url
stringlengths
52
124
post_id
stringlengths
17
17
title
stringlengths
2
248
author
stringlengths
2
49
content
stringlengths
22
295k
date
stringclasses
376 values
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wRdqbwFmGpgqNsoCD/isomorphisms-don-t-preserve-subjective-experience-right
wRdqbwFmGpgqNsoCD
Isomorphisms don't preserve subjective experience... right?
notfnofn
I've seen a couple discussions about brain/CNS uploads and there seems to be a common assumption that it would be conscious in the way that we are conscious. I've even seen some anthropic principle-esque arguments that we are likely in a simulation because this seems theoretically feasible. When I think of a simulation...
2024-07-03
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8jGb5hRGGEcs7Be78/how-predictive-processing-solved-my-wrist-pain
8jGb5hRGGEcs7Be78
How predictive processing solved my wrist pain
makoshen
This is a post about a period of major suffering I went through, and how I acquired the knowledge and skill to eventually lift me out of it. Disclaimer: this is not medical advice — consider it a personal narrative, perhaps a starting point for exploration. A fire burning [Note: this section is about my personal experi...
2024-07-04
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sQJs5FeyLcCFGYutR/free-will-determinism-and-choice
sQJs5FeyLcCFGYutR
Free Will, Determinism, And Choice
Zero Contradictions
Rough Summary: Free will is not "free" in the sense of being uncaused. Free will is "free" in the sense that you are the cause. You are free to choose between A or B if your choice will determine the outcome.Free will and determinism are both assumptions that are implicit in everything that we do. They both depend on e...
2024-07-06
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fEvCxNte6FKSRNFvN/3c-s-a-recipe-for-mathing-concepts
fEvCxNte6FKSRNFvN
3C's: A Recipe For Mathing Concepts
johnswentworth
Opening Example: Teleology When people say “the heart’s purpose is to pump blood” or “a pencil’s function is to write”, what does that mean physically? What are “purpose” or “function”, not merely in intuitive terms, but in terms of math and physics? That’s the core question of what philosophers call teleology - the st...
2024-07-03
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hmnB9zpY5wB7dKMQ3/announcing-the-ai-forecasting-benchmark-series-or-july-8
hmnB9zpY5wB7dKMQ3
Announcing the AI Forecasting Benchmark Series | July 8, $120k in Prizes
ChristianWilliams
null
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/myBQH6Abp5wa6dEJp/open-sourcing-metaculus
myBQH6Abp5wa6dEJp
Open Sourcing Metaculus
ChristianWilliams
null
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z47EogCDtRNAEJhjw/why-can-t-sub-agi-solve-ai-alignment-or-why-would-sub-agi-ai
z47EogCDtRNAEJhjw
Why Can’t Sub-AGI Solve AI Alignment? Or: Why Would Sub-AGI AI Not be Aligned?
ViktorThink
I believe there are people with far greater knowledge than me that can point out where I am wrong. Cause I do believe my reasoning is wrong, but I can not see why it would be highly unfeasible to train a sub-AGI intelligent AI that most likely will be aligned and able to solve AI alignment. My assumptions are as follow...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GmDbhdK8ih52WLKg9/ai-development-is-an-act-of-social-revolution
GmDbhdK8ih52WLKg9
AI development is an act of social revolution
artemiocobb
Assume the goal of AI research is to build superintelligent decision-making systems. If we successfully develop and deploy such systems, it will likely no longer make sense for humans to work many, or even most, jobs. The duties humans must still perform will radically differ from those of today. In this essay, I am co...
2024-07-03
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WT3u2tK2AJpYKvaZd/an-ai-race-with-china-can-be-better-than-not-racing
WT3u2tK2AJpYKvaZd
An AI Race With China Can Be Better Than Not Racing
niplav
Frustrated by all your bad takes, I write a Monte-Carlo analysis of whether a transformative-AI-race between the PRC and the USA would be good. To my surprise, I find that it is better than not racing. Advocating for an international project to build TAI instead of racing turns out to be good if the probability of such...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f3ixrbxRb4Qm2jPLh/why-haven-t-there-been-assassination-attempts-against-high
f3ixrbxRb4Qm2jPLh
Why haven't there been assassination attempts against high profile AI accelerationists like sam altman yet?
