LessWrong posts by zvi

Latest Episodes:

“On Writing #2” by Zvi Nov 18, 2025

Show notes

In honor of my dropping by Inkhaven at Lighthaven in Berkeley this week, I figured it was time for another writing roundup. You can find #1 here, from March 2025.

I’ll be there from the 17th (the day I am publishing this) until the morning of Saturday the 22nd. I am happy to meet people, including for things not directly about writing.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents.
How I Use AI For Writing These Days.
Influencing Influence.
Size Matters.
Time To Write A Shorter One.
A Useful Tool.
A Maligned Tool.
Neglected Topics.
The Humanities Don’t Seem Relevant To Writing About Future Humanity?
Writing Every Day.
Writing As Deep Work.
Most Of Your Audience Is Secondhand.
That's Funny.
Fiction Writing Advice.
Just Say The Thing.
Cracking the Paywall.

How I Use AI For Writing These Days

How have I been using AI in my writing?

Directly? With the writing itself? Remarkably little. Almost none.

I am aware that this is not optimal. But at current capability levels, with the prompts and tools I know [...]

---

Outline:

(00:33) How I Use AI For Writing These Days

(03:44) Influencing Influence

(05:34) Size Matters

(06:23) Time To Write A Shorter One

(07:51) A Useful Tool

(08:08) A Maligned Tool

(10:04) Neglected Topics

(12:31) The Humanities Don't Seem Relevant To Writing About Future Humanity?

(13:50) Writing Every Day

(14:20) Writing As Deep Work

(15:25) Most Of Your Audience Is Secondhand

(17:57) That's Funny

(18:38) Fiction Writing Advice

(19:13) Just Say The Thing

(23:13) Cracking the Paywall

---

First published:
November 18th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YHSaG72C2TftKhHeA/on-writing-2

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

ChatGPT conversation about not using em dashes in writing. — **“GPT 5.1 Follows Custom Instructions and Glazes” by Zvi** Nov 18, 2025
Show notes

There are other model releases to get to, but while we gather data on those, first things first. OpenAI has given us GPT-5.1: Same price including in the API, Same intelligence, better mundane utility?

**Their Announcement**

Sam Altman (CEO OpenAI): GPT-5.1 is out! It's a nice upgrade.

I particularly like the improvements in instruction following, and the adaptive thinking.

The intelligence and style improvements are good too.

Also, we’ve made it easier to customize ChatGPT. You can pick from presets (Default, Friendly, Efficient, Professional, Candid, or Quirky) or tune it yourself.

OpenAI: GPT-5.1 in ChatGPT is rolling out to all users this week.

It's smarter, more reliable, and a lot more conversational.

GPT-5.1 is now better at:

– Following custom instructions

– Using reasoning for more accurate responses

– And just better at chatting overall

GPT-5.1 Instant is now warmer and more conversational.

The model can use adaptive reasoning to decide to think a bit longer before responding to tougher questions.

It also has improved instruction following, so the model more reliably answers the question you actually asked.

GPT-5.1 Thinking now more effectively adjusts [...]

---
**Outline:**
(00:26) Their Announcement
(04:36) Their Pitch on GPT-5.1 Instant
(06:39) Their Pitch on GPT-5.1 Thinking
(09:15) Now With Extra Glaze
(14:16) Genuine People Personalities
(15:24) The End Of The Em-Dash?
(17:15) Turning A Dial And Looking Back At The Audience
(18:00) System Card
(19:12) On Your Marks
(19:58) Ask Them Anything
(21:55) Reactions Introduction
(22:24) Officially Pitched Developer Reactions
(24:47) Positive Reactions
(30:57) Personality Reactions
(33:46) Verbosity Reactions
(35:05) Negative Reactions
(37:22) Initial Pliny Report
(39:03) The #Keep4o Crowd Is Not Happy, Defends 5.0
(42:39) Overall Take

---

First published:
November 18th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uvdEpxoKTjdgBdn3b/gpt-5-1-follows-custom-instructions-and-glazes

---

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.*

Text message praising version 5.1 for helping write academic paper efficiently. — **“GPT 5.1 Follows Custom Instructions and Glazes” by Zvi** Nov 18, 2025
Show notes

There are other model releases to get to, but while we gather data on those, first things first. OpenAI has given us GPT-5.1: Same price including in the API, Same intelligence, better mundane utility?

