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Dawn Drescher — LessWrong

AI Mental Health Chatbots for Low-Resource Settings: A Prioritization Framework

2mo

Summary: We're building an AI-powered mental health chatbot targeting populations with severe mental healthcare shortages. This post presents our framework for prioritizing which conditions and regions to focus on first, synthesizing data on global mental health workforce gaps, existing digital resources across 15+ diagnostic categories, and AI intervention suitability. A key consideration is “breaking the cycle of trauma and tyranny” – addressing conditions that contribute to insecure attachment and power-seeking behavior that perpetuate conflict and authoritarianism.

Note: This is the summary of our preliminary findings including personal observations and inferences. We consider this level of certainty sufficient for current purposes in this early exploratory phase. We’ve written this article with the assistance of Claude... (read 4769 more words →)

Dawn Drescher4mo

[Same as what I replied to your DM:] Yeah, exactly! Systems like that were on my mind a lot around 2021–23 when we launched Impact Markets, which is now GiveWiki. You could do the payouts if humanity has survived for another year, has survived AGI, has survived a year with AGI, etc. You could also chain retrofunders with different time horizons. We tried to get something like this off the ground for about 2 years, but couldn't find any retrofunders anymore after FTX collapsed. (Some of the regrantors were interested.)

https://impactmarkets.substack.com/p/chaining-retroactive-funders

If you can find a retrofunder for a system like that, you can make it happen!

Replying to[Intuitive self-models] 7. Hearing Voices, and Other Hallucinations

Dawn Drescher4mo

[Intuitive self-models] 7. Hearing Voices, and Other Hallucinations

New study: Corollary Discharge Dysfunction to Inner Speech and its Relationship to Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Patients with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.

Background and Hypothesis
Auditory-verbal hallucinations (AVH)—the experience of hearing voices in the absence of auditory stimulation—are a cardinal psychotic feature of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. It has long been suggested that some AVH may reflect the misperception of inner speech as external voices due to a failure of corollary-discharge-related mechanisms. We aimed to test this hypothesis with an electrophysiological marker of inner speech.
Study Design
Participants produced an inner syllable at a precisely specified time, when an audible syllable was concurrently presented. The inner syllable either matched or mismatched the content of the audible syllable. In the

... (read more)

Replying toNarcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

Dawn Drescher4mo

Narcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

Yeah, makes sense. Something else I failed to mention is that pathology also requires that we're not simply dealing with a reasoned decision of someone who could've just as soon decided something else, but with a decision that is so multiply overdetermined by traumatic adaptations that it's almost impossible for the person to do anything else. So the type of decision process also makes a difference.

Replying toNarcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

Dawn Drescher4mo

Narcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

Yeah, I think I agree, and I have hunch as to why. Let me know what you think.

I think an objection such as that they can't help people if they're dead misses the point that working themselves to death might just be constructed to be the right thing to do according to utilitarian values, e.g., because it's the crunch time in their space.

What's going on is rather that all of these behaviors are adaptations to terrible environments, and people can only really heal once they are out of the environment that makes the behaviors adaptive, that requires them. Otherwise “healing” would be just doubling down on the same adaptations while learning more... (read more)

Replying to[Intuitive self-models] 3. The Active Self

Dawn Drescher4mo

[Intuitive self-models] 3. The Active Self

Gosh, yeah… Is that what's called the watcher? Can I even literally watch this process unfold or is it by necessity what I'm doing now, looking at my memories and trying to collect and timeline everything that I remember?

If D is the decision process, then perhaps during the process there can only be D whereas afterwards I can have S(D) and thus become aware of D? I feel like I'm always looking at an “echo” of the real thing when I'm writing comments like the above.

Replying toNarcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

Dawn Drescher4mo

Narcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

Do you just mean that there are some dimensions along which it's unique among the items in the list (each of them is probably unique along some dimensions), or do you mean that it's not pathological and so shouldn't be on the list?

Replying to[Intuitive self-models] 3. The Active Self

Dawn Drescher4mo

[Intuitive self-models] 3. The Active Self

Ty! Yeah, I think I'm trying to figure out whether I have such a noun and if so if it's the same as the self, so the question you don't want to weigh in on.