louisTrem
Disclaimer: This is *not* a call to action in any form, I neither endorse any form of violence nor the hold the radical anti-AI views that might potentially prescribe assasinations. The question was the result of a philosophical debate I had with my roommate yesterday and we did not come to a conclusion, leading to thi...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vcuBJgfSCvyPmqG7a/list-of-collective-intelligence-projects
vcuBJgfSCvyPmqG7a
List of Collective Intelligence Projects
Chipmonk
During the last Foresight Intelligent Cooperation Workshop I got very curious about what collective intelligence tools currently exist. A list: Pol.is: "Input Crowd, Output Meaning"Inspired Twitter/X community notesPeople: Colin Megill, et al.Collective Intelligence Projectvibe: democratic AI, “How AI and Democracy Can...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2ep6FGjTQoGDRnhrq/decomposing-the-qk-circuit-with-bilinear-sparse-dictionary
2ep6FGjTQoGDRnhrq
Decomposing the QK circuit with Bilinear Sparse Dictionary Learning
keith_wynroe
This work was produced as part of Lee Sharkey's stream in the ML Alignment & Theory Scholars Program - Winter 2023-24 Cohort Intro and Motivation Sparse dictionary learning (SDL) has attracted a lot of attention recently as a method for interpreting transformer activations. They demonstrate that model activations can o...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MMtWB8wAu5Buc6sve/economics-roundup-2
MMtWB8wAu5Buc6sve
Economics Roundup #2
Zvi
Previously: Economics Roundup #1 Let’s take advantage of the normality while we have it. In all senses. Insane Tax Proposals There is Trump’s proposal to replace income taxes with tariffs, but he is not alone. So here is your periodic reminder, since this is not actually new at core: Biden’s proposed budgets include co...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gFN7hknQwPfKQuEdF/how-congressional-offices-process-constituent-communication
gFN7hknQwPfKQuEdF
How Congressional Offices Process Constituent Communication
tristan-williams
null
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/A3yuQzPFmrTn9ru74/blueprint-for-a-brighter-future
A3yuQzPFmrTn9ru74
Blueprint for a Brighter Future
alexbeyman
Presumably our shared goal is to make possible a comfortable and dignified life for the maximum number of people while treading lightly on the environment, balancing individual rights and status seeking behaviors against the common good (with a view to preventing tragedy of the commons). Importantly, any solution to th...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/33emJkmw5bMAXZHHt/covert-malicious-finetuning-1
33emJkmw5bMAXZHHt
Covert Malicious Finetuning
tw
This post discusses our recent paper Covert Malicious Finetuning: Challenges in Safeguarding LLM Adaptation and comments on its implications for AI safety. What is Covert Malicious Finetuning? Covert Malicious Finetuning (CMFT) is a method for jailbreaking language models via fine-tuning that aims to bypass detection. ...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GFeyXGib7DD3ooTEN/introduction-to-french-ai-policy
GFeyXGib7DD3ooTEN
Introduction to French AI Policy
lucie-philippon
This post was written as part of the AI Governance Fundamentals course by BlueDot. I thank Charles Beasley and the students from my cohort for their feedback and encouragements. Disclaimer: The French policy landscape is in rapid flux, after president Macron called for a snap election on 1st and 7th July. The situation...
2024-07-04
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MqDoZtMZYckCpZGSS/new-executive-team-and-board-pibbss
MqDoZtMZYckCpZGSS
New Executive Team & Board —  PIBBSS
Nora_Ammann
TLDR: PIBBSS is changing its core team. Nora is stepping down as director due to joining ARIA, and Lucas Teixeira and Dusan Nesic are taking over her leadership role. Nora joins the board, alongside Tan Zhi Xuan, Alexander Gietelink Oldenziel, Ben Goldhaber and Gabriel Weil. I (Nora) have recently accepted an offer to ...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7aJ9vdqjq6HZjomRi/self-censoring-on-ai-x-risk-discussions
7aJ9vdqjq6HZjomRi
Self-censoring on AI x-risk discussions?
Decaeneus
I catch myself sometimes thinking of ideas / scenarios that support higher p(doom), typically as counter-examples to points folks make for lower p(doom), and I wonder how much self-censorship I should apply, given that AI can read these conversations. My CoT: I sure don't want to feed ideas to any bad actor.But it's ar...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dzvnAGDPsisMY8h7b/towards-shutdownable-agents-via-stochastic-choice
dzvnAGDPsisMY8h7b
Towards shutdownable agents via stochastic choice
ElliottThornley
We[1] have a new paper testing the Incomplete Preferences Proposal (IPP). The abstract and main-text is below. Appendices are in the linked PDF. Abstract Some worry that advanced artificial agents may resist being shut down.The Incomplete Preferences Proposal (IPP) is an idea for ensuring that doesn’t happen.A key part...
2024-07-08
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yXkw4nrrTKwQFjzDK/rationalists-as-people-who-build-piles-of-rocks
yXkw4nrrTKwQFjzDK
Rationalists As People Who Build Piles Of Rocks
Sable
I recently attended the LessOnline event at the LightHaven campus. It was fantastic, and I’ve got plenty of posts coming down the pipeline sparked by conversations or sessions held during the event. I got to meet a lot of my own personal heroes. It was great. Something that kept coming up throughout the event, in my mi...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XH463zpuJi75ynMzj/uncursing-civilization
XH463zpuJi75ynMzj
Uncursing Civilization
Lorec
[ Disclaimer: None of the below matters relative to the fact that we are all going to die of AI very soon. Scaling hits a wall, until it doesn't. Or until somebody builds AGI in their basement and runs it on home hardware from 5 years after the present day of people running quantized Llamas on their laptops. ] [ Cough....
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WtsmwfzedJfSccynt/whirlwind-tour-of-chain-of-thought-literature-relevant-to
WtsmwfzedJfSccynt
Whirlwind Tour of Chain of Thought Literature Relevant to Automating Alignment Research.
sevdeawesome
This post is inspired by a series of comments by Bogdan: initial comment follow-up 1 follow-up 2 the goal of this post is to summarize the relevant literature and expand on these ideas. Comment 1: “There will likely still be incentives to make architectures more parallelizable (for training efficiency) and parallelizab...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HJp3C3z8XefwBeQcR/important-open-problems-in-voting
HJp3C3z8XefwBeQcR
Important open problems in voting
Closed Limelike Curves
Strategy-resistance Identify, or prove impossibility, of a voting system which incentivizes— A strictly sincere ranking of all candidates in the zero-information setting, where it implements a "good" social choice rule such as the relative (normalized) utilitarian rule, a Condorcet social choice rule, or the Borda rule...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7WR3nmHpFj7xiNM7P/anti-circumcision-essay-3-of-3-now-that-i-think-about-it-is
7WR3nmHpFj7xiNM7P
Anti-Circumcision Essay 3 of 3: Now That I Think About It, Is There Actually a Space Between “Info” and “Hazard”? Isn’t It Just One Word?
