LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

Latest Episodes:

“Slowdown After 2028: Compute, RLVR Uncertainty, MoE Data Wall” by Vladimir_Nesov May 03, 2025

Show notes

It'll take until ~2050 to repeat the level of scaling that pretraining compute is experiencing this decade, as increasing funding can't sustain the current pace beyond ~2029 if AI doesn't deliver a transformative commercial success by then. Natural text data will also run out around that time, and there are signs that current methods of reasoning training might be mostly eliciting capabilities from the base model.
If scaling of reasoning training doesn't bear out actual creation of new capabilities that are sufficiently general, and pretraining at ~2030 levels of compute together with the low hanging fruit of scaffolding doesn't bring AI to crucial capability thresholds, then it might take a while. Possibly decades, since training compute will be growing 3x-4x slower after 2027-2029 than it does now, and the ~6 years of scaling since the ChatGPT moment stretch to 20-25 subsequent years, not even having access to any [...]
---
Outline:
(01:14) Training Compute Slowdown
(04:43) Bounded Potential of Thinking Training
(07:43) Data Inefficiency of MoE
The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
May 1st, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XiMRyQcEyKCryST8T/slowdown-after-2028-compute-rlvr-uncertainty-moe-data-wall
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Early Chinese Language Media Coverage of the AI 2027 Report: A Qualitative Analysis” by jeanne_, eeeee Apr 30, 2025

Show notes

In this blog post, we analyse how the recent AI 2027 forecast by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean has been discussed across Chinese language platforms. We present:

Our research methodology and synthesis of key findings across media artefacts
A proposal for how censorship patterns may provide signal for the Chinese government's thinking about AGI and the race to superintelligence
A more detailed analysis of each of the nine artefacts, organised by type: Mainstream Media, Forum Discussion, Bilibili (Chinese Youtube) Videos, Personal Blogs.

Methodology

We conducted a comprehensive search across major Chinese-language platforms–including news outlets, video platforms, forums, microblogging sites, and personal blogs–to collect the media featured in this report. We supplemented this with Deep Research to identify additional sites mentioning AI 2027. Our analysis focuses primarily on content published in the first few days (4-7 April) following the report's release. More media [...]
---
Outline:
(00:58) Methodology
(01:36) Summary
(02:48) Censorship as Signal
(07:29) Analysis
(07:53) Mainstream Media
(07:57) English Title: Doomsday Timeline is Here! Former OpenAI Researcher's 76-page Hardcore Simulation: ASI Takes Over the World in 2027, Humans Become NPCs
(10:27) Forum Discussion
(10:31) English Title: What do you think of former OpenAI researcher's AI 2027 predictions?
(13:34) Bilibili Videos
(13:38) English Title: \[AI 2027\] A mind-expanding wargame simulation of artificial intelligence competition by a former OpenAI researcher
(15:24) English Title: Predicting AI Development in 2027
(17:13) Personal Blogs
(17:16) English Title: Doomsday Timeline: AI 2027 Depicts the Arrival of Superintelligence and the Fate of Humanity Within the Decade
(18:30) English Title: AI 2027: Expert Predictions on the Artificial Intelligence Explosion
(21:57) English Title: AI 2027: A Science Fiction Article
(23:16) English Title: Will AGI Take Over the World in 2027?
(25:46) English Title: AI 2027 Prediction Report: AI May Fully Surpass Humans by 2027
(27:05) Acknowledgements
---
First published:
April 30th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/JW7nttjTYmgWMqBaF/early-chinese-language-media-coverage-of-the-ai-2027-report
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

[Linkpost] “Jaan Tallinn’s 2024 Philanthropy Overview” by jaan Apr 25, 2025

Show notes

This is a link post. to follow up my philantropic pledge from 2020, i've updated my philanthropy page with the 2024 results.
in 2024 my donations funded $51M worth of endpoint grants (plus $2.0M in admin overhead and philanthropic software development). this comfortably exceeded my 2024 commitment of $42M (20k times $2100.00 — the minimum price of ETH in 2024).
this also concludes my 5-year donation pledge, but of course my philanthropy continues: eg, i’ve already made over $4M in endpoint grants in the first quarter of 2025 (not including 2024 grants that were slow to disburse), as well as pledged at least $10M to the 2025 SFF grant round.
---
First published:
April 23rd, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8ojWtREJjKmyvWdDb/jaan-tallinn-s-2024-philanthropy-overview
Linkpost URL:
https://jaan.info/philanthropy/#2024-results
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Impact, agency, and taste” by benkuhn Apr 24, 2025