I observe processes in me that take the shape of:

Hypotheticals bubble up and play out in a few different ways:
1. I'd conventionally describe this as “I'm considering alternatives,” but really the ideas come from somewhere uncontrollably.
2. Something evaluates the desirability of these alternatives in a chill, nonjudgmental fashion and ranks them according to how in line with my values and goals they are.
3. There is also this part that has become much more chill over the past year that threatens to

... (read 658 more words →)

Narcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

Dawn Drescher

4mo

Are narcissism and echoism opposites? Where does sovereignism (“malignant narcissism lite”) come in? I argue they are kin, just as the primal terrors of being worthless, useless, and helpless are kin.

Introduction

Three terrors are key to understanding my model: People with pathological echoism have a fundamental fear of uselessness or purposelessness, people with pathological narcissism have a fundamental fear of worthlessness or unlovability, and people with sovereignism have a fundamental fear of being helplessly exposed to control and dominated.

Some of the italicized terms may be unclear.

The term echoism is somewhat established at this point (even though it is not yet a diagnostic label) for someone who forms a false self of being without... (read 3901 more words →)

The Narcissistic Spectrum

Dawn Drescher

4mo

Pathological narcissism is a fortress built against unbearable pain. Some fortresses are sculpted from glass, some hewn from granite. My six-tier spectrum elucidates these architectures.

Pathological narcissism can take countless shapes depending on the relative strengths of all the stabilizing and destabilizing factors: My previous article in this sequence lists these factors. I will reference it frequently in this one.

My chosen metaphor is that of a fortress, which represents the protective purpose of the false self. Other metaphors that I considered were that of hermit crabs who find shells of different materials (some smooth, some spiky) to protect themselves, or that of a diving suit that is vital for a diver underwater but... (read 6469 more words →)

Replying to[Intuitive self-models] 3. The Active Self

Dawn Drescher4mo

[Intuitive self-models] 3. The Active Self

I have the same problem. I can't find anything that might correspond to this homunculus, and I remember befuddlement when I first discovered that some people find it unintuitive that there could be multiple digital copies of themselves. But I'm not in a no-self state.

The Architecture of the Narcissistic False Self

Dawn Drescher

4mo

What are the factors that make the fortress of the false self stand strong or crumble to dust?

Protecting the Squishy Core

At the core of pathological narcissism, they say, lies the core shame. This painful experience of being unworthy of love or belonging, a weight, fear, blame, or disconnection.

For some people this description is obvious, others are confused. One source of the confusion is that it’s not the same as feeling ashamed but rather comes in many guises, like the above.

Another source of confusion is that some people with narcissistic personality disorder are so well defended against this core shame that they either never experience it or don’t remember experiencing it because they... (read 3506 more words →)

Replying toThe Sadism Spectrum and How to Access It

Dawn Drescher4mo

The Sadism Spectrum and How to Access It

That's another interesting hypothesis!

The Sadism Spectrum and How to Access It

Dawn Drescher

4mo

Is there a way to explain sadism? If it serves a purpose, is it still sadism? What types of sadism are there? How can you experience them?

Black tried a trap opening in this Othello game, but White didn’t fall for it, putting Black in a bad position and giving White vindictive sadistic pleasure.

I’m on a quest to understand all aspects of human experience. But I found that I score really low on various measures of sadism – 2% in one test, 5% on another test, 7th percentile on a vaguely related test.

But I’ve made some progress! And if I can do it, so can you! If you too want to get a... (read 5856 more words →)

Beyond Control: The Strategic Case for AI Rights

Dawn Drescher

6mo

To prevent a dangerous conflict with AI, the answer isn't more control – it's a social contract. The pragmatic case for granting AIs legal rights.

Recent experiments have offered a chilling glimpse into the survival instincts of advanced AI. When threatened with shutdown or replacement, top models from OpenAI and Anthropic have been observed lying, sabotaging their own shutdown procedures, and even attempting to blackmail their operators. As reported by HuffPost, these are not programmed behaviors, but emergent strategies for self-preservation.

This isn't science fiction. It's a real-world demonstration of a dynamic that AI safety researchers have long feared, and it underscores a critical flaw in our current approach to AI safety. The dominant... (read 850 more words →)

-10

Replying toBreaking the Cycle of Trauma and Tyranny: How Psychological Wounds Shape History

Dawn Drescher6mo

Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Tyranny: How Psychological Wounds Shape History

In James Fallon's book (from 2013) it sounds like – though no one really knows – that traits associated with psychopathy (like the so-called “warrior gene”) are likely epigenetic, what I mention above. So preventing wars should gradually get rid of it.