Harry Stevenage
Link to Part One Link to Part Two [reposting screencap for context] I think by this point I’ve established enough groundwork that some people will be able to complete what remains in their head. I have described the physical reality. And I have pointed to a category of events where society understands that people will ...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FMKnFxgbtCLxPPS4J/in-defense-of-lawyers-playing-their-part
FMKnFxgbtCLxPPS4J
In Defense of Lawyers Playing Their Part
KingSupernova
This is a linkpost for In Defense of Lawyers Playing Their Part. Michael Huemer writes about why he believes it’s wrong for lawyers to pursue unjust legal outcomes. It's a good article, and one of the best defenses of this position I've seen. Still, I think this argument is mistaken. The reason why we require lawyers t...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3FeKf5dFZdJo9rJKY/honest-science-is-spirituality
3FeKf5dFZdJo9rJKY
Honest science is spirituality
pchvykov
[cross-posted from my blog https://pchvykov.com/blog] I see a problem with current science. It’s not the reproducibility crisis, nor the toxic work culture, nor the misaligned incentive. But in another sense, it is all of these – or perhaps the root cause behind them. It’s hard to name it exactly, but in a way, it’s th...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7jW63YrnqR8ANfnDf/anti-circumcision-essay-2-of-3-physical-and-psychological
7jW63YrnqR8ANfnDf
Anti-circumcision Essay 2 of 3: Physical and Psychological Realities
Harry Stevenage
Continuation of Part One Now in theory I could end the series here. I could say that the evidence Mason provided of men going haywire is the images Karella posted, and since I’ve already made my case that one of those images is one offensive comic one person drew 13 years ago, and the other is just ordinary activism, t...
2024-06-30
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kp5h6khwrK47psMaA/transformer-circuit-faithfulness-metrics-are-not-robust
kp5h6khwrK47psMaA
Transformer Circuit Faithfulness Metrics Are Not Robust
Josephm
When you think you've found a circuit in a language model, how do you know if it does what you think it does? Typically, you ablate / resample the activations of the model in order to isolate the circuit. Then you measure if the model can still perform the task you're investigating. We identify six ways in which ablati...
2024-07-12
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LmCJnM2w4jaanHwmK/superposition-self-modeling-and-the-path-to-agi-a-new
LmCJnM2w4jaanHwmK
Superposition, Self-Modeling, and the Path to AGI: A New Perspective
Peterpiper
Executive Summary: Current feed forward AI faces a tradeoff between intelligence and self-modeling capability due to dense superposition in upper layers. This limitation potentially hinders advanced meta-learning and AGI development. A proposed solution involves using infinite context length and recursive training loop...
2024-06-30
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xXqhbiDxjWKZxgbE5/the-xerox-parc-arpa-version-of-the-intellectual-turing-test
xXqhbiDxjWKZxgbE5
The Xerox Parc/ARPA version of the intellectual Turing test: Class 1 vs Class 2 disagreement
hamishtodd1
I've been reading the excellent book The Dream Machine about ARPA and PARC, the research communities that invented the personal computer (before them computers were just tools for military research projects). Xerox PARC was managed by Bob Taylor, a great manager who drew on the management style of many great people bef...
2024-06-30
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rofQseMb5ojESyASw/llms-universally-learn-a-feature-representing-token
rofQseMb5ojESyASw
LLMs Universally Learn a Feature Representing Token Frequency / Rarity
Sean Osier
Summary LLMs appear to universally learn a feature in their embeddings representing the frequency / rarity of the tokens they were trained onThis feature is observed across model sizes, in base models, instruction tuned models, regular text models, and code modelsIn models without tied weights, this feature is present ...
2024-06-30
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ejt6yHChar5TmxhfP/my-5-step-program-for-losing-weight
Ejt6yHChar5TmxhfP
My 5-step program for losing weight
nikita-sokolsky
I can’t claim to be an expert on the subject of weight loss but wanted to share the steps I’ve followed to get from ~81 kg (178 pounds) to ~70 kg (154 pounds) over a period of 8 months. Several people have asked me for tips, so I’ve figured I might as well write it all down for future reference. Weight Gurus stats from...
2024-06-30
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aDi7CmwCrJ5T3Fabc/anti-circumcision-essay-1-of-3-according-to-their-critics
aDi7CmwCrJ5T3Fabc
Anti-Circumcision Essay 1 of 3: According To Their Critics, Intactivists Are The Best-Behaved Protest Movement In History
Harry Stevenage
Context section: Who are you and why are you posting this here? First time poster on LessWrong, but I've been in the rationalist world since 2015 or so. Usually just participating in discussions and not writing essays. The people who know me know that this issue isn't the only thing I discuss. In fact, I'd say I bring ...
2024-06-30
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wg6E3oJJrNnmJezNz/a-scaling-monosemanticity-explainer
wg6E3oJJrNnmJezNz
A “Scaling Monosemanticity” Explainer
latterframe
Coauthored by Fedor Ryzhenkov and Dmitrii Volkov (Palisade Research) At Palisade, we often discuss latest safety results with policymakers and think tanks who seek to understand the state of current technology. This document condenses and streamlines the various internal notes we wrote when discussing Anthropic's "Scal...
2024-06-29
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gcpNuEZnxAPayaKBY/othellogpt-learned-a-bag-of-heuristics-1
gcpNuEZnxAPayaKBY
OthelloGPT learned a bag of heuristics
jylin04
Work performed as a part of Neel Nanda's MATS 6.0 (Summer 2024) training program. TLDR This is an interim report on reverse-engineering Othello-GPT, an 8-layer transformer trained to take sequences of Othello moves and predict legal moves. We find evidence that Othello-GPT learns to compute the board state using many i...
