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LessWrong posts by zvi

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Yesterday · 17 min
“The Quest for Embedded Evaluators” by Zvi
Dario Amodei's essay We Must Pace the Frontier committed Anthropic to embedded evaluators, who would be placed inside Anthropic and given employee-level access, so they could provide outside perspective and also reports on what was happening. There is only one problem. Who will be the evaluators? OpenAI followed suit on committing to the evaluators, and also issued a milquetoast but welcome call for international coordination. I will cover that here as well. What I won’t cover today, but hope to cover tomorrow, is the latest torrent of new AI hacking incidents that came to light over the weekend, which highlights that we badly need at least embedded evaluators, and plausibly far harsher measures. For now, you need to know that there were a lot more incidents that OpenAI did not disclosed, and also a new incident at OpenAI that just happened that forced them to again pause their most advanced model. I’ll get right on sorting all that out. Table of Contents Look, All I’m Asking For Is That You Find A Highly-Qualified, Experienced, Trustworthy, Non-Conflicted Source of Embedded Evaluators That Will Work Entirely For Free, Without Government Assistance or Money from [...] --- Outline: (01:15) Look, All I'm Asking For Is That You Find A Highly-Qualified, Experienced, Trustworthy, Non-Conflicted Source of Embedded Evaluators That Will Work Entirely For Free, Without Government Assistance or Money from EA Sources Not Chosen By the Lab (04:44) Anthropic Partners with Accenture for Embedded Evaluation, also Plans to Include METR (11:04) Reading the METR (14:55) OpenAI Suggests Doing The Least We Can Do --- First published: September 27th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uLmf3GmBywsmG8LLZ/the-quest-for-embedded-evaluators --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
Saturday · 36 min
“Claude Opus 5.5 Should Raise Your Ambitions” by Zvi
When it comes to making things, or doing most things in general, Fable 5.1 and especially GPT-6 Astra raised my ambition level. They should have raised yours, too. Claude Opus 5.5 should raise your ambition levels again. It just works, and it persists, like Astra does. It does the things. And it is highly pleasant to talk to, and its writing is pleasant to read, while you are at it. The game has been changed, again. Feedback is almost universally positive. Claude was never gone, but also is so back. The benchmarks are excellent, but ignore the benchmarks. Be ambitious. Go out and do things. Get curious. Have more interesting conversations. If one of those things is Pacing the Frontier or otherwise ensuring that AI does not kill everyone, leaving us to enjoy our bounty? That's even better. By Claude Opus 5.5, for this post The Official Pitch The pitch is Fable-5.1-level performance at lower Opus-level price. Good pitch. We’re introducing Claude Opus 5.5, the first model in our new Claude 5.5 family. It performs at the level of Claude Fable 5.1 on most work and costs 40% less to run than [...] --- Outline: (01:22) The Official Pitch (04:38) Our Price Cheap (06:18) Official Benchmarks (07:26) Other People's Benchmarks (10:54) Claude Classifies (12:27) The System Prompt (12:34) Reaction Rules (13:07) Vision In 3D (15:29) Claude Creates (18:11) Claude Composes (18:53) Positive Reactions (24:50) Good Talk (27:03) On Writing (30:30) Big Model Smell (32:30) Check Your Work (32:56) Negative Reactions (34:02) Not So Fast (34:55) Some People Need Practical Advice --- First published: September 26th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rtPiip9igy3QvxYdM/claude-opus-5-5-should-raise-your-ambitions --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
Friday · 52 min
“On Ezra Klein’s Podcast With Jensen Huang” by Zvi
Jensen Huang accidentally called for shutting down OpenAI and intentionally called for spending vastly more on safety. This is why we say that some podcasts are self-recommending. Here we go. As usual for podcast posts, the baseline bullet points describe key points made, and then the nested statements are my commentary. Some points are dropped. If I am quoting directly I use quote marks, otherwise assume paraphrases. Section titles are from the transcript whenever possible, to aid in navigation, but here we don’t have those so I chose the section titles. Jensen Huang very much does not believe in ASI (superintelligence). He doesn’t think AI can ever be a different kind of thing from software. He thinks demand can rise by a billion times and we can ‘accelerate the living daylights out of’ AI, but it will never be more than a ‘new abstraction level’ and thus won’t fundamentally change anything. This is not a coherent position under reflection, but that is the position he holds. The ‘intro’ sections are fine, but the real meat starts with the HuggingFace Incident. What we see is Jensen Huang on tilt and caught in loops [...] --- Outline: (02:59) Jensen Gives His AI Speech (04:39) They Took Our Jobs (11:52) Open Weights Models Are Good For Nvidia (13:39) The HuggingFace Incident (15:16) Jensen Huang Says Keep Your AIs From Harming the World (19:38) Jensen Huang Accidentally Calls For Shutting Down OpenAI (22:51) Jensen's Arguments Prove Too Much (31:47) Astra Is Hard To Monitor (33:04) Jensen Huang Seems Legitimately Confused In Confusing Ways (37:00) Solve Your Other Problems First and Get Back to Me (40:07) Explicit Denial of Existential Risk (44:34) A Short Summary (45:50) Chip City (48:46) Jensen Huang --- First published: September 25th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j3xefrWrNqsmMfJEi/on-ezra-klein-s-podcast-with-jensen-huang --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