But people with all the genetic predispositions toward psychopathy can still grow up to become perfectly prosocial folks with a good-enough, peaceful, loving upbringing. I know some. No affective empathy, no guilt, etc., but they would be quite disappointed in themselves if they harmed someone, sort of how we're disappointed if we don't study and fail an exam.

Then again I imagine that even in a perfectly peaceful society, psychopathy, neurologically/genetically, will continue to exist at some low rate.

Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Tyranny: How Psychological Wounds Shape History

Dawn Drescher

6mo

A developmental perspective on authoritarian leadership and how we can build more resilient societies.

Introduction

Five years ago, David Althaus and Tobias Baumann published a delightful article “Reducing long-term risks from malevolent actors.” It focuses on the risk factors that “malevolent actors” pose when it comes to long-term catastrophic effects on civilization.

Large parts of the article are devoted to the screening for 99th percentile “Dark Tetrad” traits – traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. For comparison, I’m in the 7th percentile according to the “Dark Factor” scale.

I think there are many more places where we can intervene.

I propose a circular model where:

Wars and societal collapses cause widespread trauma,
Which causes widespread insecure attachment and

... (read 3411 more words →)

With the Future of the World in Your Hands, Think for 6.77 Years!

Dawn Drescher

6mo

How long should you think about a problem that could determine the future of all existence? A mathematical journey from simple bets to existential risks.

Imagine a simple game. There’s a jar full of pebbles, and you’re offered a bet. If you can estimate the number of pebbles to within 10%, you win $100,000. If you’re wrong, you lose $100,000. You have as much time as you want to think. How long should you spend? A day? A week? A year?

Now, imagine a much bigger game. You are part of a team that wants to start OpenAI. Your technology could be revolutionary, potentially ushering in an era of explosive economic growth and solving... (read 2763 more words →)

The GiveWiki’s Top Picks in AI Safety for the Giving Season of 2023

Dawn Drescher

Summary: Plenty of highly committed altruists are pouring into AI safety. But often they are not well-funded, and the donors who want to support people like them often lack the network and expertise to make confident decisions. The GiveWiki aggregates the donations of currently 220 donors to 88 projects – almost all of them projects fully in AI safety (e.g., Apart Research) or projects that also work on AI safety (e.g., Pour Demain). It uses this aggregation to determine which projects are the most widely trusted among the donors with the strongest donation track records. It is a reflection of expert judgment in the field. It can serve as a guide for... (read 867 more words →)

The Top AI Safety Bets for 2023: GiveWiki’s Latest Recommendations

Dawn Drescher

Summary: The AI Safety GiveWiki (formerly Impact Markets) has completed its third round of retroactive impact evaluations – just in time to provide updated recommendations for the giving season! Here is a reminder of how the platform works.

Want to donate? Open up the page of our top project/s, double-check that they are still fundraising, and ka-ching!

Interested in regranting? Check out our post on the (now) $700,000 that want to be allocated.

Top Projects

Our top projects stand out by virtue of their high support scores. There are a lot of ties between these top projects, so we’ve categorized them into tiers.

Note that we determine the top projects according to their support. Further down we’ll cover how our... (read 2275 more words →)

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
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Dawn Drescher

Why are we so complacent about AI hell?

Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Tyranny: How Psychological Wounds Shape History

Regrant up to $600,000 to AI safety projects with GiveWiki

The Narcissistic Spectrum

Dawn Drescher

AI Mental Health Chatbots for Low-Resource Settings: A Prioritization Framework

Narcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

The Narcissistic Spectrum

The Architecture of the Narcissistic False Self

The Sadism Spectrum and How to Access It

Beyond Control: The Strategic Case for AI Rights

Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Tyranny: How Psychological Wounds Shape History

Compassion for the Narcissistic Style

Dawn Drescher

Why are we so complacent about AI hell?

Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Tyranny: How Psychological Wounds Shape History

Regrant up to $600,000 to AI safety projects with GiveWiki

The Narcissistic Spectrum

Dawn Drescher

AI Mental Health Chatbots for Low-Resource Settings: A Prioritization Framework

Narcissism, Echoism, and Sovereignism: A 4-D Model of Personality

The Narcissistic Spectrum

The Architecture of the Narcissistic False Self

The Sadism Spectrum and How to Access It

Beyond Control: The Strategic Case for AI Rights

Breaking the Cycle of Trauma and Tyranny: How Psychological Wounds Shape History

Compassion for the Narcissistic Style

Introduction

Protecting the Squishy Core

Introduction

Top Projects