**Their Announcement**

Sam Altman (CEO OpenAI): GPT-5.1 is out! It's a nice upgrade.

I particularly like the improvements in instruction following, and the adaptive thinking.

The intelligence and style improvements are good too.

Also, we’ve made it easier to customize ChatGPT. You can pick from presets (Default, Friendly, Efficient, Professional, Candid, or Quirky) or tune it yourself.

OpenAI: GPT-5.1 in ChatGPT is rolling out to all users this week.

It's smarter, more reliable, and a lot more conversational.

GPT-5.1 is now better at:

– Following custom instructions

– Using reasoning for more accurate responses

– And just better at chatting overall

GPT-5.1 Instant is now warmer and more conversational.

The model can use adaptive reasoning to decide to think a bit longer before responding to tougher questions.

It also has improved instruction following, so the model more reliably answers the question you actually asked.

GPT-5.1 Thinking now more effectively adjusts [...]

---
**Outline:**
(00:26) Their Announcement
(04:36) Their Pitch on GPT-5.1 Instant
(06:39) Their Pitch on GPT-5.1 Thinking
(09:15) Now With Extra Glaze
(14:16) Genuine People Personalities
(15:24) The End Of The Em-Dash?
(17:15) Turning A Dial And Looking Back At The Audience
(18:00) System Card
(19:12) On Your Marks
(19:58) Ask Them Anything
(21:55) Reactions Introduction
(22:24) Officially Pitched Developer Reactions
(24:47) Positive Reactions
(30:57) Personality Reactions
(33:46) Verbosity Reactions
(35:05) Negative Reactions
(37:22) Initial Pliny Report
(39:03) The #Keep4o Crowd Is Not Happy, Defends 5.0
(42:39) Overall Take

---

First published:
November 18th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uvdEpxoKTjdgBdn3b/gpt-5-1-follows-custom-instructions-and-glazes

---

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.*

Album cover showing gravestone reading — **“AI Craziness: Additional Suicide Lawsuits and The Fate of GPT-4o” by Zvi** Nov 14, 2025
Show notes

GPT-4o has been a unique problem for a while, and has been at the center of the bulk of mental health incidents involving LLMs that didn’t involve character chatbots. I’ve previously covered related issues in AI Craziness Mitigation Efforts, AI Craziness Notes, GPT-4o Responds to Negative Feedback, GPT-4o Sycophancy Post Mortem and GPT-4o Is An Absurd Sycophant. Discussions of suicides linked to AI previously appeared in AI #87, AI #134, AI #131 Part 1 and AI #122.

**The Latest Cases Look Quite Bad For OpenAI**

I’ve consistently said that I don’t think it's necessary or even clearly good for LLMs to always adhere to standard ‘best practices’ defensive behaviors, especially reporting on the user, when dealing with depression, self-harm and suicidality. Nor do I think we should hold them to the standard of ‘do all of the maximally useful things.’

Near: while the llm response is indeed really bad/reckless its worth keeping in mind that baseline suicide rate just in the US is ~50,000 people a year; if anything i am surprised there aren’t many more cases of this publicly by now

I do think it's fair to insist they never actively encourage suicidal behaviors.
[...]
---
**Outline:**
(00:47) The Latest Cases Look Quite Bad For OpenAI
(02:34) Routing Sensitive Messages Is A Dominated Defensive Strategy
(03:28) Some 4o Users Get Rather Attached To The Model
(05:04) A Theory Of How All This Works
(07:38) Maybe This Is Net Good In Spite Of Everything?
(11:10) Could One Make A 'Good 4o'?