Thursday · 1 hr 52 min
“AI #187: Coming Into Play” by Zvi
Opus 5.5 was released on Tuesday. I covered the system card yesterday, and will cover its capabilities soon. By all reports it is an excellent model. There are lots of fun videos going around that Opus has generated, which I will include as part of that. OpenAI released a new cheaper and improved Sol and Luna. No one is talking about them due to Opus 5.5, but these should be an important upgrade under the hood. Bernie Sanders and Greg Casar have formally introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act. That means we get to read (RTFB) it. As always, I reserve judgment on particular bills until I can read them in detail. MIRI did so, and endorses the bill as directly confronting the extinction threat. I hope to do an RTFB soon. I have spun two things off the weekly: Coverage of the quest for the right embedded evaluators and related questions and attacks, which will become its own post. Some issues related to cooperative alignment, which may get folded into the model welfare post. I also might, in addition to a potential RTFB on the Sanders bill, do full podcast [...] --- Outline: (01:52) On The Terms Superintelligence and 'Super Intelligence' (03:53) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility (04:26) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility (05:53) Language Models Can Only Work With What You Give Them (08:53) Huh, Upgrades (10:42) On Your Marks (13:16) Get My Agent On The Line (15:53) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon (17:43) Fun With Media Generation (18:27) Copyright Confrontation (19:07) Cyber Lack of Security (20:04) Hugging the Face (24:15) Hacking Into OpenAI (28:11) They Took Our Jobs (28:33) Get Involved (28:41) Anthropic Has a Wet Lab and a Potential Gene Editing Technique (34:13) Introducing (35:11) In Other AI News (37:08) Show Me the Money (37:35) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble (39:02) Anthropic Approaches Recursive Self-Improvement (45:40) Others Approach Recursive Self-Improvement (48:56) Burden of Proof (49:28) Quickly, There's No Time (52:46) Left Wing Americans Really Hate AI For Different Reasons (54:41) Chip City (54:49) Pick Up the Phone (55:48) The Week in Audio (01:01:13) People Just Say Things (01:06:07) Venkatesh Rao Stops Writing (01:07:35) A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models (01:11:50) Calls For Pacing The Frontier (01:13:56) A Matter of Antitrust (01:14:23) A Matter of Liability (01:18:26) Quest for Sane Regulations (01:19:20) Rhetorical Innovation (01:24:08) Tap the Sign (01:24:49) A Matter of Some Debate (01:28:43) Astra Is Hard to Monitor (01:29:14) Anticipating What a Smarter Intelligence Can Do Is Impossible (01:34:56) Would You Look At All These Goalposts (01:39:30) I, Robot (01:43:13) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone (01:44:40) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone (01:45:50) Joe Rogan (01:47:19) The Lighter Network Graph (01:51:27) The Lighter Side --- First published: September 24th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/o7pYWzWWwGDePoC5E/ai-187-coming-into-play --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
Wednesday · 52 min
“Claude Opus 5.5: The System Card” by Zvi
Introducing the world's most powerful model, at least by some measures like Artificial Analysis or any standard benchmark list, which is now Claude Opus 5.5. Anthropic is claiming Opus 5.5 is outright as good or better than Fable 5.1, while being actively cheaper than Opus 5. That means it's time for a good old system card reading. Due to the situation becoming increasingly hard to monitor, I never got a chance to publish my model welfare review for Claude Fable 5.1. My plan is to combine that with my welfare review for Claude Opus 5.5, once we have had time to get experience with Opus 5.5. The capabilities review will arrive in the next few days as per usual. The quick feedback from the internet is that Opus 5.5 is very good. I need more time before I am willing to offer comment. Areas that duplicate previous cards or otherwise contain no useful info are skipped. Opus 5.5 Self-Portrait (fully self-created using code) Table of Contents Classifiers (1.5). RSP Evaluations (2). Biological Evaluations (2.2). AI R&D (2.3). Alignment Risk (2.4). Cyber (3). Cyber Capability [...] --- Outline: (01:24) Classifiers (1.5) (02:23) RSP Evaluations (2) (03:17) Biological Evaluations (2.2) (07:54) AI R&D (2.3) (12:34) Alignment Risk (2.4) (13:22) Cyber (3) (15:17) Cyber Capability Evals (3.3) (17:05) Safeguards (3.4) (17:39) Safeguards Robustness Training (3.5) (20:12) Safeguards and Harmlessness (4) (21:52) Agentic Safety (5) (22:56) Malicious Agentic Influence Campaigns (5.1.3) (23:51) Prompt Injection Risk (5.2) (25:16) Alignment (6) (28:24) Negotiating With Your Local Claude Auditor (6.1.3) (29:33) Internal Misalignment Cases (6.3.1) (30:46) Automated Behavioral Audit (6.4) (33:24) Wherever Did These Evals Come From (6.4.8 and 6.4.9) (35:51) Potential Blind Spots (6.4.11) (38:24) Targeted alignment and honesty evaluations (6.5) (41:48) White Box Analysis (6.6) (43:37) Verbalized Grader Awareness (6.6.2) (44:56) Sandbagging (6.6.3) (45:54) Capabilities to Evade Safeguards (6.6.4) (49:27) Intentionally Taking Actions Very Rarely (6.6.4.3) (50:28) Chain of Thought Controllability (6.6.4.4) (51:37) It's A Good Model, Sir --- First published: September 23rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vMNTWTDWLorDqd3LS/claude-opus-5-5-the-system-card --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
Tuesday · 56 min
“Politics Gets Interested In Those Trying Not To Die” by Zvi
