Jun 29, 2025
The first cohort of ACX Grants was announced in late 2021, the second in early 2024. In 2022, I posted one-year updates for the first cohort. Now, as I start thinking about a third round, I’ve collected one-year updates on the second and three-year updates on the first.
Many people said my request for updates went to...
Jun 18, 2025
This is a reported phenomenon where if two copies of Claude talk to each other, they end up spiraling into rapturous discussion of spiritual bliss, Buddhism, and the nature of consciousness. From the system card:
Anthropic swears they didn’t do this on purpose; when they ask Claude why this keeps happening, Claude...
Jun 18, 2025
This is another heuristic from the same place as If It’s Worth Your Time To Lie, It’s Worth My Time To Correct You.
If someone proves you are absolutely, 100% wrong about something, it’s polite to say “Oh, I guess I was wrong, sorry” before launching into your next argument.
That is, instead of:
Jun 14, 2025
People don’t like nitpickers. “He literally did the WELL AKTUALLY!” If you say Joe Criminal committed ten murders and five rapes, and I object that it was actually only six murders and two rapes, then why am I “defending” Joe Criminal?
Because if it’s worth your time to lie, it’s worth my time to correct...
Jun 14, 2025
There’s a long-running philosophical argument about the conceivability of otherwise-normal people who are not conscious, aka “philosophical zombies”. This has spawned a shorter-running (only fifteen years!) rationalist sub-argument on the topic. The last time I checked its status was this post, which says:
1....