
*Produced as part of the SERI ML Alignment Theory Scholars Program - Summer 2023 Cohort, under the mentorship of Dan Hendrycks*
We demonstrate different techniques for finding concept directions in hidden layers of an LLM. We ... | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JCgs7jGEvritqFLfR/evaluating-hidden-directions-on-the-utility-dataset |
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