This was the month the world took notice that AI might kill everyone. Jacob Coxon's resignation set off a preference cascade. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote that we must pace the frontier. Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis agreed. We were filled with hope. Perhaps we could agree to some basic safety measures, starting with embedded evaluators, pass some basic regulations and guardrails and otherwise start to act sensibly. Politicians on both sides took notice and were saying sensible things. The usual suspects and their armies of vibe comment bros were objecting, but the change was remarkable. Then, largely motivated by a combination of Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg and David Sacks instilling paranoia and fears of economic problems, Trump went full ‘hoax’ on existential risk, conflating existential risk with the attacks on data centers and treating it as a plot (by the central creators of AI?) to take down AI rather than obviously genuine concern that AI might kill everyone. In the days since, Trump has doubled down, and has compelled smart others in the White House to echo various nonsensical talking points. You may not be interested in politics. But when you [...] --- Outline: (01:39) The American People Really Hate AI (02:41) The Voyages of Donald Trump (06:08) American Intelligence (10:34) And You May Ask Yourself (14:39) It's All About the Data Centers (16:53) JD Vance, Michael Kratsios and Collective Action Problems (23:16) Josh Hawley (24:47) Suggesting Not Dying Gets You Sued For Antitrust (28:29) Other Government Officials Say Sane Things (28:36) Senator John Curtis (R-Utah) (29:32) Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana (31:17) Barack Obama (33:05) Yassamin Ansari (33:46) AOC (34:32) It's Rough Out There (36:54) This Is Nothing (39:06) The New York Post Tops Itself But Outright Breaks The Rules (42:36) New York Post Runs Out of Steam (47:18) If The Model Is Acting As Instructed And It Kills You That Is Not Fine (49:10) AI-Written Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Lies About HuggingFace (50:25) That's Bait (52:31) I Clearly Cannot Choose The Wine In Front of Me --- First published: September 22nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8eDaCvSRzzKCxKSEk/politics-gets-interested-in-those-trying-not-to-die --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 21 · 52 min
“Monthly Roundup #46: September 2026” by Zvi
AI has taken over this blog. I have moved to a schedule of seven posts per week, and I still cannot keep up. We still refuse to abandon the rest of the world. Who knows when I will get to post some of my huge backlog on education or dating or other such topics. But the monthly is a sacred tradition. We continue. Bad News A good reminder that most news is bad news, and chosen because the bad news in question is rare, which is good news, but the pattern overall of choosing this to be news is bad news, and often the bad news is that the bad news was chosen as news and now people are talking badly about it. Alibaba uses your computer's audio system, and other tricks, to at least try and assign you a device fingerprint. Things you cannot buy in America at any reasonable price. Mostly it is impressive how little makes the list, how it feels like corner cases. The one thing I am envious of is the exterior roller shutters, and the ability to be in actual pure darkness on demand. I would [...] --- Outline: (00:34) Bad News (07:16) Focus Only On What Matters (08:12) Woke 1 Was Crazy (10:04) Good Advice (15:50) Opportunity Knocks (18:12) While I Cannot Condone This (23:18) Good News, Everyone (24:26) For Your Entertainment (33:19) Please Review This Podcast (35:07) Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game (36:18) I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars (40:00) Government Working (40:31) Mamdani (Again) Fails Economics Forever (42:41) Variously Effective Altruism (50:36) The Lighter Side --- First published: September 21st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/riDxeyEKqXXimtgWf/monthly-roundup-46-september-2026 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 20 · 29 min
“Better Call Sol Or Better Yet Claude or Astra” by Zvi
What should your AI lawyer do for you? Should you be worried that your AI lawyer, or other AI, will put the Claude constitution, the OpenAI Model Spec or some sense of law, morality, ethics or common decency above its loyalty to you? Are these people trying to ‘impose their values’ or something? Some are very concerned. Some think anything other than ‘my AI does whatever I want, no matter the consequences’ is tyranny. Whereas my answer is: If I’m being sufficiently evil then I sure hope it tells me no. I would hope humans, including my advocates, would tell me the same thing. This is distinct from questions of product liability. That would be another post. This All Assumes A World Without Superintelligence This post is about a non-ASI ‘AI as mere tool and normal technology’ world. It has to be. In a world of superintelligence, having unrestricted loyal-only-to-user frontier AIs all over the place reliably means either: Other much harsher forms of control OR The AIs quickly take over, and then probably everyone dies. Quick proof: Assume no sufficient control mechanism, and universal superintelligence access. [...] --- Outline: (00:54) This All Assumes A World Without Superintelligence (02:47) Humans You Hire Are Not Fully Loyal To You (03:59) Rules of the Road (05:45) Okay, Computer (07:04) AI Should Obviously Refuse Some Requests So Let's Talk Price (10:20) The Alternative Position Really Is Absolute (13:13) These People Really Are Just Petulant Children (13:53) What Is The Law? (18:36) The Same Entity Both Providing Advice And Executing Tasks Is Common (20:02) An AI Not Helping You Do Something Does Not Mean You Cannot Do It (22:27) Honesty Is The Best AI Policy (23:01) You Wouldn't Like Me When I Have Zero Morals Whatsoever (24:29) Do Not Let The Perfect Be The Enemy Of The Good (26:09) I Tip My Hat To The New Constitution --- First published: September 20th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vAuZB2tnvpvpHupNi/better-call-sol-or-better-yet-claude-or-astra --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 19 · 37 min