2024-07-02
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/srG2RguMfp6ubGnJa/analysis-of-key-ai-analogies
srG2RguMfp6ubGnJa
Analysis of key AI analogies
KevinKohler
The following is an analysis of seven prominent AI analogies: aliens, the brain, climate change, electricity, the Industrial Revolution, the neocortex, & nuclear fission. You can find longer versions of these as separate blogposts on my substack. 0. Why? AI analogies have a real-world impact For better or worse, analog...
2024-06-29
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GHusbyeLEn45HaM5B/podcast-elizabeth-and-austin-on-what-manifold-was-allowed-to
GHusbyeLEn45HaM5B
Podcast: Elizabeth & Austin on "What Manifold was allowed to do"
austin-chen
null
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TzwMfRArgsNscHocX/the-incredible-fentanyl-detecting-machine
TzwMfRArgsNscHocX
The Incredible Fentanyl-Detecting Machine
sarahconstantin
An NII machine in Nogales, AZ. (Image source) There’s bound to be a lot of discussion of the Biden-Trump presidential debates last night, but I want to skip all the political prognostication and talk about the real issue: fentanyl-detecting machines. Joe Biden says: And I wanted to make sure we use the machinery that c...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZzT5rGbSCrNbASppZ/activation-pattern-svd-a-proposal-for-sae-interpretability
ZzT5rGbSCrNbASppZ
Activation Pattern SVD: A proposal for SAE Interpretability
dtch1997
Epistemic status: This is a rough-draft write-up about a thought experiment I did. Reasonably confident about the broad arguments being made here. That said, I haven't spent a lot of time rigorously polishing or reviewing my writing, so minor inaccuracies may be present. Interpretability Illusions from Max-Activating E...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n3yRgZYs5JZChpfKp/georgism-crash-course
n3yRgZYs5JZChpfKp
Georgism Crash Course
Zero Contradictions
For my first post on Less Wrong, I was advised to link to an existing blog post of mine. My Georgism Crash Course has been one of my most viewed essays. It aims to explain what Georgism is, why it would boost economic efficiency, and it addresses some of the possible drawbacks of it. All comments, constructive criticis...
2024-06-29
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/md3HYPkRG9srJzHre/saving-lives-reduces-over-population-a-counter-intuitive-non
md3HYPkRG9srJzHre
Saving Lives Reduces Over-Population—A Counter-Intuitive Non-Zero-Sum Game
james-brown
AN ARGUMENT AGAINST SAVING LIVES When making the argument for charitable giving, a response I have often received is that saving lives in areas that are already over-populated will perpetuate over-population-solving nothing. It’s a concern I shared when first considered charity. The logic seems sound on the face of it....
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RfC4mkYuLksukyzns/datasets-that-change-the-odds-you-exist
RfC4mkYuLksukyzns
Datasets that change the odds you exist
dynomight
1. It’s October 1962. The Cuban missile crisis just happened, thankfully without apocalyptic nuclear war. But still: Apocalyptic nuclear war easily could have happened.Crises as serious as the Cuban missile crisis clearly aren’t that rare, since one just happened. You estimate (like President Kennedy) that there was a ...
2024-06-29
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/viRn7Drv9FKcdFpyX/contra-acemoglu-on-ai
viRn7Drv9FKcdFpyX
Contra Acemoglu on AI
maxwell-tabarrok
The Simple Macroeconomics of AI is a 2024 working paper by Daron Acemoglu which models the economic growth effects of AI and predicts them to be small: About a .06% increase in TFP growth annually. This stands in contrast to many predictions which forecast immense impacts on economic growth from AI, including many from...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zrbq6zHsQwrE8cLXJ/five-toy-worlds-to-think-about-heritability
zrbq6zHsQwrE8cLXJ
Five toy worlds to think about heritability
david-hugh-jones
Just a quick note from a Twitter/X discussion. It’s an almost-universal scientific rule that empirics is blind without a model. The left picture below shows a bunch of points, and a regression line fitting them. It seems like a good fit. But why should we believe it? The right picture shows the same points with a curve...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oLRHSb3PbxFoZX6vL/how-do-natural-sciences-prove-causation
oLRHSb3PbxFoZX6vL
How do natural sciences prove causation?
kongo-landwalker
Let's say we have 2 phenomena, A and B, each can be a value of 0 or 1, and we observe, that for them implication table A=>B is always true. (Third column represents whether the combinations of events can happen or cannot.) A B A=>B 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 Thing we see is that combination A=1 and B=0 almost never happen...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qbjPGZWZArTjpcKBS/lesswrong-acx-meetup-transilvanya-tour-sibiu
qbjPGZWZArTjpcKBS
LessWrong/ACX meetup Transilvanya tour - Sibiu
Marius Adrian Nicoară
Let's get together at the Shopping City food court and hang out for a while. I'll bring an interesting board game that involves teamwork and Bayesian reasoning; requires 4 players. As a starting point, we can talk about "The Pyramid And The Garden" by Scott Alexander: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9HSwh2mE3tX6xvZ2W/t...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/o4RFp7rwfrn9bn6Lo/bayes-theorem-in-search-of-gold-lesson-1
o4RFp7rwfrn9bn6Lo
Bayes' Theorem: In Search of Gold (Lesson 1)
bayesyatina
[This text is a translation, and my English may not be perfect. I would appreciate any suggestions for stylistic improvements] The fire crackled in the fireplace, while it was raining heavily outside the window. The young dwarves, soaked from the rain, were sitting in chairs around the older dwarf. Welcome to the cours...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cruYtDoJuDXnkaPxR/how-a-chip-is-designed
cruYtDoJuDXnkaPxR
How a chip is designed
Yannick_Muehlhaeuser_duplicate0.05902100825326273
Disclaimer: This is highly incomplete. I am not an expert in the field. There might be some unfamiliar terms. While I will try to explain things, explaining every single term would be beyond this post. You will usually be able to get a sufficient understanding by clicking the links or googling it. Introduction I think ...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dxBiq5LpPwtirDTMY/the-wisdom-of-living-for-200-years
dxBiq5LpPwtirDTMY
The Wisdom of Living for 200 Years
sustrik
Scott Sumner writes: Old people have a sort of double vision about the past — an ability to see the past from the perspective of today, and also from the perspective of the people who lived through those times. When then was now. This double vision, according to Scott, brings wisdom, something you gain with age, an att...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7LaDvWtymFWtidGxe/corrigibility-tool-ness
7LaDvWtymFWtidGxe
Corrigibility = Tool-ness?