Show notes

I’ve been thinking recently about what sets apart the people who’ve done the best work at Anthropic.
You might think that the main thing that makes people really effective at research or engineering is technical ability, and among the general population that's true. Among people hired at Anthropic, though, we’ve restricted the range by screening for extremely high-percentile technical ability, so the remaining differences, while they still matter, aren’t quite as critical. Instead, people's biggest bottleneck eventually becomes their ability to get leverage—i.e., to find and execute work that has a big impact-per-hour multiplier.
For example, here are some types of work at Anthropic that tend to have high impact-per-hour, or a high impact-per-hour ceiling when done well (of course this list is extremely non-exhaustive!):

Improving tooling, documentation, or dev loops. A tiny amount of time fixing a papercut in the right way can save [...]

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Outline:
(03:28) 1. Agency
(03:31) Understand and work backwards from the root goal
(05:02) Don't rely too much on permission or encouragement
(07:49) Make success inevitable
(09:28) 2. Taste
(09:31) Find your angle
(11:03) Think real hard
(13:03) Reflect on your thinking
---
First published:
April 19th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DiJT4qJivkjrGPFi8/impact-agency-and-taste
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

**[Linkpost] “To Understand History, Keep Former Population Distributions In Mind” by Arjun Panickssery** Apr 23, 2025
Show notes

This is a link post. Guillaume Blanc has a piece in Works in Progress (I assume based on his paper) about how France's fertility declined earlier than in other European countries, and how its power waned as its relative population declined starting in the 18th century. In 1700, France had 20% of Europe's population (4% of the whole world population). Kissinger writes in Diplomacy with respect to the Versailles Peace Conference:
Victory brought home to France the stark realization that revanche had cost it too dearly, and that it had been living off capital for nearly a century. France alone knew just how weak it had become in comparison with Germany, though nobody else, especially not America, was prepared to believe it ...
Though France's allies insisted that its fears were exaggerated, French leaders knew better. In 1880, the French had represented 15.7 percent of Europe's population. By 1900, that [...]
---
First published:
April 23rd, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gk2aJgg7yzzTXp8HJ/to-understand-history-keep-former-population-distributions
**Linkpost URL:**
https://arjunpanickssery.substack.com/p/to-understand-history-keep-former
---
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.*

Diagram showing AI system evolution from workplace to military applications. — **“AI-enabled coups: a small group could use AI to seize power” by Tom Davidson, Lukas Finnveden, rosehadshar** Apr 23, 2025
Show notes

We’ve written a new report on the threat of AI-enabled coups.
I think this is a very serious risk – comparable in importance to AI takeover but much more neglected.
In fact, AI-enabled coups and AI takeover have pretty similar threat models. To see this, here's a very basic threat model for AI takeover:

Humanity develops superhuman AI
Superhuman AI is misaligned and power-seeking
Superhuman AI seizes power for itself
And now here's a closely analogous threat model for AI-enabled coups:

Humanity develops superhuman AI
Superhuman AI is controlled by a small group
Superhuman AI seizes power for the small group
While the report focuses on the risk that someone seizes power over a country, I think that similar dynamics could allow someone to take over the world. In fact, if someone wanted to take over the world, their best strategy might well be to first stage an AI-enabled [...]
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**Outline:**
(02:39) Summary
(03:31) An AI workforce could be made singularly loyal to institutional leaders
(05:04) AI could have hard-to-detect secret loyalties
(06:46) A few people could gain exclusive access to coup-enabling AI capabilities
(09:46) Mitigations
(13:00) Vignette
The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
April 16th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6kBMqrK9bREuGsrnd/ai-enabled-coups-a-small-group-could-use-ai-to-seize-power-1
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---
**Images from the article:**