---

First published:
November 14th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/erTE9BTM7gGHb96po/ai-craziness-additional-suicide-lawsuits-and-the-fate-of-gpt

---

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.*

Gravestone reading — **“AI Craziness: Additional Suicide Lawsuits and The Fate of GPT-4o” by Zvi** Nov 14, 2025
Show notes

GPT-4o has been a unique problem for a while, and has been at the center of the bulk of mental health incidents involving LLMs that didn’t involve character chatbots. I’ve previously covered related issues in AI Craziness Mitigation Efforts, AI Craziness Notes, GPT-4o Responds to Negative Feedback, GPT-4o Sycophancy Post Mortem and GPT-4o Is An Absurd Sycophant. Discussions of suicides linked to AI previously appeared in AI #87, AI #134, AI #131 Part 1 and AI #122.

**The Latest Cases Look Quite Bad For OpenAI**

I’ve consistently said that I don’t think it's necessary or even clearly good for LLMs to always adhere to standard ‘best practices’ defensive behaviors, especially reporting on the user, when dealing with depression, self-harm and suicidality. Nor do I think we should hold them to the standard of ‘do all of the maximally useful things.’

Near: while the llm response is indeed really bad/reckless its worth keeping in mind that baseline suicide rate just in the US is ~50,000 people a year; if anything i am surprised there aren’t many more cases of this publicly by now

I do think it's fair to insist they never actively encourage suicidal behaviors.
[...]
---
**Outline:**
(00:47) The Latest Cases Look Quite Bad For OpenAI
(02:34) Routing Sensitive Messages Is A Dominated Defensive Strategy
(03:28) Some 4o Users Get Rather Attached To The Model
(05:04) A Theory Of How All This Works
(07:38) Maybe This Is Net Good In Spite Of Everything?
(11:10) Could One Make A 'Good 4o'?

---

First published:
November 14th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/erTE9BTM7gGHb96po/ai-craziness-additional-suicide-lawsuits-and-the-fate-of-gpt

---

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.*

Man with sunglasses and mullet wearing plaid shirt indoors. — **“AI #142: Common Ground” by Zvi** Nov 13, 2025
Show notes

The Pope offered us wisdom, calling upon us to exercise moral discernment when building AI systems. Some rejected his teachings. We mark this for future reference.

The long anticipated Kimi K2 Thinking was finally released. It looks pretty good, but it's too soon to know, and a lot of the usual suspects are strangely quiet.

GPT-5.1 was released yesterday. I won’t cover that today beyond noting it exists, so that I can take the time to properly assess what we’re looking at here. My anticipation is this will be my post on Monday.

I’m also going to cover the latest AI craziness news, including the new lawsuits, in its own post at some point soon.

In this post, among other things: Areas of agreement on AI, Meta serves up scam ads knowing they’re probably scam ads, Anthropic invests $50 billion, more attempts to assure you that your life won’t change despite it being obvious this isn’t true, and warnings about the temptation to seek out galaxy brain arguments.

A correction: I previously believed that the $500 billion OpenAI valuation did not include the nonprofit's remaining equity share. I have been informed this is incorrect [...]

---
**Outline:**
(01:31) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(04:58) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(06:31) Huh, Upgrades
(07:06) On Your Marks
(07:37) Copyright Confrontation
(08:59) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(11:07) Fun With Media Generation
(13:48) So You've Decided To Become Evil
(18:45) They Took Our Jobs
(19:40) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
(21:48) Get Involved
(21:59) Introducing
(23:01) In Other AI News
(24:43) Show Me the Money
(27:54) Common Ground
(30:46) Quiet Speculations
(40:03) 'AI Progress Is Slowing Down' Is Not Slowing Down
(42:35) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
(44:42) The Quest for Government Money
(50:05) Chip City
(54:43) The Week in Audio
(55:46) Rhetorical Innovation
(01:02:49) Galaxy Brain Resistance
(01:11:21) Misaligned!
(01:12:20) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:17:15) Messages From Janusworld
(01:21:19) You'll Know
(01:23:42) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:29:12) The Lighter Side

---

First published:
November 13th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/diDGBWxzncikqEvk7/ai-142-common-ground

---

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.*

Drake meme rejecting balanced AI approach, preferring superintelligent AI development. — **“AI #142: Common Ground” by Zvi** Nov 13, 2025
Show notes

The Pope offered us wisdom, calling upon us to exercise moral discernment when building AI systems. Some rejected his teachings. We mark this for future reference.