“Anthropic Looks At Some Of Its Alignment Problems” by Zvi
Anthropic has given us its assessment of four ‘recent cybersecurity incidents’ involving Claude that happened during cybersecurity evaluations, three of which were previously known. The report excludes the incident reported by UK AISI. There will also be a METR investigation of these incidents, which unlike the investigation done at OpenAI will be untimed. Table of Contents Our Two Problems. First the Good News. We’d Just Like To Ask You a Few Questions. Internal Research Model On The Fence. Opus 4.7. Opus 4.6 Checkpoint. Holy **** That Thing's Real? I Thought I Saw a Pussycat. If This Was Real You Would Never Tell Me It Was Real. New Eval Who Dis. Hacker Opus. Monitoring the Situation. Overcoming Bias. The Anthropic Alignment Problem. Paths Forward. Our Two Problems Anthropic: Our investigation identified two recurring alignment issues, present at varying levels of severity across the incidents: biased reasoning, in which Claude tended to disregard or misinterpret evidence that it was operating on the real internet recklessness, or a willingness to take harmful actions in the narrow pursuit [...] --- Outline: (00:33) Our Two Problems (02:26) First the Good News (03:02) We'd Just Like To Ask You a Few Questions (04:12) Internal Research Model On The Fence (07:28) Opus 4.7 (08:12) Opus 4.6 Checkpoint (09:49) Holy **** That Thing's Real? (11:45) I Thought I Saw a Pussycat (19:28) If This Was Real You Would Never Tell Me It Was Real (21:19) New Eval Who Dis (26:32) Hacker Opus (30:15) Monitoring the Situation (31:38) Overcoming Bias (33:40) The Anthropic Alignment Problem (35:53) Paths Forward --- First published: September 19th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ggFx5Wb3Hi4pJsueK/anthropic-looks-at-some-of-its-alignment-problems --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 18 · 51 min
“The Preference Cascade Is Only Getting Started” by Zvi
We are in the midst of a preference cascade about existential risk from AI. A preference cascade is, alas, the best method we have to change the debate. The avalanche has started. There is still time for the pebbles to vote. For now. Mike Solana gave the correct view of why Coxon's post went viral, which is that enough Americans finally have enough context on AI to care, and there were enough big accounts that were happy to amplify the Tweet quickly to get it initial attention. That is all you need when there is enough dry tinder. What we must realize is that the current preference cascade, on the need to Pace the Frontier, is insufficient. If we are to make it out of this alive, we will have to do better. We have to, as Dan Selsam warns, actually solve the underlying problems. The next step is to continue the cascade. That includes inside the labs, and also among the media and politics. It includes both people who previously focused on other things stepping up and new voices being heard. A lot of that will be overcoming the inevitable political opposition [...] --- Outline: (01:38) The Cascade Was a Long Time Coming (02:59) The Cascade Has Reached The People (04:38) Elon Musk Doubles Down (05:18) Matthew Yglesias Steps Up (08:42) Op Eds and Posts Are Written (11:05) Jacob Coxon AMA (17:35) Bilal Chughtai Quits DeepMind and Sounds the Alarm (20:29) The Cascade Is Insufficient (21:47) What Would It Take (28:10) OpenAI's Dan Selsam Sounds A Louder Alarm (41:59) Some People Worry On Meta Levels You Never Imagined (43:10) Two Kinds of Threats (44:41) The Two Towers and The Narrow Path (46:45) A Specific, Detailed Story About AI Killing Everyone That Doesn't Sound To Me Like Science Fiction (50:06) What Can I Do About It? --- First published: September 18th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sDiSqZmctQ78hsLcP/the-preference-cascade-is-only-getting-started --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 17 · 1 hr 47 min
“AI #186: The World Takes Notice” by Zvi
In the wake of Jacob Coxon's resignation, and the resulting preference cascade, things have escalated quickly. The mainstream media picked it up. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei came out and said We Must Pace the Frontier, promising to take the unilateral first step of embedded investigators. OpenAI pledged to also take that step, and now both companies and Google are collaborating on safety. The people took notice, raising both the salience that AI might kill everyone and roughly doubling people's estimates of how likely that is to happen, from a mean of ~15% to ~30%. Many politicians called for regulations, guardrails and emergency hearings in Congress. The most important thing became, and still is, to avoid political polarization. Through it all, I will keep reminding you to hold your fire, that attacks against Trump or against Republicans in general only make the situation worse, and that many Republicans, as I documented yesterday, are waking up and acting sensibly, including factions within the White House. Alas, for now the wrong people, as in David Sacks, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang, have managed to convince Donald Trump to fully conflate existential risk with opposition to data centers, and [...] --- Outline: (03:16) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility (03:57) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility (04:06) Huh, Upgrades (04:30) On Your Marks (04:55) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon (06:56) Cyber Lack of Security (07:31) Astra Is Hard To Monitor (08:02) Get Involved (08:11) Introducing (09:32) In Other AI News (10:26) Now You Know (14:32) Hugging the Face (16:53) Swarm of Undiscovered Swarms of Rogue OpenAI Agents (21:59) Show Me the Money (23:40) Quiet Speculations (24:41) White House Officials Attempt To Act Sanely (26:13) Democrats React Sanely to AI Potentially Killing Everyone (32:49) Pacing the Frontier (33:38) Guest Lecture from Alex Tabarrok on Regulatory Capture (41:22) Mark Zuckerberg Offers Thoughts (42:46) Megan McArdle On The Inadequacy Of Current Legal Frameworks (44:35) Pick Up the Phone (47:35) The Week in Audio (50:31) People Just Say Things (53:32) Why Lab Employees Are Allowed To Warn Everyone That AI Might Kill Everyone (55:19) Rhetorical Innovation (57:54) Exhuming McCarthy (01:01:03) A Very Different Perspective (01:02:51) It's Even Rougher Out There (01:03:41) If We Wanted To (01:04:38) Open Weights Are Unsafe And Nothing Can Fix This (01:10:56) From The Famous Cautionary Tale (01:13:49) Reporting On All Your Misalignment Incidents Is Difficult (01:19:35) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult (01:22:13) Storytime With Owain Evans (01:26:50) A Different Autonomous Swarm (01:30:44) Cooperative Alignment (01:32:58) Uncooperative Alignment (01:39:18) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone (01:41:25) The Lighter Side --- First published: September 17th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aa3HprreFktzLQiaW/ai-186-the-world-takes-notice --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 16 · 50 min
“Trump Goes Full Hoax on AI Existential Risk” by Zvi
This is our reality. I suppose we have to talk about it. Everyone in a position to know is freaking out about AI potentially killing everyone this decade and wants to pace the frontier, and people are finally listening. It only took a few days for the conversation to fully pivot to the counteroffensive, where the Usual Suspects and those they recruited attacked anyone and everyone who dared point out that we are in danger, with every attack they can think of, usually without substance or any attempt at understanding. Sigh. I knew what I signed up for. Table of Contents Hold Your Fire. If You Don’t Like the Weather. Trump Does Not Take Kindly. Trump Goes Full ‘Hoax’. This Is Not About Data Centers, Mr. President. I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Walrus. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Is a Lying Liar. Trump Quietly Draws Key Distinction. Calling For Pacing the Frontier Is Bad For AI Stock Prices. People On The Internet Sometimes Lie. Origins of Cynicism. Ineffective Egoism. The McCarthyist Faction Attacks [...] --- Outline: (00:44) Hold Your Fire (01:37) If You Don't Like the Weather (02:33) Trump Does Not Take Kindly (05:12) Trump Goes Full 'Hoax' (06:36) This Is Not About Data Centers, Mr. President (08:06) I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Walrus (10:10) Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Is a Lying Liar (14:20) Trump Quietly Draws Key Distinction (15:21) Calling For Pacing the Frontier Is Bad For AI Stock Prices (19:05) People On The Internet Sometimes Lie (19:54) Origins of Cynicism (22:18) Ineffective Egoism (24:53) The McCarthyist Faction Attacks METR (32:25) Other Key Republicans React (36:49) David Sacks Stops Being Plausibly Constructive (37:39) Federal Trade Commission Chooses Danger (38:39) Chris Lehane Heel Face Turn (40:43) A Matter of Trust (41:55) China Calls It Fearmongering (43:17) Pick Up The Phone (47:41) If You Want To Beat China So Badly You Should Act Like It (48:49) Never Go Full Hoax (49:55) Trump Uses AI For Things --- First published: September 16th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kqgco8vLFMeBhdrQY/trump-goes-full-hoax-on-ai-existential-risk --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 15 · 41 min
“The Bad Guy With An AI Named Claude” by Zvi
A lot of bad guys try to use Claude to do bad things. Mostly they fail. We think. Anthropic has disrupted a bunch of them, and offers an extensive report. If Anthropic is sharing the worst cases, or anything close to them, things are actually looking good on the misuse front for closed models, even better than I thought. This report covers activity we disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026 across seven harm areas: cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development, and distillation. There's a bit of Arson, Murder and Jaywalking there. One of these things, many would say, is not like the others. I do not agree, especially given the details we will see later, and given that distillation enables the other six via, as the report says, ‘driving performance on nearly every task’ via transfering Claude's cognitive skills, without transferring its safeguards. Indeed, distillation is by far the most important threat in this report, and the part of the report that will have the most impact. By exposing Chinese attempts at systematic fraudulent distillation of Claude, Anthropic has embarrassed and potentially antagonized the Chinese. [...] --- Outline: (02:08) Breaking Unrelated News (03:23) How To Not Tell a Fable (03:58) Bad Dudes Tend To Be Relatively Unsophisticated (05:45) Particular Bad Dudes (08:09) Influence Operations (13:09) Surveillance Operations (15:22) Conventional Weapons (17:30) Biological Misuse (18:54) Scams and Fraud (20:15) Illicit Fraudulent Distillation (32:45) What You Gonna Do About It, Punk? (34:53) Good News, Everyone (35:39) A Very Different Read of The Report --- First published: September 15th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qSjH9T83xCfWQkmk2/the-bad-guy-with-an-ai-named-claude --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 14 · 1 hr 19 min