Diagram showing potential misuse of AI technology for power seizure. — **“AI-enabled coups: a small group could use AI to seize power” by Tom Davidson, Lukas Finnveden, rosehadshar** Apr 23, 2025
Show notes

We’ve written a new report on the threat of AI-enabled coups.
I think this is a very serious risk – comparable in importance to AI takeover but much more neglected.
In fact, AI-enabled coups and AI takeover have pretty similar threat models. To see this, here's a very basic threat model for AI takeover:

Humanity develops superhuman AI
Superhuman AI is misaligned and power-seeking
Superhuman AI seizes power for itself
And now here's a closely analogous threat model for AI-enabled coups:

Humanity develops superhuman AI
Superhuman AI is controlled by a small group
Superhuman AI seizes power for the small group
While the report focuses on the risk that someone seizes power over a country, I think that similar dynamics could allow someone to take over the world. In fact, if someone wanted to take over the world, their best strategy might well be to first stage an AI-enabled [...]
---
**Outline:**
(02:39) Summary
(03:31) An AI workforce could be made singularly loyal to institutional leaders
(05:04) AI could have hard-to-detect secret loyalties
(06:46) A few people could gain exclusive access to coup-enabling AI capabilities
(09:46) Mitigations
(13:00) Vignette
The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
April 16th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6kBMqrK9bREuGsrnd/ai-enabled-coups-a-small-group-could-use-ai-to-seize-power-1
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---
**Images from the article:**

Yellow-bellied marmot perched on rocks with mountain landscape behind. — **“Accountability Sinks” by Martin Sustrik** Apr 22, 2025
Show notes

Back in the 1990s, ground squirrels were briefly fashionable pets, but their popularity came to an abrupt end after an incident at Schiphol Airport on the outskirts of Amsterdam. In April 1999, a cargo of 440 of the rodents arrived on a KLM flight from Beijing, without the necessary import papers. Because of this, they could not be forwarded on to the customer in Athens. But nobody was able to correct the error and send them back either. What could be done with them? It's hard to think there wasn’t a better solution than the one that was carried out; faced with the paperwork issue, airport staff threw all 440 squirrels into an industrial shredder.
[...]
It turned out that the order to destroy the squirrels had come from the Dutch government's Department of Agriculture, Environment Management and Fishing. However, KLM's management, with the benefit of hindsight, said that [...]
---
First published:
April 22nd, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nYJaDnGNQGiaCBSB5/accountability-sinks
---
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.*

“Training AGI in Secret would be Unsafe and Unethical” by Daniel Kokotajlo Apr 21, 2025

Show notes

Subtitle: Bad for loss of control risks, bad for concentration of power risks
I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for the last year. I wish I’d been able to release it sooner, but on the bright side, it’ll make a lot more sense to people who have already read AI 2027.

There's a good chance that AGI will be trained before this decade is out.
1. By AGI I mean “An AI system at least as good as the best human X’ers, for all cognitive tasks/skills/jobs X.”
2. Many people seem to be dismissing this hypothesis ‘on priors’ because it sounds crazy. But actually, a reasonable prior should conclude that this is plausible.[1]
3. For more on what this means, what it might look like, and why it's plausible, see AI 2027, especially the Research section.
If so, by default the existence of AGI will be a closely guarded [...]

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
April 18th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FGqfdJmB8MSH5LKGc/training-agi-in-secret-would-be-unsafe-and-unethical-1
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Why Should I Assume CCP AGI is Worse Than USG AGI?” by Tomás B. Apr 20, 2025