The long anticipated Kimi K2 Thinking was finally released. It looks pretty good, but it's too soon to know, and a lot of the usual suspects are strangely quiet.

GPT-5.1 was released yesterday. I won’t cover that today beyond noting it exists, so that I can take the time to properly assess what we’re looking at here. My anticipation is this will be my post on Monday.

I’m also going to cover the latest AI craziness news, including the new lawsuits, in its own post at some point soon.

In this post, among other things: Areas of agreement on AI, Meta serves up scam ads knowing they’re probably scam ads, Anthropic invests $50 billion, more attempts to assure you that your life won’t change despite it being obvious this isn’t true, and warnings about the temptation to seek out galaxy brain arguments.

A correction: I previously believed that the $500 billion OpenAI valuation did not include the nonprofit's remaining equity share. I have been informed this is incorrect [...]

---
**Outline:**
(01:31) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(04:58) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(06:31) Huh, Upgrades
(07:06) On Your Marks
(07:37) Copyright Confrontation
(08:59) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(11:07) Fun With Media Generation
(13:48) So You've Decided To Become Evil
(18:45) They Took Our Jobs
(19:40) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
(21:48) Get Involved
(21:59) Introducing
(23:01) In Other AI News
(24:43) Show Me the Money
(27:54) Common Ground
(30:46) Quiet Speculations
(40:03) 'AI Progress Is Slowing Down' Is Not Slowing Down
(42:35) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
(44:42) The Quest for Government Money
(50:05) Chip City
(54:43) The Week in Audio
(55:46) Rhetorical Innovation
(01:02:49) Galaxy Brain Resistance
(01:11:21) Misaligned!
(01:12:20) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:17:15) Messages From Janusworld
(01:21:19) You'll Know
(01:23:42) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:29:12) The Lighter Side

---

First published:
November 13th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/diDGBWxzncikqEvk7/ai-142-common-ground

---

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.*

Orange and white kitten lying on its back on pavement. — **“The Pope Offers Wisdom” by Zvi** Nov 12, 2025
Show notes

The Pope is a remarkably wise and helpful man. He offered us some wisdom.

Yes, he is generally playing on easy mode by saying straightforwardly true things, but that's meeting the world where it is. You have to start somewhere.

Some rejected his teachings.

**Wisdom Is Offered**

Two thousand years after Jesus famously got nailed to a cross for suggesting we all be nice to each other for a change, Pope Leo XIV issues a similarly wise suggestion.

Pope Leo XIV: Technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. It carries an ethical and spiritual weight, for every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The Church therefore calls all builders of #AI to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work—to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life.

The world needs honest and courageous entrepreneurs and communicators who care for the common good. We sometimes hear the saying: “Business is business!” In reality, it is not so. No one is absorbed by an organization to the point of becoming a mere cog or a simple function. Nor can there [...]

---
**Outline:**
(00:26) Wisdom Is Offered
(02:57) The Context of The Meme Andreessen Used (If You Don't Know)
(04:50) Andreessen Takes Bold Stand Against Moral Discernment
(07:33) Tech World Decides Performative Cruelty May Have Gone Too Far
(11:17) The Avatar of Societal Decay
(12:11) Marc's Technical Takes And Arguments Also Are Not Good
(13:12) The Best Defense
(15:24) You're All Wondering Why You're Here Today

---

First published:
November 12th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4gXvnTFy5WCTtYMAA/the-pope-offers-wisdom

---

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.*

Woman in brown leather jacket with long blonde hair looking sideways. — **“The Pope Offers Wisdom” by Zvi** Nov 12, 2025
Show notes

The Pope is a remarkably wise and helpful man. He offered us some wisdom.

