I. Prologue "If I Can't Explain It to Said Achmiz, I Probably Don't Understand It" This post isn't really about him, but I'd like to begin with a tribute to my friend Said Achmiz, the wisest person I know. The choice of adjective is deliberately chosen as term of art....
Dateline SAN FRANCISCO, Ca., 24 March 2026— A hearing was held on a motion for a preliminary injunction in the case of Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War et al. in Courtroom 12 on the 19th floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building, the Hon. Judge Rita F. Lin...
(Previously: Prologue.) Corrigibility as a term of art in AI alignment was coined as a word to refer to a property of an AI being willing to let its preferences be modified by its creator. Corrigibility in this sense was believed to be a desirable but unnatural property that would...
What Even Is This Timeline The striking thing about reading what is potentially the most important document in human history is how impossible it is to take seriously. The entire premise seems like science fiction. Not bad science fiction, but—crucially—not hard science fiction. Ted Chiang, not Greg Egan. The kind...
In a busy, busy world, there's so much to read that no one could possibly keep up with it all. You can't not prioritize what you pay attention to and (even more so) what you respond to. Everyone and her dog tells herself a story that she wants to pay...
In "Truth or Dare", Duncan Sabien articulates a phenomenon in which expectations of good or bad behavior can become self-fulfilling: people who expect to be exploited and feel the need to put up defenses both elicit and get sorted into a Dark World where exploitation is likely and defenses are...
Previously, I wrote about how I was considering going back to San Francisco State University for two semesters to finish up my Bachelor's degree in math. So, I did that. I think it was a good decision! I got more out of it than I expected. To be clear, "better...