This post starts out pretty gloomy but ends up with some points that I feel pretty positive about. Day to day, I'm more focussed on the positive points, but awareness of the negative has been crucial to forming my priorities, so I'm going to start with those. It's mostly addressed to the EA community, but is hopefully somewhat of interest to LessWr…

Link to original article Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Glitch Token Catalog - (Almost) a Full Clear, published by Lao Mein on September 22, 2024 on LessWrong. This is a collection of every unidentified GPT2 glitch token …

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Which LessWrong/Alignment topics would you like to be tutored in? [Poll], published by Ruby on September 19, 2024 on LessWrong. Would you like to be tutored in applied game theory, natural l…

This post focuses on philosophical objections to Bayesianism as an epistemology. I first explain Bayesianism and some standard objections to it, then lay out my two main objections (inspired by ideas in philosophy of science). A follow-up post will speculate about how to formalize an alternative. Degrees of belief The core idea of Bayesianism: we s…

As humanity gets closer to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a new geopolitical strategy is gaining traction in US and allied circles, in the NatSec, AI safety and tech communities. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and RAND Corporation call it the “entente”, while others privately refer to it as “hegemony" or “crush China”. I will argue that, irresp…

I think that most people underestimate how many scientific mysteries remain, even on questions that sound basic. My favourite candidate for "the most basic thing that is still unknown" is the momentum carried by light, when it is in a medium (for example, a flash of light in glass or water). If a block of glass has a refractive index of _n_…

Classic, season one adventure this week! Eneasz and Steven have a loosely structured conversation about the sequences’ value, the virtue of silence, scissor statements, and the value of philosophy. LINKS Cryonics is Free! Dan Dennett – Where Am I? The Virtue of Silence Scissors Statements 00:00:05 – Pre-pre show Discussion 01:41:43 – Guild of the R…

Eneasz chats with TBC Discord member Delta about the cultivation of small online cultures. Get the full episode via our Patreon or our SubStack!Kirjoittanut The Bayesian Conspiracy

GPT-o1 demonstrates the Blindsight thesis is likely wrong. Peter Watts on Blindsight Andrew Cutler on origins of consciousness part 1 and part 2 Thou Art GodshatterKirjoittanut The Bayesian Conspiracy

How can we make many humans who are very good at solving difficult problems? Summary (table of made-up numbers) I made up the made-up numbers in this table of made-up numbers; therefore, the numbers in this table of made-up numbers are made-up numbers. Call to action If you have a shitload of money, there are some projects you can give money to tha…

Steven wanted to share an interesting idea from an article that draws a neat parallel between content moderation and information security. The post discussed here is Como is Infosec.Kirjoittanut The Bayesian Conspiracy

This post is probably hazardous for one type of person in one particular growth stage, and necessary for people in a different growth stage, and I don't really know how to tell the difference in advance. If you read it and feel like it kinda wrecked you send me a DM. I'll try to help bandage it. One of my favorite stories growing up was Star Wars: …

This is a description of my work on some data science projects, lightly obfuscated and fictionalized to protect the confidentiality of the organizations I handled them for (and also to make it flow better). I focus on the high-level epistemic/mathematical issues, and the lived experience of working on intellectual problems, but gloss over the timel…

We talk with Daniel about his ACX guest post that posits that thoughts are conscious, rather than brains. LINKS Consciousness As Recursive Reflections Seven Secular Sermons Seven Secular Sermons video on TwitterX LightHaven’s Eternal September 0:00:05 – Recursive Reflections 01:29:30 – Personal News from Eneasz 01:31:04 – Guild of the Rose 01:32:15…

[Meta note: quickly written, unpolished. Also, it's possible that there's some more convincing work on this topic that I'm unaware of – if so, let me know] In research discussions about LLMs, I often pick up a vibe of casual, generalized skepticism about model-generated CoT (chain-of-thought) explanations. CoTs (people say) are not trustworthy in g…

I've been wanting to write a nice post for a few months, but should probably just write a one sooner instead. This is a top-level post not because it's a long text, but because it's important text. Anyways. Cryonics is pretty much money-free now—one of the most affordable ways to dispose of your body post-mortem. In the west coast in the USA, from …

Quarterly Performance Review, Autumn 1983 Colonel Yuri Kuznetsov looked out the window anxiously. The endless gray landscape did little to soothe his nerves. He only had one employee review left to get through, but he’d saved the hardest one for last. He wasn’t upset about having to dismiss Lieutenant Colonel Petrov—he couldn’t wait to be rid of th…

I’ve claimed that Willpower compounds and that small wins in the present make it easier to get bigger wins in the future. Unfortunately, procrastination and laziness compound, too. You’re stressed out for some reason, so you take the evening off for a YouTube binge. You end up staying awake a little later than usual and sleeping poorly. So the next…

For a long time, when I heard "slow takeoff", I assumed it meant "takeoff that takes longer calendar time than fast takeoff." (i.e. what is now referred to more often as "short timelines" vs "long timelines."). I think Paul Christiano popularized the term, and it so happened he both expected to see longer timelines and smoother/continuous takeoff. …

Can we achieve our true potential? based on – Interview Day At Thiel Capital also mentioned: Meetups Everywhere 2024 Are You Jesus or HitlerKirjoittanut The Bayesian Conspiracy

Counterfactuals strike again! The fora have their own official audio channels now, so The Nonlinear Library will no longer publish new episodes since it won't have any counterfactual impact. It's been a good run. We published thousands of episodes and generated a ton of passive impact. But we're not here for the views. We're here for the counterfac…

A common claim among e/accs is that, since the solar system is big, Earth will be left alone by superintelligences. A simple rejoinder is that just because Bernard Arnault has $170 billion, does not mean that he'll give you $77.18. Earth subtends only 4.54e-10 = 0.0000000454% of the angular area around the Sun, according to GPT-o1.[1] Asking an ASI…

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Augmenting Statistical Models with Natural Language Parameters, published by jsteinhardt on September 22, 2024 on LessWrong. This is a guest post by my student Ruiqi Zhong, who has some very…

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Glitch Token Catalog - (Almost) a Full Clear, published by Lao Mein on September 22, 2024 on LessWrong. This is a collection of every unidentified GPT2 glitch token listed in the third glitc…

Link to original article Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Investigating an insurance-for-AI startup, published by L Rudolf L on September 21, 2024 on LessWrong. We (Flo & Rudolf) spent a month fleshing out the idea of an in…

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Investigating an insurance-for-AI startup, published by L Rudolf L on September 21, 2024 on LessWrong. We (Flo & Rudolf) spent a month fleshing out the idea of an insurance-for-AI company. W…

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Applications of Chaos: Saying No (with Hastings Greer), published by Elizabeth on September 21, 2024 on LessWrong. Previously Alex Altair and I published a post on the applications of chaos …

Link to original article Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Applications of Chaos: Saying No (with Hastings Greer), published by Elizabeth on September 21, 2024 on LessWrong. Previously Alex Altair and I published a post on t…

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Work with me on agent foundations: independent fellowship, published by Alex Altair on September 21, 2024 on LessWrong. Summary: I am an independent researcher in agent foundations, and I've…

Link to original article Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Work with me on agent foundations: independent fellowship, published by Alex Altair on September 21, 2024 on LessWrong. Summary: I am an independent researcher in ag…

A year ago, I started trying to deliberate practice skills that would "help people figure out the answers to confusing, important questions." I experimented with Thinking Physics questions, GPQA questions, Puzzle Games , Strategy Games, and a stupid twitchy reflex game I had struggled to beat for 8 years[1]. Then I went back to my day job and tried…