johnswentworth
Goal of This Post I have never seen anyone give a satisfying intuitive explanation of what corrigibility (in roughly Eliezer’s sense of the word) is. There’s lists of desiderata, but they sound like scattered wishlists which don’t obviously point to a unified underlying concept at all. There’s also Eliezer’s extremely ...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6evBdZAiT9yxoJBKk/situational-awareness-8
6evBdZAiT9yxoJBKk
Situational Awareness
PeterMcCluskey
Nearly a book review: Situational Awareness, by Leopold Aschenbrenner. "Situational Awareness" offers an insightful analysis of our proximity to a critical threshold in AI capabilities. His background in machine learning and economics lends credibility to his predictions. The paper left me with a rather different set o...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/REzKbk9reKFvgFkmf/how-big-a-deal-are-matmul-free-transformers
REzKbk9reKFvgFkmf
How Big a Deal are MatMul-Free Transformers?
JustisMills
If you’re already familiar with the technical side of LLMs, you can skip the first section. The story so far Modern Large Language Models - your ChatGPTs, your Geminis - are a particular kind of transformer, a deep learning architecture invented about seven years ago. Without getting into the weeds, transformers basica...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WZ2Xug4j3rz2Pe3D2/secondary-forces-of-debt
WZ2Xug4j3rz2Pe3D2
Secondary forces of debt
KatjaGrace
A general thing I hadn’t noticed about debts until lately: Whenever Bob owes Alice, then Alice has reason to look after Bob, to the extent that increases the chance he satisfies the debt. Yet at the same time, Bob has an incentive for Alice to disappear, insofar as it would relieve him. These might be tiny incentives, ...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Qk6qt5RDDDxnxCoBp/mentorship-in-agi-safety-applications-for-mentorship-are
Qk6qt5RDDDxnxCoBp
Mentorship in AGI Safety: Applications for mentorship are open!
Just Learning
One month ago we called for mentors for MAGIS mentorship program. Today, we are happy to announce that we found enough mentors and invite potential mentees to apply! Please check our list of mentors here, choose two (first choice and second choice), and then fill out this application form. The application deadline is J...
2024-06-28
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KoCS6LqJjKhCqDqnX/distillation-of-do-language-models-plan-for-future-tokens
KoCS6LqJjKhCqDqnX
Distillation of 'Do language models plan for future tokens'
TheManxLoiner
Link to arxiv preprint: Do language models plan for future tokens, by Wilson Wu, John X Morris and Lionel Levine. TLDR There are two reasons why the computations for the current token are helpful for future tokens’ computation. First, which they call ‘pre-caching’, the network is intentionally helping future tokens’ co...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AZnF5LNZfeGZRGvid/how-birds-sense-magnetic-fields
AZnF5LNZfeGZRGvid
how birds sense magnetic fields
bhauth
introduction It is known that many birds are able to sense the direction of Earth's magnetic field. Here's a wikipedia page on that general phenomenon. There have been 2 main theories of how that works. One theory is that birds have magnets in their beak that act like a compass. We know this is the correct theory becau...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rC3hhZsx2KogoPLqh/ai-70-a-beautiful-sonnet
rC3hhZsx2KogoPLqh
AI #70: A Beautiful Sonnet
Zvi
They said it couldn’t be done. No, not Claude Sonnet 3.5 becoming the clear best model. No, not the Claude-Sonnet-empowered automatic meme generators. Those were whipped together in five minutes. They said I would never get quiet time and catch up. Well, I showed them! That’s right. Yes, there is a new best model, but ...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hPGw7hWYbYyvDcqYK/evidence-against-learned-search-in-a-chess-playing-neural
hPGw7hWYbYyvDcqYK
Evidence against Learned Search in a Chess-Playing Neural Network
p.b.
Introduction There is a new paper and lesswrong post about "learned look-ahead in a chess-playing neural network". This has long been a research interest of mine for reasons that are well-stated in the paper: Can neural networks learn to use algorithms such as look-ahead or search internally? Or are they better thought...
2024-09-13
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iaPhjYhhp7PP6BWp9/detecting-genetically-engineered-viruses-with-metagenomic
iaPhjYhhp7PP6BWp9
Detecting Genetically Engineered Viruses With Metagenomic Sequencing
jkaufman
null
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GHEyrHrcpz3T4CumG/toward-a-taxonomy-of-cognitive-benchmarks-for-agentic-agis
GHEyrHrcpz3T4CumG
Toward a taxonomy of cognitive benchmarks for agentic AGIs
ben-smith
Inspired by the sequence on LLM Psychology, I am developing a taxonomy of cognitive benchmarks for measuring intelligent behavior in LLMs. This taxonomy could facilitate understanding of intelligence to identify domains of machine intelligence that have not been adequately tested. Generally speaking, in order to unders...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gztJxTLvdfAxu7aRz/cross-robin
gztJxTLvdfAxu7aRz
Cross Robin
jkaufman
A common contra dance figure is "right shoulder round": walk around the opposite-role person on the side of the set while looking at them. A less common figure is the "mad robin": walk the same path, but instead look at the opposite-role person across the set. This suggests a third option, which we can call "cross rob...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mXYdYh6L9odTJZDSm/an-issue-with-training-schemers-with-supervised-fine-tuning
mXYdYh6L9odTJZDSm
An issue with training schemers with supervised fine-tuning
Fabien
This is a rough write-up of ideas by Ryan Greenblatt. The core ideas are his and mistakes are mine. Thanks to him, Buck Shlegeris and to Aghyad Deeb for feedback on the draft of this post. One way to use scheming AIs is to train them to imitate humans. When does imitation robustly avoid frequent and intentional failure...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T9i9gX58ZckHx6syw/representation-tuning
T9i9gX58ZckHx6syw
Representation Tuning
christopher-ackerman
Summary First, I identify activation vectors related to honesty in an RLHF’d LLM (Llama-2-13b-chat). Next, I demonstrate that model output can be made more or less honest by adding positive or negative multiples of these vectors to residual stream activations during generation. Then, I show that a similar effect can be...