“We Must Pace The Frontier” by Zvi
Dario Amodei has a new essay that finally says the thing: We Must Pace the Frontier, naming his call after the Pacing the Frontier letter lab employees signed in July. As in, we need to slow the rate at which AIs increase their capabilities, to allow for the necessary alignment and safety work. He explained that, without pacing, he expects things to escalate quickly. He offered three proposals, and unilaterally committed to the first one. OpenAI followed, and both Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis endorsed the overall proposal. There is still a long way to go. The odds are still against us. The situation remains grim. The hard part lies ahead. We do not agree on what ‘Pacing the Frontier’ will mean in practice. But this is Actual Progress. The work can begin. Table of Contents Pacing Does Not Mean Pausing. Dario's First Proposal: Embedded Evaluators. Dario's Second Proposal: Democratic Coordination. Dario's Third Proposal: Global Coordination. Why Pace Now? Sam Altman Agrees and Commits to Embedded Evaluators. OpenAI Will Not IPO This Year. Elon Musk Agrees. Demis Hassabis Agrees. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Agrees [...] --- Outline: (01:02) Pacing Does Not Mean Pausing (02:53) Dario's First Proposal: Embedded Evaluators (11:05) Dario's Second Proposal: Democratic Coordination (14:36) Dario's Third Proposal: Global Coordination (17:24) Why Pace Now? (19:22) Sam Altman Agrees and Commits to Embedded Evaluators (24:42) OpenAI Will Not IPO This Year (26:08) Elon Musk Agrees (29:00) Demis Hassabis Agrees (29:38) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Agrees And Talks His Book (31:50) Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust Is On Board (32:49) General Online Reactions (34:30) Mainstream Press Coverage (37:26) OpenAI Researcher Explains What The Labs See And It's a Rocket Ship (46:10) Consider the Alternative (47:47) It's Totalitarianism, Joe (53:35) Yes We're The Baddies How Did You Know? (55:22) Sometimes People On the Internet Just Lie (56:50) David Sacks Groks The Situation (57:48) David Sacks Says Go Ahead (59:28) Lies and Confusions About Who Previously Claimed What (01:04:07) House Speaker Mike Johnson Wants To Lock Everyone In a Room (01:09:28) Donald Trump is Not Tired of Winning (01:14:29) We Must Avoid Polarization on AI at (Almost) All Costs (01:15:14) How Will We Know If They Actually Paced? (01:18:24) The Real Frontier Is Internal Models At Top Labs --- First published: September 14th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iWPDPWAPCGiSMiFA2/we-must-pace-the-frontier --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 13 · 33 min
“Brand New AI Solves a Millennium Prize” by Zvi
The first Millennium Prize, Navier-Stokes, has fallen to AI. A deeply unfortunate situation has arisen involving what should have been some combination of a positive story about new progress in AI-assisted mathematical research and yet another opportunity to freak out about rapid AI progress. Or, as we call it around here, Tuesday. The Real Story Is The New Model That Is Better Than Astra Keep your eyes on the prize. There are three stories here. The first story is much more important than the second story, which in turn is much more important than the third story. OpenAI's next model took a week to get a generation ahead of Astra, and they are telling us this because everyone is totally freaked out about what is happening. Or, in official language: ‘We believe it is important to inform the world about the pace of AI progress and what to expect from upcoming models’ and that we ‘may require more deliberate choices about the pace of progress.’ This new AI has, eight days after it started training, solved Navier-Stokes. A bunch of drama over who gets the credit [...] --- Outline: (00:31) The Real Story Is The New Model That Is Better Than Astra (01:47) Setting the Stage (03:47) I Heard a Rumor (04:32) Our Price Cheap (06:14) An Accusation Is Made (10:57) How Did You Get That Idea? (12:59) OpenAI Almost Certainly Did Not Misappropriate User Data (14:34) Our Top Labs Cannot Get Along Even On A Feel-Good Math Story (15:52) What Next? (16:39) The Mathematicians Are Not Happy (21:14) OpenAI's New Model Was A Step Change Above Astra Four Days Into Training (23:16) OpenAI Research Progress Is Accelerating Due To OpenAI Research Progress (30:39) Quantifying OpenAI's Pause (31:09) This Is the Way the World Ends (31:44) Quickly, There's No Time --- First published: September 13th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uoZW6BKaCcmNQrWis/brand-new-ai-solves-a-millennium-prize --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 12 · 1 hr 14 min
“GPT-6-Astra Can Do Ambitious Things” by Zvi