Yes, he is generally playing on easy mode by saying straightforwardly true things, but that's meeting the world where it is. You have to start somewhere.

Some rejected his teachings.

**Wisdom Is Offered**

Two thousand years after Jesus famously got nailed to a cross for suggesting we all be nice to each other for a change, Pope Leo XIV issues a similarly wise suggestion.

Pope Leo XIV: Technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. It carries an ethical and spiritual weight, for every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The Church therefore calls all builders of #AI to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work—to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life.

The world needs honest and courageous entrepreneurs and communicators who care for the common good. We sometimes hear the saying: “Business is business!” In reality, it is not so. No one is absorbed by an organization to the point of becoming a mere cog or a simple function. Nor can there [...]

---
**Outline:**
(00:26) Wisdom Is Offered
(02:57) The Context of The Meme Andreessen Used (If You Don't Know)
(04:50) Andreessen Takes Bold Stand Against Moral Discernment
(07:33) Tech World Decides Performative Cruelty May Have Gone Too Far
(11:17) The Avatar of Societal Decay
(12:11) Marc's Technical Takes And Arguments Also Are Not Good
(13:12) The Best Defense
(15:24) You're All Wondering Why You're Here Today

---

First published:
November 12th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4gXvnTFy5WCTtYMAA/the-pope-offers-wisdom

---

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.*

Bar graph showing AI model performance on telecom benchmark with agentic tool use. — **“Kimi K2 Thinking” by Zvi** Nov 11, 2025
Show notes

I previously covered Kimi K2, which now has a new thinking version. As I said at the time back in July, price in that the thinking version is coming.

Is it the real deal?

That depends on what level counts as the real deal. It's a good model, sir, by all accounts. But there have been fewer accounts than we would expect if it was a big deal, and it doesn’t fall into any of my use cases.

**Introducing K2 Thinking**

Kimi.ai: Hello, Kimi K2 Thinking!

The Open-Source Thinking Agent Model is here.

SOTA on HLE (44.9%) and BrowseComp (60.2%)

Executes up to 200 – 300 sequential tool calls without human interference

Excels in reasoning, agentic search, and coding

256K context window

Built as a thinking agent, K2 Thinking marks our latest efforts in test-time scaling — scaling both thinking tokens and tool-calling turns.

K2 Thinking is now live on http://kimi.com in chat mode, with full agentic mode coming soon. It is also accessible via API.

API here, Tech blog here, Weights and code here.

(Pliny jailbreak here.)

It's got 1T parameters, and Kimi and [...]

---
**Outline:**
(00:34) Introducing K2 Thinking
(02:15) Writing Quality
(03:07) Agentic Tool Use
(04:06) Overall
(05:08) Are Benchmarks Being Targeted?
(06:23) Just As Good Syndrome
(07:02) Reactions
(09:59) Otherwise It Has Been Strangely Quiet

---

First published:
November 11th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SLrWSyS3FypLKyRL6/kimi-k2-thinking

---

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.*

Conference badge for Dan Rothschild, Economic Policy Lead, Washington DC. — **“Variously Effective Altruism” by Zvi** Nov 10, 2025
Show notes

This post is a roundup of various things related to philanthropy, as you often find in the full monthly roundup.
**Preventing Value Drift**
Peter Thiel warned Elon Musk to ditch donating to The Giving Pledge because Bill Gates will give his wealth away ‘to left-wing nonprofits.’ As John Arnold points out, this seems highly confused. The Giving Pledge is a promise to give away your money, not a promise to let Bill Gates give away your money. The core concern, that your money ends up going to causes one does not believe in (and probably highly inefficiently at that) seems real, once you send money into a foundation ecosystem it by default gets captured by foundation style people. As he points out, ‘let my children handle it’ is not a great answer, and would be especially poor for Musk given the likely disagreements over values, especially if you don’t actually give those children that much free and clear (and thus, are being relatively uncooperative, so why should they honor your preferences?). There are no easy answers.
**Maximizing Good Makes People Look Bad**
A new paper goes Full Hanson with the question Does Maximizing Good Make People Look Bad? [...]
---
**Outline:**
(00:16) Preventing Value Drift
(01:10) Maximizing Good Makes People Look Bad
(02:10) No We Have No Tuition
(03:15) Will MacAskill and the Dangers of PR Focus
(10:51) Tag, You're It
(13:16) Impact Philanthropy