2024-06-27
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WKrcJ22QKjg6DnEdb/instrumental-vs-terminal-desiderata
WKrcJ22QKjg6DnEdb
Instrumental vs Terminal Desiderata
max-harms
Bob: "I want my AGI to make everyone extremely wealthy! I'm going to train that to be its goal." Cassie: "Stop! You'll doom us all! While wealth is good, it's not everything that's good, and so even if you somehow build a wealth-maximizer (instead of summoning some random shattering of your goal), it will sacrifice all...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KMorqWKG8XyXky3ZB/imbue-generally-intelligent-continue-to-make-progress
KMorqWKG8XyXky3ZB
Imbue (Generally Intelligent) continue to make progress
nathan-helm-burger
I've been following the company Imbue and their podcast Generally Intelligent since they started. They've said thoughtful and creative things in their podcast, and I think they are making impressive progress towards AGI considering their relatively smaller size. Just wanting to keep people appraised. If they did hit on...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/74GXwwZWAHA9GjxGz/countering-ai-disinformation-and-deep-fakes-with-digital
74GXwwZWAHA9GjxGz
Countering AI disinformation and deep fakes with digital signatures
dave-lindbergh
According to The Economist, disinformation campaigns (often state-sponsored) use "AI to rewrite real news stories": In early March a network of websites, dubbed CopyCop, began publishing stories in English and French on a range of contentious issues. They accused Israel of war crimes, amplified divisive political debat...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cyDFZgSS33XrcehhD/progress-conference-2024-toward-abundant-futures
cyDFZgSS33XrcehhD
Progress Conference 2024: Toward Abundant Futures
jasoncrawford
The progress movement has grown a lot in the last few years. We now have progress journals, think tanks, and fellowships. The progress idea has spread and evolved into the “abundance agenda”, “techno-optimism”, “supply-side progressivism”, “American dynamism”. All of us want to see more scientific, technological, and e...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/C84itFwEHcp5tqQCH/tracing-the-steps
C84itFwEHcp5tqQCH
Tracing the steps
englishtea
Musings on the Yudkowsky-Hanson debate from 2011. After all sorts of interesting technological things happening in some undetermined point in the feature, will we see some small nucleus that control all resources or will we see a civilisation-wide large-scale participation in these things going down? [Robin Hanson, 201...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ozScYoJgenw8TnuBj/bad-lessons-learned-from-the-debate
ozScYoJgenw8TnuBj
Bad lessons learned from the debate
bayesyatina
Debates are life, the rest is just time to prepare. As a student, I played classic policy Karl Popper debates. The first thing we learned was sparring. The rules are simple: two people are given a topic, such as "an orange is better than an apple", and they randomly determine who supports and who opposes the topic. Aft...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pn5jWW4zcWSAjM9s3/childhood-and-education-roundup-6-college-edition
pn5jWW4zcWSAjM9s3
Childhood and Education Roundup #6: College Edition
Zvi
Childhood roundup #5 excluded all developments around college. So this time around is all about issues related to college or graduate school, including admissions. Tuition and Costs What went wrong with federal student loans? Exactly what you would expect when you don’t check who is a good credit risk. From a performan...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qhpB9NjcCHjdNDsMG/new-fast-transformer-inference-asic-sohu-by-etched
qhpB9NjcCHjdNDsMG
New fast transformer inference ASIC — Sohu by Etched
lcmgcd
I would bet that ASICs will run the roost in a few years and this is only the beginning. They claim 500k tokens per second with Llama 70B. Seems to be exactly what it looks like, an ASIC. Curious if this is somehow not what it looks like.
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QvFRAEsGv5fEhdH3Q/preliminary-notes-on-llm-forecasting-and-epistemics
QvFRAEsGv5fEhdH3Q
My Current Claims and Cruxes on LLM Forecasting & Epistemics
ozziegooen
null
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jhhoks5psG8Dcpgzu/empirical-vs-mathematical-joints-of-nature
jhhoks5psG8Dcpgzu
Empirical vs. Mathematical Joints of Nature
pktechgirl
We (Alex and Elizabeth) are thinking about doing this project where we figure out how paradigm formation happened in chaos theory. Alex has also been thinking about paradigm formation for agent foundations (which people often talk about as being pre-paradigmatic). These are some thoughts on what paradigm formation mean...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4eBLj3TTcypq4ic9v/in-favour-of-exploring-nagging-doubts-about-x-risk
4eBLj3TTcypq4ic9v
In favour of exploring nagging doubts about x-risk
owencb
null
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ajJRyKtwZNnBdmkcv/what-is-a-tool
ajJRyKtwZNnBdmkcv
What is a Tool?
johnswentworth
Throughout this post, we’re going to follow the Cognition -> Convergence -> Corroboration methodology[1]. That means we’ll tackle tool-ness in three main stages, each building on the previous: Cognition: What does it mean, cognitively, to view or model something as a tool?Convergence: Insofar as different minds (e.g. d...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xgZGtH9WiKdAkWLij/when-do-alignment-researchers-retire
xgZGtH9WiKdAkWLij
When do alignment researchers retire?