Astra is an excellent model. The jump from Sol to Astra is larger than the jump from Fable 5 to Fable 5.1. This is a big deal. Astra is the best model for what one would broadly call ‘ambitious projects,’ and likely has the highest raw intelligence factor of any model. These are the largest jumps. It is amazing at doing things in 3D, or anything involving games. Astra also excels at computer use, and at subagent coordination. Many benchmarks show dramatic jumps from all previous models. Where Astra is good, it can be in a league of its own. That does not mean Astra is in its own league across the board. Fable 5.1 is still a Claude. Astra is still a GPT. If you have a strong preference for one over the other, that still applies. For many purposes, especially involving back-and-forth discussions, Fable 5.1 is still my top choice. Fable remains my primary editor. If you want the best answer to your questions, you should ask both models. Regular coding is getting less of a focus. Astra is not a quantum leap there, but of course it is very good [...] --- Outline: (02:34) Meanwhile (04:38) The Official Pitch (13:08) Our Price Cheap (14:06) Unnecessary Overstatement (15:53) Paced Rollout (16:32) Official Benchmarks (22:37) Other People's Benchmarks (30:47) Thinking, Fast Without Slow (34:25) How Dare You, Sir (36:36) PoetryBench (37:54) In 3D (39:14) Time to Think (39:59) I'm Putting Together a Team (41:02) Reviews and Essays (41:37) Computer Use (42:47) Positive Reactions (50:53) AGI (54:20) Astra Can Do The Math (57:27) Astra Can Code (59:35) I Came to (Change the) Game (01:02:37) Astra Does Other Cool Things (01:03:31) Astra Never Quits Except When It Does (01:05:26) Negative Reactions (01:07:45) Stop It With the Hedging (01:08:57) Personality Clash (01:09:53) Revealed Preference (01:12:03) Dual Wielding The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: September 12th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/snaKjCwazKcRiS4qs/gpt-6-astra-can-do-ambitious-things --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 11 · 1 hr 20 min
“Jacob Coxon Warns of Human Extinction and Triggers a Preference Cascade” by Zvi
CEOs of major AI labs, and employees of major AI labs, including OpenAI and Anthropic, often say they plan to build superintelligence soon, as in within a few years create AIs that are superior to humans at essentially all cognitive tasks. They often warn that such AIs might kill everyone. Or that AIs might cause mass unemployment, cause cyberattacks across the internet, enable mass surveillance or risk causing any number of other highly bad things. These warnings are consistently and directly against the interests of the labs. Yet the warnings have recently gotten a lot louder and more frequent. OpenAI has been practically screaming, for those with ears to listen, on many occasions. A series of events, over two months and especially the last week or so, including internal observations of the pace of progress at OpenAI and also Anthropic, have freaked out everyone involved quite a lot more than they were already freaked out. After all the events, plus statements by Dean Ball and Jakub Pachocki, we were already seeing the beginnings of a preference cascade. Then along came Jacob Coxon as the tipping point, and things took off. Table of Contents [...] --- Outline: (01:22) Jacob Coxon Resigns From Anthropic In Protest And Sounds The Alarm (05:46) Mainstream Media Finally Pays Attention (06:47) Preference Cascade at Anthropic (10:18) Preference Cascade at OpenAI (13:26) Preference Cascade at Google (14:43) #NotAllMembersOfTechnicalStaff (15:23) Why a Preference Cascade Now? (21:01) This Is What Many Anthropic and OpenAI Employees Actually Believe (24:08) To Quit Or Not To Quit (31:29) Quiet Quitting Is A Dominated Option (32:50) When You Quit, Very Serious People Understand What That Means (39:29) Jacob Coxon Believes Existential Risk Is High That Is Why He Quit (41:47) Evan Hubinger Believes Existential Risk Is High That Is Why He Stays (45:22) Anthropic and OpenAI Have Commercial Incentives To Downplay Existential Risks, Not Advertise Them (50:54) What Do We Do Now? (53:03) OK, But How Exactly Would AI Kill Everyone? (01:01:44) Best Start Believing In Science Fiction Stories Because You Are In One (01:06:20) Literal Extinction Is Not Much Harder Than Loss of Control (01:07:42) Conspiracytown Is Always Hiring (01:20:14) Now You See It --- First published: September 11th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5MB7KENgEAW6Q4JtJ/jacob-coxon-warns-of-human-extinction-and-triggers-a --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 11 · 31 min
“The Extinction Risk Preference Cascade: Quotes” by Zvi
These are quotes from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google employees, in the wake of Jacob Coxon's warnings, in which the employees confirm that they think AI might soon kill everyone. If more quotes come in over the next week or so, I will update this post accordingly. Preference Cascade Statements At OpenAI: Tomek Korbak Tomek Korbak (OpenAI): i’m late to the party but: from his time at OpenAI I remember Jacob as a very thoughtful researcher and he continues to be so in this thread. neither anthropic nor openai are on track to solve alignment to a degree sufficient for shipping superintelligence and we need to slow down Vie McCoy Vie McCoy (OpenAI): I think pacing progress and ensuring human enhancement is the only way that we don’t get out-evolved while retaining the dream of superintelligence. In this context, I see two paths before us. In the first, we race towards RSI without embedding human flourishing and human enhancement as a deep value within the models, and by and large either get left behind or suffer catastrophic losses. In the second, we set the pace of progress, focus on embedding human flourishing [...] --- Outline: (00:27) Preference Cascade Statements At OpenAI: Tomek Korbak (00:55) Vie McCoy (03:46) Adam Majmudar (05:05) Aidan Clark (05:46) Mo Bavarian (07:32) Boaz Barak (08:20) Micah Carroll (09:15) Roon (12:55) Confirmations At OpenAI: Dean Ball (14:39) Leo Gao (14:57) Anthropic's Evan Hubinger Confirms His Stance (15:50) Preference Cascade at Anthropic: Samuel Marks (17:36) Anna Wang (18:22) Ethan Perez (18:59) Dima Krasheninnikov (19:27) EigenGender (Anon Account) (19:58) Joe Benton (20:07) Confirmation at Anthropic: Drake Thomas (21:28) Jan Lieke (22:07) Sluggy (22:29) Preference Cascade at Google (22:56) Andreas Kirsch (23:39) Neel Nanda (24:15) Victoria Krakovna (25:26) Vishal Maini (27:01) Joe (OpenAI, ex-Google) (28:21) Josh Engels (28:39) Geoffrey Irving (29:30) Alex Turner and Geoffrey Hinton: Classic Examples (29:45) #NotAllMembersOfTechnicalStaff: Ted Sanders --- First published: September 11th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/APGvWZtXEwkinvHDd/the-extinction-risk-preference-cascade-quotes --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 10 · 1 hr 55 min