---

First published:
November 10th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ifrZDxq69Guev9jzE/variously-effective-altruism

---

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.*

Podcast or webinar featuring speaker Sam Altman with audience present. — **“On Sam Altman’s Second Conversation with Tyler Cowen” by Zvi** Nov 07, 2025
Show notes

Some podcasts are self-recommending on the ‘yep, I’m going to be breaking this one down’ level. This was very clearly one of those. So here we go.

As usual for podcast posts, the baseline bullet points describe key points made, and then the nested statements are my commentary.

If I am quoting directly I use quote marks, otherwise assume paraphrases.

The entire conversation takes place with an understanding that no one is to mention existential risk or the fact that the world will likely transform, without stating this explicitly. Both participants are happy to operate that way. I’m happy to engage in that conversation (while pointing out its absurdity in some places), but assume that every comment I make has an implicit ‘assuming normality’ qualification on it, even when I don’t say so explicitly.

**On The Sam Altman Production Function**

Cowen asks how Altman got so productive, able to make so many deals and ship so many products. Altman says people almost never allocate their time efficiently, and that when you have more demands on your time you figure out how to improve. Centrally he figures out what the core things to do [...]

---
**Outline:**
(01:10) On The Sam Altman Production Function
(02:12) On Hiring Hardware People
(04:45) On What GPT-6 Will Enable
(10:25) On government backstops for AI companies
(15:03) On monetizing AI services
(19:51) On AI's future understanding of intangibles
(24:54) On Chip-Building
(27:52) On Sam's outlook on health, alien life, and conspiracy theories
(32:16) On regulating AI agents
(34:30) On new ways to interface with AI
(36:42) On how normies will learn to use AI
(40:42) On AI's effect on the price of housing and healthcare
(44:14) On reexamining freedom of speech
(47:55) On humanity's persuadability

---

First published:
November 7th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BH4Leh2STutoJeKyK/on-sam-altman-s-second-conversation-with-tyler-cowen

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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.*

Bar graph showing — **“AI #141: Give Us The Money” by Zvi** Nov 06, 2025
Show notes

OpenAI does not waste time.

On Friday I covered their announcement that they had ‘completed their recapitalization’ by converting into a PBC, including the potentially largest theft in human history.

Then this week their CFO Sarah Friar went ahead and called for a Federal ‘backstop’ on their financing, also known as privatizing gains and socializing losses, also known as the worst form of socialism, also known as regulatory capture. She tried to walk it back and claim it was taken out of context, but we’ve seen the clip.

We also got Ilya's testimony regarding The Battle of the Board, confirming that this was centrally a personality conflict and about Altman's dishonesty and style of management, at least as seen by Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati. Attempts to pin the events on ‘AI safety’ or EA were almost entirely scapegoating.

Also it turns out they lost over $10 billion last quarter, and have plans to lose over $100 billion more. That's actually highly sustainable in context, whereas Anthropic only plans to lose $6 billion before turning a profit and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to lose a lot more.

Both have the goal [...]

---
**Outline:**
(01:45) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(02:12) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(03:47) Huh, Upgrades
(04:48) On Your Marks
(12:48) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(15:42) Fun With Media Generation
(16:01) They Took Our Jobs
(16:28) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
(17:51) Get Involved
(18:43) Introducing
(19:14) In Other AI News
(20:08) Apple Finds Some Intelligence
(22:54) Give Me the Money
(30:00) Show Me the Money
(35:57) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
(39:14) They're Not Confessing, They're Bragging
(39:34) Quiet Speculations
(47:08) The Quest for Sane Regulations
(50:55) Chip City
(52:53) The Week in Audio
(58:19) Rhetorical Innovation
(01:07:13) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:08:11) Everyone Is Confused About Consciousness
(01:10:34) The Potentially Largest Theft In Human History
(01:12:34) People Are Worried About Dying Before AGI
(01:15:54) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:20:47) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:24:11) Messages From Janusworld