Show notes

Though, given my doomerism, I think the natsec framing of the AGI race is likely wrongheaded, let me accept the Dario/Leopold/Altman frame that AGI will be aligned to the national interest of a great power. These people seem to take as an axiom that a USG AGI will be better in some way than CCP AGI. Has anyone written justification for this assumption?
I am neither an American citizen nor a Chinese citizen.
What would it mean for an AGI to be aligned with "Democracy" or "Confucianism" or "Marxism with Chinese characteristics" or "the American constitution" Contingent on a world where such an entity exists and is compatible with my existence, what would my life be as a non-citizen in each system? Why should I expect USG AGI to be better than CCP AGI?
---
First published:
April 19th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MKS4tJqLWmRXgXzgY/why-should-i-assume-ccp-agi-is-worse-than-usg-agi-1
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Analysis of a child character Jenny's behavior, showing realistic and unrealistic developmental traits. Two sections list age-appropriate behaviors and advanced characteristics beyond typical 2.5-year-old capabilities. — **“Surprising LLM reasoning failures make me think we still need qualitative breakthroughs for AGI” by Kaj_Sotala** Apr 17, 2025
Show notes

Introduction
Writing this post puts me in a weird epistemic position. I simultaneously believe that:

The reasoning failures that I'll discuss are strong evidence that current LLM- or, more generally, transformer-based approaches won't get us AGI
As soon as major AI labs read about the specific reasoning failures described here, they might fix them
But future versions of GPT, Claude etc. succeeding at the tasks I've described here will provide zero evidence of their ability to reach AGI. If someone makes a future post where they report that they tested an LLM on all the specific things I described here it aced all of them, that will not update my position at all.
That is because all of the reasoning failures that I describe here are surprising in the sense that given everything else that they can do, you’d expect LLMs to succeed at all of these tasks. The [...]
---
**Outline:**
(00:13) Introduction
(02:13) Reasoning failures
(02:17) Sliding puzzle problem
(07:17) Simple coaching instructions
(09:22) Repeatedly failing at tic-tac-toe
(10:48) Repeatedly offering an incorrect fix
(13:48) Various people's simple tests
(15:06) Various failures at logic and consistency while writing fiction
(15:21) Inability to write young characters when first prompted
(17:12) Paranormal posers
(19:12) Global details replacing local ones
(20:19) Stereotyped behaviors replacing character-specific ones
(21:21) Top secret marine databases
(23:32) Wandering items
(23:53) Sycophancy
(24:49) What's going on here?
(32:18) How about scaling? Or reasoning models?
---
First published:
April 15th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sgpCuokhMb8JmkoSn/untitled-draft-7shu
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---
**Images from the article:**

Dark-themed text discussion about a paranormal investigation scenario in a hospital complex. The text outlines an initial investigation plan, specific challenges, and tactical approach for investigators named Caius and Fiona dealing with potentially possessed hospital staff and hostile spirits. — **“Surprising LLM reasoning failures make me think we still need qualitative breakthroughs for AGI” by Kaj_Sotala** Apr 17, 2025
Show notes

Introduction
Writing this post puts me in a weird epistemic position. I simultaneously believe that:

The reasoning failures that I'll discuss are strong evidence that current LLM- or, more generally, transformer-based approaches won't get us AGI
As soon as major AI labs read about the specific reasoning failures described here, they might fix them
But future versions of GPT, Claude etc. succeeding at the tasks I've described here will provide zero evidence of their ability to reach AGI. If someone makes a future post where they report that they tested an LLM on all the specific things I described here it aced all of them, that will not update my position at all.
That is because all of the reasoning failures that I describe here are surprising in the sense that given everything else that they can do, you’d expect LLMs to succeed at all of these tasks. The [...]
---
**Outline:**
(00:13) Introduction
(02:13) Reasoning failures
(02:17) Sliding puzzle problem
(07:17) Simple coaching instructions
(09:22) Repeatedly failing at tic-tac-toe
(10:48) Repeatedly offering an incorrect fix
(13:48) Various people's simple tests
(15:06) Various failures at logic and consistency while writing fiction
(15:21) Inability to write young characters when first prompted
(17:12) Paranormal posers
(19:12) Global details replacing local ones
(20:19) Stereotyped behaviors replacing character-specific ones
(21:21) Top secret marine databases
(23:32) Wandering items
(23:53) Sycophancy
(24:49) What's going on here?
(32:18) How about scaling? Or reasoning models?
---
First published:
April 15th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sgpCuokhMb8JmkoSn/untitled-draft-7shu
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---
**Images from the article:**

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