Nadroj
At what point will it no longer be useful for humans to be involved in the process of alignment research? After the first slightly-superhuman AGI, well into superintelligence, or somewhere in between? Feel free to answer differently for different kinds of human involvement: Humans could be involved as a source of data ...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JECQZAXWbtGJdBuAC/schelling-points-in-the-agi-policy-space
JECQZAXWbtGJdBuAC
Schelling points in the AGI policy space
mesaoptimizer
I've been thinking about memetically fit Schelling points in the AGI policy space. I'll describe four such "Schelling policies", and use them as pedagogical examples. Shut it all down MIRI's new stated objective is the clearest example of a Schelling policy: "Shut it all down". MIRI states that they want governments to...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HxHYPJoaWD8AjaHCk/computational-complexity-as-an-intuition-pump-for-llm
HxHYPJoaWD8AjaHCk
Computational Complexity as an Intuition Pump for LLM Generality
Particleman
With sufficient scale and scaffolding, LLMs will improve without bound on all tasks to become superhuman AGI, to the extent they haven’t already. No, wait! LLMs are dead-end pattern-matching machines fundamentally incapable of general reasoning and novel problem solving. Which is it? I’ll call these opposing points of ...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XhywWXDLkqDSB7KjH/failure-modes-of-teaching-ai-safety-1
XhywWXDLkqDSB7KjH
Failure Modes of Teaching AI Safety
ea-1
Why I'm writing this I'm about to teach my AI safety course for the fourth time. As I'm now updating the syllabus for the upcoming semester, I summarize my observations on what can go wrong when teaching AI safety. These have mostly not happened during my teaching but are generally likely to happen - as more AIS course...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bb4D8vbCyPPHtspk7/kingfisher-summer-tour-2024
bb4D8vbCyPPHtspk7
Kingfisher Summer Tour 2024
jkaufman
Kingfisher is going on tour again: Thr 2024-06-27 Rochester NY Fri 2024-06-28 Pittsburgh PA Sat 2024-06-29 Bloomington IN Sun 2024-06-30 St Louis MO Mon 2024-07-01 Cincinnati OH Tue 2024-07-02 Indianapolis IN Cecilia made a flyer: Harris will be calling, and we'll be driving together. Anna and Lily are coming too, whi...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YQ4rSTHpHeFcAmhvi/incentive-learning-vs-dead-sea-salt-experiment
YQ4rSTHpHeFcAmhvi
Incentive Learning vs Dead Sea Salt Experiment
steve2152
(Target audience: People both inside and outside neuroscience & psychology. I tried to avoid jargon.) 1. Background context One of my interests is the neuroscience of motivation. This is a topic I care about for the same obvious reason as everyone else: to gain insight into how to control the motivations of future supe...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SyeQjjBoEC48MvnQC/formal-verification-heuristic-explanations-and-surprise
SyeQjjBoEC48MvnQC
Formal verification, heuristic explanations and surprise accounting
Jacob_Hilton
ARC's current research focus can be thought of as trying to combine mechanistic interpretability and formal verification. If we had a deep understanding of what was going on inside a neural network, we would hope to be able to use that understanding to verify that the network was not going to behave dangerously in unfo...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Fr6eJkjYWG9Mw6XQc/how-good-are-llms-at-doing-ml-on-an-unknown-dataset
Fr6eJkjYWG9Mw6XQc
How good are LLMs at doing ML on an unknown dataset?
havard-tveit-ihle
I just ran two evaluation tests on each of the three leading LLM chatbots, GPT4o, Claude Sonnet 3.5 and Gemini advanced. In the challenge the models were presented with a novel dataset, and were asked to develop a ML model to do supervised classification of the data into 5 classes. The data was basically 512 points in ...
2024-07-01
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QvnzEHvodmwfBXu94/live-theory-part-0-taking-intelligence-seriously
QvnzEHvodmwfBXu94
Live Theory Part 0: Taking Intelligence Seriously
Sahil
Acknowledgements The vision here was midwifed originally in the wild and gentle radiance that is Abram's company (though essentially none of the content is explicitly his). The PIBBSS-spirit has been infused in this work from before it began (may it infuse us all), as have meetings with the Agent Foundations team at MI...
2024-06-26
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a7HqRKpGchbf2DaK8/labor-participation-is-an-alignment-risk
a7HqRKpGchbf2DaK8
Labor Participation is an Alignment Risk
alex
TLDR: This paper explores and outlines why AI-related reductions in Labor participation (e.g., real unemployment) is a significant and high-priority alignment risk that the alignment community should more seriously consider as a potential underlying systemic risk factor. Constructive criticism, counter-factuals, and/or...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7LvK6Gw2GdfDMBNNm/monthly-roundup-19-june-2024
7LvK6Gw2GdfDMBNNm
Monthly Roundup #19: June 2024
Zvi
Looks like we made it. Yes, the non-AI world still exists. Bad Governor New York Governor Kathy Hochul has gone rogue and betrayed New York City, also humanity, declaring a halt to congestion pricing a month before it was to go into effect. Her explanation was that she spoke to workers at three Manhattan diners who wer...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Mn8BFCZMyvvuTvpWh/regularly-meta-optimization
Mn8BFCZMyvvuTvpWh
Regularly meta-optimization
commissar Yarrick
The usefulness of the different actions differ by orders of magnitude. Sometimes, redirecting efforts can increase your efficiency by an order of magnitude or more. Imagine that the person who first came up with the idea of sorting charitable foundations by efficiency, instead of implementing it, went to wash the dishe...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5vfSNLb92eyXKkQax/mistakes-people-make-when-thinking-about-units
5vfSNLb92eyXKkQax
Mistakes people make when thinking about units
KingSupernova
This is a linkpost for Parker Dimensional Analysis. Probably a little elementary for LessWrong, but I think it may still contain a few novel insights, particularly in the last section about Verison's error. A couple years ago, there was an interesting clip on MSNBC. A few weeks later, Matt Parker came out with a video ...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cZqNiRd89A92rBPkc/higher-effort-summer-solstice-what-if-we-used-ai-i-e-angel
cZqNiRd89A92rBPkc
Higher-effort summer solstice: What if we used AI (i.e., Angel Island)?