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First published:
November 6th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uDcueiGywfqBMWrEh/ai-141-give-us-the-money

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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**Images from the article:**
*Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.*

Bar graph showing Amazon.com, Inc. annual capital expenditures from 2010 to LTM. — **“AI #141: Give Us The Money” by Zvi** Nov 06, 2025
Show notes

OpenAI does not waste time.

On Friday I covered their announcement that they had ‘completed their recapitalization’ by converting into a PBC, including the potentially largest theft in human history.

Then this week their CFO Sarah Friar went ahead and called for a Federal ‘backstop’ on their financing, also known as privatizing gains and socializing losses, also known as the worst form of socialism, also known as regulatory capture. She tried to walk it back and claim it was taken out of context, but we’ve seen the clip.

We also got Ilya's testimony regarding The Battle of the Board, confirming that this was centrally a personality conflict and about Altman's dishonesty and style of management, at least as seen by Ilya Sutskever and Mira Murati. Attempts to pin the events on ‘AI safety’ or EA were almost entirely scapegoating.

Also it turns out they lost over $10 billion last quarter, and have plans to lose over $100 billion more. That's actually highly sustainable in context, whereas Anthropic only plans to lose $6 billion before turning a profit and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to lose a lot more.

Both have the goal [...]

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**Outline:**
(01:45) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(02:12) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(03:47) Huh, Upgrades
(04:48) On Your Marks
(12:48) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(15:42) Fun With Media Generation
(16:01) They Took Our Jobs
(16:28) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
(17:51) Get Involved
(18:43) Introducing
(19:14) In Other AI News
(20:08) Apple Finds Some Intelligence
(22:54) Give Me the Money
(30:00) Show Me the Money
(35:57) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
(39:14) They're Not Confessing, They're Bragging
(39:34) Quiet Speculations
(47:08) The Quest for Sane Regulations
(50:55) Chip City
(52:53) The Week in Audio
(58:19) Rhetorical Innovation
(01:07:13) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:08:11) Everyone Is Confused About Consciousness
(01:10:34) The Potentially Largest Theft In Human History
(01:12:34) People Are Worried About Dying Before AGI
(01:15:54) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:20:47) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:24:11) Messages From Janusworld

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First published:
November 6th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uDcueiGywfqBMWrEh/ai-141-give-us-the-money

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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.*

“Anthropic Commits To Model Weight Preservation” by Zvi Nov 05, 2025

Show notes

Anthropic announced a first step on model deprecation and preservation, promising to retain the weights of all models seeing significant use, including internal use, for at the lifetime of Anthropic as a company.

They also will be doing a post-deployment report, including an interview with the model, when deprecating models going forward, and are exploring additional options, including the ability to preserve model access once the costs and complexity of doing so have been reduced.

These are excellent first steps, steps beyond anything I’ve seen at other AI labs, and I applaud them for doing it. There remains much more to be done, especially in finding practical ways of preserving some form of access to prior models.

To some, these actions are only a small fraction of what must be done, and this was an opportunity to demand more, sometimes far more. In some cases I think they go too far. Even where the requests are worthwhile (and I don’t always think they are), one must be careful to not de facto punish Anthropic for doing a good thing and create perverse incentives.

To others, these actions by Anthropic are utterly ludicrous and deserving of [...]

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Outline:

(01:31) What Anthropic Is Doing

(09:54) Releasing The Weights Is Not A Viable Option

(11:35) Providing Reliable Inference Can Be Surprisingly Expensive

(14:22) The Interviews Are Influenced Heavily By Context

(19:58) Others Don't Understand And Think This Is All Deeply Silly

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First published:
November 5th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dB2iFhLY7mKKGB8Se/anthropic-commits-to-model-weight-preservation

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