Gordon Seidoh Worley

Say Wrong Things

There are many ways you might approach being less wrong. A popular one is to make fewer wrong statements; to say fewer wrong things. Naively it would seem this is a recipe for success, since you just say more things that are true and right and fewer things that are false and wrong. But if Goodhart has anything to say about it, and he does, you'll find ways to maximize the measure at the expense of the original objective. Assuming the real objective is something like "have a more complete, precise, and accurate model of the world that better predicts the outcome of subjectively unknown events", then we can quickly see the many ways Goodharting can lead us astray if we focus too much on appearing less wrong. We might: * make fewer claims than we could, pulling us away from completeness even as we appear less wrong; * make weaker claims than we could, pulling us away from precision; * and, a perennial favorite, filter the claims we publicly make so we appear less wrong than we really are by hiding our least confident claims. The first two can be corrected with better calibration, that is by making statements with confidence intervals or likelihoods that proportionally match the observed frequency of correctness of similarly confident claims. But simply suggesting someone "be better calibrated" is not a motion they can make; it's an outcome of taking actions towards increasing calibration. As good a place to start as any for improving calibration is the forecasting literature, if that's what you'd like to do. The third is more tricky, though, because it's less directly about claims being made and their probability of correctness and more about social dynamics and how you appear to other people. And for that reason it's what I want to focus on here. Appearing Less Wrong I've met a lot of people in my life who are experts at not looking as stupid as they are. That's kind of harsh. Maybe a nicer way to say it is that they are experts at appearing to be better a

118May 24, 2019

Gordon Seidoh Worley

Message

I'm wrote a book about why all knowledge of the truth is fundamentally uncertain. Give it a read!

I've also written a lot about AI safety, personal development, and Buddhism, among other things. Most of that's here on LessWrong, but there's also some on my blog,...

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Concussion Treatments

Last week I hit my head on a car door frame getting into the car at a gas station. There were no dramatic symptoms at first and barely any pain, but the next day I couldn’t look at my phone for more than five minutes without getting a headache. It...

Mar 1122

An Open Letter to the Department of War and Congress

There's an open letter opposing the DoW's assignment of Anthropic as a supply chain risk. It needs more signatures before it gets sent. If you're a tech founder, engineer, or investor and you agree with the letter, then your signature would help bolster its message. Your signature would be especially...

Mar 161

Uncertain Updates: February 2026

Last week I wrote two posts that I didn’t post here. You should read them. The first makes the claim that minimum viable AGI is already here. The second is my take on what to do about it. I can’t understate how important it is to understand what’s going on...

Feb 259

What to Do About AGI

As claimed in my last post, minimum viable AGI is here. Given that, what should we do about it? Since I was asked, here are my recommendations. Spread Awareness By my reasoning, the most important thing is to get as many people as possible to realize what's going on. If...

Feb 2217

AGI is Here

I'm somewhat hesitant to write this post because I worry its central claim will be misconstrued, but I think it's important to say now, so I'm writing it anyway. Claude Opus 4.6 was released on February 5th. GPT-5.3 came out the same day. We've had a little over two weeks...

Feb 2064

Nine Flavors of Not Enough

I think there’s something interesting going on at the intersection of the Enneagram and Zen. To explain it, though, first I need to tell you a bit about my kind of Zen. I practice Zen in the lineage of Charlotte Joko Beck. Her teaching style was, for its time, radically...

Feb 1813

On Resolving the Great Matter

It was July 30th, 2023. I had spent the last several days in sesshin with my sangha at Bay Zen Center. Physically exhausted from the effort, I came home and collapsed on the couch. I spent a couple hours watching TV, catching up on Twitter, and then, at about three...

Feb 1111

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Gordon Seidoh Worley

Gordon Seidoh Worley

Gordon Seidoh Worley

Say Wrong Things

The Problem of the Criterion

Fake Frameworks for Zen Meditation (Summary of Sekida's Zen Training)

Too Soon

Gordon Seidoh Worley

Concussion Treatments

An Open Letter to the Department of War and Congress

Uncertain Updates: February 2026

What to Do About AGI

AGI is Here

Nine Flavors of Not Enough

On Resolving the Great Matter

Say Wrong Things

The Problem of the Criterion

Fake Frameworks for Zen Meditation (Summary of Sekida's Zen Training)

Too Soon

Concussion Treatments

An Open Letter to the Department of War and Congress

Uncertain Updates: February 2026

What to Do About AGI

AGI is Here

Nine Flavors of Not Enough

On Resolving the Great Matter