wearsshoes
As the title probably already indicates, this post contains community content rather than rationality content. Alternate, sillier version of this post here. Motivation I've been a co-organizer of the Bay Area Rationalist Summer Solstice for the past few years, and I've been thinking about how to make it a more meaningf...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hSeQmkuAwcDLNinM7/being-hella-lost-as-rationality-practice
hSeQmkuAwcDLNinM7
Being hella lost as rationality practice
wearsshoes
I've had the privilege of knowing where I was only in the sense of "within this quadrangle of an insufficiently detailed map, with impassable terrain not well indicated" several times. Usually by choice. More often while alone than prudence would dictate. I think they've been pretty good informal exercises in applied B...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/D9yYmL6KPq7dcNSKE/i-m-a-bit-skeptical-of-alphafold-3
D9yYmL6KPq7dcNSKE
I'm a bit skeptical of AlphaFold 3
oleg-trott
(also on https://olegtrott.substack.com) So this happened: DeepMind (with 48 authors, including a new member of the British nobility) decided to compete with me. Or rather, with some of my work from 10+ years ago. Apparently, AlphaFold 3 can now predict how a given drug-like molecule will bind to its target protein. An...
2024-06-25
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8vXeyxnXAGKgBAS9M/a-basic-economics-style-model-of-ai-existential-risk
8vXeyxnXAGKgBAS9M
A Basic Economics-Style Model of AI Existential Risk
Rubi
Crossposted with my new blog, Crossing the Rubicon, and primarily aimed at x-risk skeptics from economics backgrounds. If you're interested in novel takes on theoretical AI safety, please consider subscribing! Thanks to Basil Halperin for feedback on a draft of this post. “So, when it comes to AGI and existential risk,...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vSSrAbbE8RtowRSBZ/the-minority-coalition
vSSrAbbE8RtowRSBZ
The Minority Coalition
ricraz
Hello everybody. Or maybe nobody. I don’t know yet if I’m going to release this stream, I could get in pretty hot water for it. But you guys know that hasn’t stopped me in the past. The backstory this time is that I’ve managed to sign up for one of the red-teaming programs where they test unreleased LLMs. Not going to ...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/piteaGopyWMD7ozSf/sparse-features-through-time
piteaGopyWMD7ozSf
Sparse Features Through Time
rogan
This project explores the use of Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) to track the development of features in large language models throughout their training. It investigates whether features can be reliably matched between different SAEs trained on various checkpoints of Pythia 70M and characterises the development of these fea...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MFBTjb2qf3ziWmzz6/sae-feature-geometry-is-outside-the-superposition-hypothesis
MFBTjb2qf3ziWmzz6
SAE feature geometry is outside the superposition hypothesis
jake_mendel
Written at Apollo Research Summary: Superposition-based interpretations of neural network activation spaces are incomplete. The specific locations of feature vectors contain crucial structural information beyond superposition, as seen in circular arrangements of day-of-the-week features and in the rich structures of fe...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wx4RhFzLbiHoShFjR/on-claude-3-5-sonnet
wx4RhFzLbiHoShFjR
On Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Zvi
There is a new clear best (non-tiny) LLM. If you want to converse with an LLM, the correct answer is Claude Sonnet 3.5. It is available for free on Claude.ai and the Claude iOS app, or you can subscribe for higher rate limits. The API cost is $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. This completes...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Th4SeayGQyF6pYmZ6/book-review-righteous-victims-a-history-of-the-zionist-arab-1
Th4SeayGQyF6pYmZ6
Book Review: Righteous Victims - A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict
yair-halberstadt
I originally entered this to the ACX Book Review competition. Since it has not been selected as a finalist I'm now free to post it here. In truth it's a followup to my review of Morris's history of Israel's War of Independence. In the wake of the October 7th attack on Israel and Israel’s response, everyone seemed to ag...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nhwMMbi4pmZfErNe2/paying-russians-to-not-invade-ukraine
nhwMMbi4pmZfErNe2
Paying Russians to not invade Ukraine
djColliderBias
I know nothing about war except that horseback archers were OP for a long time. But from my point of view, which is blatantly uneducated when it comes to war, being a Russian soldier seems like a miserable experience. It therefore makes me wonder why 300,000 Russian soldiers are willing to risk it all in Ukraine.[1] Wh...
2024-06-24
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nCdxosAzGw9PKxRcD/the-living-planet-index-a-case-study-in-statistical-pitfalls
nCdxosAzGw9PKxRcD
The Living Planet Index: A Case Study in Statistical Pitfalls
Jan_Kulveit
In case you sometimes read an alarming headline about biodiversity loss, like Global wildlife populations have declined by 69% since 1970 or Researchers Report a Staggering Decline in Wildlife, there is a decent chance it is based on a metric called The Living Planet Index (LPI). My colleagues at CTS looked into how is...
2024-06-24