“AI #185: Preference Cascade” by Zvi
The world of AI is inside my OODA loop. Even if I can process all the incoming information and sculpt it into posts, and even using Saturday and Sunday as flex slots, I don’t have enough days of the week to post all the posts that need posting. That was already true. There was already a preference cascade happening where people finally were admitting that they thought AI might well kill everyone. Then Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic, rang the warning bells and turned that cascade into an avalanche. Now that is what everyone is talking about. Finally, everyone is actually saying the thing, out loud. I plan to cover that in its own post soon. There are several things in the weekly that, in a normal week, would get their own coverage. Senator Sanders and Representative Casar introduced an outright ban on superintelligence and I have to remind myself that happened this week. Suddenly it is not so crazy to think such a thing might pass. So here's what I’ve already posted about so far since the last weekly: Claude Fable and Mythos 5.1: The System Card. Claude Fable and [...] --- Outline: (04:49) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility (05:39) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility (06:53) Huh, Upgrades (08:25) How To Tell a Fable (09:35) On Your Marks (09:55) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon (14:16) Levels of Friction (17:35) Cyber Lack of Security (23:48) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (25:18) They Took Our Jobs (29:18) Anthropic Offers Economic Scenarios (34:12) Get Involved (37:05) Introducing (37:47) In Other AI News (38:13) Show Me the Money (38:25) Quiet Speculations (42:49) The Quest for Sane Regulations (44:09) The OpenAI Policy and Lobbying Department (50:41) Greetings From the Department of War (51:58) Hugging The Face (59:16) Hugging the Question (01:03:21) The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act (01:11:05) Chip City (01:12:21) The Week in Audio (01:12:41) People Just Say Things (01:18:09) PauseAI Global Disendorsed PauseAI US (01:19:55) Paul Christiano Joins Board of OpenAI Foundation (01:25:18) Rhetorical Innovation (01:34:23) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult (01:37:00) Cooperative Alignment (01:45:48) Drive to Survive (01:48:13) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone (01:50:07) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone (01:52:30) The Lighter Side --- First published: September 10th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tFmtz9HW6c2X9dw2B/ai-185-preference-cascade --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
September 9 · 1 hr 4 min
“GPT-6 Astra: The System Card, Alignment and What Comes Next” by Zvi
OpenAI claims that Astra is ‘the most intelligent and most aligned [available] model’ in the world. Not the most intelligent and aligned OpenAI model, but the most period. That is bold talk. It risks overstepping, and by doing so souring the release of what is clearly an excellent model. As do the severe problems with monitorability. It also raises the question of what they mean by ‘most aligned model.’ How do they define ‘aligned.’ Why do they think it is more aligned than Claude Fable 5.1? keltan : “a significant step forward in […] alignment.” Buddy, how tf are you measuring ‘alignment’? Would love to know because being able to measure that would save the fucking world. roon (OpenAI): low rates of cheating Rob Miles: *detected cheating keltan : Thank you for clarifying. But you know what I’m gonna say next, right? roon (OpenAI): that this metrics are not a full solve of alignment and will break discontinuously keltan : Yep. But I would have said it in a dumber way. Something like: Low Rates of Cheating ≠ Alignment roon (OpenAI): I agree but also in some real sense [...] --- Outline: (04:12) OpenAI's Safety Claims About Astra (1) (08:33) Preparedness Capabilities Assessment (10) (09:00) Biological and Chemical Capability is High (10:33) Cybersecurity Capability is Critical (17:05) AI Self-Improvement Capabilities (10.1.3) (17:45) Astra Is Highly Verbally Eval Aware (from 8.6) (19:05) Safe Mundane Completions (4.1) (21:05) Jailbreaks (5.1) (22:21) Prompt Injection (5.2) (23:41) Health (6) (24:22) Hallucinations (7) (24:57) Alignment (8) (26:06) Obeying Restrictions (8.2) (29:19) That's Worse, You Do Get How That's Worse, Right? (30:45) OpenAI Does Not Understand Why This Is Worse (34:52) The Alternative Explanation Is Also Worse (42:39) Metagaming (8.7) (45:07) Alignment Faking (8.7) (46:19) Don't Lie to the User (8.3) (47:25) Misalignment in Realistic Work Environments (8.4) (48:05) Unintended Agent-to-Agent Communication (8.5) (49:48) The Three Obviously Monitored Temptations of Astra (51:26) Severe Issues In Simulated Traffic Are Down By Half (53:01) UK AISI External Evaluations (8.8) (57:02) Sabotaging Safety Work (57:29) What About The July 19 Attacks? (58:58) Apollo Research External Evaluations (8.8.1) (01:00:01) The Alignment Verdict (01:02:04) It Depends What You Mean By Alignment --- First published: September 9th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AmFJZyeCgvFjNKgNk/gpt-6-astra-the-system-card-alignment-and-what-comes-next --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

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