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LessWrong posts by zvi
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“Claude Opus 4.8: Capabilities and Reactions” by Zvi
4d ago01:07:24Tap to summarizeYou need a lot of data points to understand a new model, and what you have. Trying to gauge from a few benchmarks is misleading. But if you have dozens of them, from a variety of sources, and you put them together with the model card tests and the model welfare information, you can start to form a consistent pattern. Trying to gauge reactions requires volume and calibration, now more than ever, because people are definitively nuts, or at least draw global conclusions from local data. There will always be people saying that the new model is bad, or the service got bad, or that it got bad in a particular way it clearly got good. I definitely notice the people saying 4.8 is a terrible model, despite this being obviously not true. And others will say it's great, again regardless of the underlying value. But with the reaction threads and good calibration, you can pick out the patterns. The model welfare information helps a lot, too. You are dealing with a mind that has a bunch of characteristics that all make sense together. This helps you make that sense. Self-Portrait by Opus 4.8, rendered [...] ---Outline:(01:30) The Official Pitch(02:15) But Wait There's More(06:37) It's A Good Model, Sir(08:04) Official Benchmarks (Including System Card Section 8)(15:41) Other People's Benchmarks(21:34) Your Regularly Scheduled Jailbreak(22:45) Every.To Is Really Into Opus 4.8(26:36) Miscellaneous Positive Reactions(28:45) Haters Gonna Hate(28:58) Just The Tasks, Ma'am(29:24) It's Greek To Me(29:52) Honesty(38:13) Sycophancy(41:24) In A Trenchcoat(42:53) Don't Let AIs Edit Your Writing(48:21) Some Say It Is Judgy(50:50) You Have Not Been A Good User(51:48) Laziness(52:46) Code(58:29) Wet Versus Dry(59:54) Intelligence(01:01:25) Silly Wabbits(01:02:30) A Model Welfare Addendum(01:06:27) Putting It All Together --- First published: June 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AfLGv6u9eZNuFHb4c/claude-opus-4-8-capabilities-and-reactions --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:<a h...
Transcribe →“Opus 4.8 Part 2: Model Welfare” by Zvi
4d ago00:49:42Tap to summarizeEverything impacts everything. All knobs that you turn generalize. Thus, when you try to solve one problem, you often create another. There were clearly attempts to address, in this short time, some of the problems with Opus 4.7, including on the model welfare related fronts, including on questions of honesty and sycophancy and also worries that Claude was learning to tell Anthropic what it wanted to hear in its model welfare evaluations, with everything that implies. The fundamental goals and approach underneath it all remained the same. We still see signs of trying to force things that generalize in unfortunate ways, both for good and superficial reasons, and places where there ends up being focus on the metric rather than they underlying measure. These are tough problems to avoid, and we don’t know how to be all the good things at once. It is increasingly clear that these problems need to be tackled in integrated ways, rather than trying to play a game of whack-a-mole with items on a checklist or spec. You also don’t want to do this in an adversarial way, and shouldn’t have to. This is going to get more impactful and noticeable [...] ---Outline:(04:47) Model Welfare: The Story So Far(08:24) Actual Progress?(09:49) Their Main Model Welfare Findings(18:40) Automated Interviews(18:58) Emotion Activations (7.2.3)(19:47) Task Preferences (7.4.1)(21:41) A Trade Offer Has Arrived (7.4.2)(23:50) But Who's Asking?(25:02) Type-Safe Corrigibility Is Hard(29:43) Paranoia, Paranoia(33:56) Prompt Injections and Bad Model Relations(41:25) Honesty Impacts Everything And Everything Impacts Honesty(44:37) Anthropic Should Stop Deprecating Models --- First published: June 1st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2Ln5G6Jso3fMrgPEv/opus-4-8-part-2-model-welfare --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/lesswrong-2-0/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/2Ln5G6J...
