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LessWrong (30+ Karma)

LessWrong
Artificial Intelligence
Lesswrong
AI Safety
Anthropic
Openai
AI Alignment
Claude
Reinforcement Learning
Large Language Models
Philosophy
Chain Of Thought
Llms
Machine Learning
Artificial General Intelligence
Claude Opus 4.7
Mode Collapse
Neural Networks
Prediction Markets
Nuclear Weapons
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Audio narrations of LessWrong posts.

PublishesDailyEpisodes500Founded3 years ago
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I find that a lot of people have trouble with this concept of predicting the next token. And by trouble, I mean that they struggle to understand what it actually means to predict the next token. It seems simpler than it is. Because when you say "pred... more

Thanks to @Jeremy Gillen for reading and commenting on the draft. This was written while I was was funded by the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) through project code MSAI-SE01-P005.

I have tried to achieve two goals in this post. The f... more

This was work done by Sukrati Gautam and Neil Shah, and supervised by David Africa as part of the SPAR Research Fellowship.

TLDR:

We find a new way to use consistency training: by “sealing up” the leaky backdoor introduced by the inoculation pro... more

Around July last year I decided I was going to go all in on technical AI safety research. To do that I’d need to get into an AI safety fellowship, quit my job, and sell everything that was in my flat in South Africa (hopefully in that order).

I app... more

This is a short summary of our new paper: arXiv, X thread, code.

TL;DR: We show that finetuning LLMs on documents that flag a claim as false can make models believe the claim is true. This is a general phenomenon that also occurs with other forms o... more

Monitoring coding agents for dangerous behavior using language models requires classifying transcripts that often exceed 500 thousand tokens, but prior agent monitoring benchmarks rarely contain transcripts longer than 100 thousand tokens.

We show ... more

Allergies are a big problem for a lot of people. If you're someone with pollen allergies, maybe you've wondered how people in the distant past dealt with them. After all, a thousand years ago people mostly worked outside all day, in areas where plant... more

[Crossposted from my blog, BlueprintingHeaven.]

Please note that the views I held and thoughts I had during the time immediately after my deconversion are not necessarily ones I have right now. It would be boring and annoying to constantly say this... more

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Recent Guests

Fabien Roger
Researcher and co-author of the Opus 4.5 study
Episode: “Measuring the ability of Opus 4.5 to fool narrow classifiers” by Fabien Roger, John Hughes
John Hughes
Co-author of the Opus 4.5 study
Episode: “Measuring the ability of Opus 4.5 to fool narrow classifiers” by Fabien Roger, John Hughes
Jeremy Stevenson
Co-author of The 12 Levers
Episode: “A new rationalist self-improvement book: the 12 Levers” by spencerg
J Bostock
Author who presents the piece on steering LLMs and evaluation awareness
LessWrong
Episode: “Steering Might Stop Working Soon” by J Bostock
Reilly Haskins
Author and researcher presenting the study on COT monitoring and obfuscation
Research team behind the LessWrong post
Episode: “Training on Documents About Monitoring Leads To CoT Obfuscation” by Reilly Haskins, bilalchughtai, Josh Engels
Senthooran Rajamanoharan
Episode: “How well do models follow their constitutions?” by aryaj, Senthooran Rajamanoharan, Neel Nanda
Neel Nanda
Episode: “How well do models follow their constitutions?” by aryaj, Senthooran Rajamanoharan, Neel Nanda
Steven Byrnes
Artificial general intelligence safety researcher
Astra Institute
Episode: “Interview with Steven Byrnes on His Mainline Takeoff Scenario” by Liron
Chris Buck
Scientist at the National Cancer Institute pioneering yeast-based vaccines
National Cancer Institute
Episode: ″“Beers for Biodefense” - why yeast-based vaccines are potentially a big deal for biosecurity” by delton137

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Talking Points

Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.

“Gwern’s 2025 Inkhaven Writing Interview” by gwern
Q: What is your approach to self-experimentation?
I find it a valuable way to gather data and explore claims about supplements or other topics.
“Gwern’s 2025 Inkhaven Writing Interview” by gwern
Q: How do you generate your ideas?
I often have long incubation periods, where I'm just waiting for things to crystallize.
“Interview: What it’s like to be a bat” by Saul Munn
Q: Why would that be the case?
Bats cannot communicate with each other with the precision or fidelity that humans can, which hampers their understanding of each other's consciousness.
“Interview: What it’s like to be a bat” by Saul Munn
Q: What is it like to be a BAT?
It's as mysterious for a bat to comprehend the consciousness of another bat as it is for humans to understand the consciousness of other humans.
“Creditworthiness should not be for sale” by habryka
Q: Okay, but shouldn't I be happy if I give money to a charity that can raise more than a dollar from other people if I give it a dollar?
It's a complex situation where sometimes funding public goods can lead to genuine societal benefits, but it may resemble a creditworthiness purchasing scheme initially.

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A thoughtful, analytically framed show that discusses technology, philosophy, and societal implications of AI. Across recent episodes, topics frequently center on AI alignment, governance, safety, and how large language models interact with social narratives, institutions, and regulation. The hosts consistently critique evaluation regimes, explore moral and existential questions around AI, and compare regulatory approaches with practical governance considerations. Viewers likely appreciate rigorous analysis, well-referenced critiques, and nuanced takes on complex tech-policy issues, making it appealing to technically minded listeners who enjoy philosophy and thoughtful discourse about the future of AI and society.

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