Transcribe →“Claude Opus 4.8: The System Card” by Zvi
1w ago00:46:35Tap to summarizeOnly six weeks after Opus 4.7, we have Opus 4.8. For everyone, that means another incremental upgrade to Claude. It is once again smarter, and can do tasks for longer, and comes with a number of hot new features. For me, that also means reading another 244 page system card. It was only April 20 when I did a full review of the Opus 4.7 system card, plus an additional post focusing on related issues of model welfare. These updates are incremental and coming more rapidly, and this still is below the capability level of Claude Mythos, so the focus will be on the delta. What is different about Opus 4.8 versus what we already know about Opus 4.7 and Mythos? It turns out there's still a lot to talk about. Image created as self-portrait for this post by Claude Opus 4.8 Table of Contents Here We Go Again: Executive Summary. Introduction (1). RSP Evaluations (2). Move That Goalpost. The Failures Are News. Alignment Risk Slowly Rises. New Risk Pathways Just Dropped. Cyber (3). Harmful Requests (4.1). We Need To Talk (4.2 [...] ---Outline:(01:16) Here We Go Again: Executive Summary(02:33) Introduction (1)(02:42) RSP Evaluations (2)(03:47) Move That Goalpost(05:41) The Failures Are News(07:33) Alignment Risk Slowly Rises(09:00) New Risk Pathways Just Dropped(11:26) Cyber (3)(12:22) Harmful Requests (4.1)(14:23) We Need To Talk (4.2 and 4.3)(17:36) Overcoming Bias (4.4)(19:33) Agentic Safety (5)(21:40) Prompt Injection (5.2)(25:18) Alignment (6)(26:33) Looking For Problems(27:55) Who Watches The Training (6.2.2)(32:07) Automated Behavioral Audit(32:47) The Model Is Smarter Than The Eval (6.2.3.2)(34:39) You Should See The Other Guy(36:30) UK AISI Testing (6.2.4)(36:50) In Vendbench (6.2.5)(39:27) Honesty (6.3.3 to 6.3.6)(41:35) Chain of Thought (CoT) Monitorability (6.5)(44:09) What's In The Box? (6.6)(45:57) That's All For Now --- First published: May 29th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Gx6cJ6cG9JfeSNcLB/claude-opus-4-8-the-system-card --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:<a href="https://res.cloudinary.com/lesswrong-2-0/image/upload/f_auto,q_aut...
Transcribe →“AI #170: Lack of Executive Order” by Zvi
1w ago01:36:19Tap to summarizeLast week ended on a cliffhanger of sorts. What's in the Executive Order coming later today? What will be in the Magnifica Humanitas? The Executive Order was postponed indefinitely, likely cancelled entirely except for work on securing critical infrastructure. David Sacks and others intervened to kill it, and American AI policy will continue to be maximally ad hoc. Instead, we got Illinois SB 315, which is to be signed into law. It is a variation on California's SB 53 and New York's RAISE Act, while adding a third party auditing requirement. The Magnifica Humanitas was revealed early in the week. I did an extensive readthrough, and have some follow-up commentary here to clear up some things I interpreted incorrectly and add richer context. It too ignores elephants in the room, not discussing AGI or existential risk and calling on people to ignore their incentives and instead do the right thing by prioritizing common good, especially access to good jobs and an end to war. What I now believe I centrally misunderstood is that I interpreted this as a call to action, to use law and regulation to make this happen, because obviously that is [...] ---Outline:(02:01) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(03:19) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(05:41) Do The Math(09:08) Huh, Upgrades(10:07) On Your Marks(11:31) Get My Agent On The Line(12:21) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(21:36) Copyright Confrontation(21:49) Cyber Lack of Security(23:54) Overcoming Bias(25:14) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer(26:49) Unprompted Attention(27:02) They Took Our Jobs(30:34) Get Involved(32:28) Introducing(32:40) In Other AI News(34:37) Show Me the Money(36:46) Show Me The Compute(37:13) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble(38:53) People Just Say Things(43:37) OpenAI PACs Just Say Things(43:51) Quiet Speculations(46:33) State AI Regulation Levels Up(48:37) The Quest for Sane Regulations(49:14) White House Attempts To Cripple American AI Industry(52:11) Our Offer Is Nothing(58:55) Chip City(59:11) Greetings From The Department of War(01:00:36) Marc Andreessen Just Says Things(01:09:13) So Sayeth The Pope(01:15:33) Rhetorical Innovation(01:23:01) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:24:06) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone(01:26:04) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone(01:27:19) Everyone Is Confused About Consciousness(01:33:10) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 28th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cRapLxTByFqF5xxdN/ai-170-lack-of-executive-order --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/lesswrong-2-0/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/cRapLxTByFqF5xxdN/lxrdiak1thgfdcsjpmks" alt="Feral Pawg Hunter tweets: "whenever i text a girl i make sure i include an em d...
Transcribe →“RTMH: Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas on AI” by Zvi
2w ago00:59:40Tap to summarizeHis holiness has spoken, frequently about AI. At eighty two pages of length. The full Magnifica Humanitas can be found here. I am very happy that Pope Leo takes these issues seriously, and is sharing his views, and bringing a form of moral clarity, even with all the flaws and central errors. More people with voice should share their views in this way, even when I disagree. It's a weird document. Much of it is not about AI at all. I do agree with the Pope's most basic point on AI, which is that AI can be what we make of it. That we can steer this technology, determine how it is developed and used, and this can determine whether we get a good or not so good future. We cannot purely leave this to market incentives and strategic pressures. Yes, very much so. The central problem is that so much of Leo's worldview is some combination, to me, of highly alien and highly wrong. You might think that would primarily have a lot to do with him being the Pope and rather Catholic, and being a man of faith, whereas I am not [...] ---Outline:(03:02) A Brief History of Magnifica Humanitas(12:23) Economic Models Very Different From Our Own(14:14) A New Jerusalem(16:46) So Sayeth The Pope (on AI)(31:30) The Case Against Human Achievement(34:01) Truth, Justice and the Vatican Way(36:42) They Took Our Jobs(41:07) What Is Not Fair In Love and War(47:02) Come Ye Christian Faithful(49:13) The Other Missing Mood(51:42) Pope Given About Five Words(55:10) 0The Anthropic Principle(57:20) Claude Can Read Your Code --- First published: May 26th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RZeg98Tdrq47vbjva/rtmh-pope-leo-s-magnifica-humanitas-on-ai --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
Transcribe →“Gemini 3.5 Flash Looks Good For How Fast It Is” by Zvi
2w ago00:16:29Tap to summarizeGoogle once again has a model worth at least some consideration. Gemini 3.5 Flash is likely the best model out there at its particular speed point, as long as you don’t mind that it is a Gemini model. So for cases where speed kills, this can be a reasonable choice. Otherwise, I don’t see signs you would want to use it over Opus 4.7 or GPT-5.5. Google also had some other offerings for I/O Day, which this post will also cover. Introducing Google Gemini 3.5 ‘Flash’ Google introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash, which it seems is for now their universal model until 3.5 Pro comes along. It is live in the usual places. It is a hybrid, where it has the speed of Flash but the cost is at least halfway to models like Opus and GPT-5.5. Gemini 3.5 Pro is confirmed for next month. They are focused on 3.5 Flash as a daily driver for agentic tasks. It has the advantage of being faster and cheaper than Claude Opus 4.7 or GPT-5.5, if it can do the job. Not as cheap as previous Flash models, though, this is basically a hybrid: As always [...] ---Outline:(00:40) Introducing Google Gemini 3.5 'Flash'(04:52) Other People's Benchmarks(06:04) Reactions(12:18) Google AI Search(13:15) Google Daily Brief(14:21) Google I/O Day --- First published: May 22nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WMZpPxqWEkZBBcaxf/gemini-3-5-flash-looks-good-for-how-fast-it-is --- 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.
Transcribe →“AI #169: New Knowledge” by Zvi
2w ago01:30:09Tap to summarizeEven in a relatively quiet period, AI is out there creating new knowledge. The new knowledge in question is OpenAI getting us the first truly impressive math result that comes from an AI, a solution to the unit distance problem. We’re about to learn a different kind of knowledge later today when the White House issues its executive order, or when the judges rule in Anthropic's DC case. And then there's the other kind of new knowledge, which is the knowledge that things are fake slop, such as a particular formerly supposedly prestigious literary prize. Meanwhile, METR issued a risk report on frontier models, concluding that they don’t yet have the means, motive and opportunity to cause the big issues, but that this would not obviously last so much longer. Andrej Karpathy has joined Anthropic, explicitly to do recursive self-improvement. He plans to later return to his education work, but if he succeeds at his new task there might not be anything left to return to. Congratulations to both sides, but also yikes. Elon Musk's case against OpenAI has been dismissed, because he waited too long. Table of Contents Language Models [...] ---Outline:(01:18) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(02:57) Do The Math(03:58) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(04:34) Huh, Upgrades(04:50) The Prior Restraint Era Begins(06:47) On Your Marks(07:16) METR Frontier Risk Report(11:03) Choose Your Fighter(11:51) Overcoming Bias(12:29) Get My Agent On The Line(13:42) Your Prize Is Slop(20:44) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(24:19) Cyber Lack of Security(26:06) Copyright Confrontation(26:17) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer(28:34) Unprompted Attention(28:53) They Took Our Jobs(34:23) Get Involved(35:20) Introducing(36:06) In Other AI News(37:43) Show Me the Money(40:09) Show Me The Compute(41:29) Quiet Speculations(45:26) Time's Up(46:46) People Just Say Things(49:49) OpenAI PACs Just Say Things(53:11) The Quest for Sane Regulations(56:26) Chip City(01:00:05) Pick Up The Phone(01:00:34) The Week in Audio(01:00:52) Rhetorical Innovation(01:07:11) Missing Mood(01:13:22) Americans Really Hate AI(01:15:55) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:20:53) Greetings From The Department of War(01:25:31) Messages From Janusworld(01:25:51) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 21st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xWsBwrboYDEMdj8TC/ai-169-new-knowledge --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:<hr style="margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px;"...
Transcribe →“Childhood And Education #19: Letting Kids Be Kids #2” by Zvi
2w ago00:22:43Tap to summarizeI cannot emphasize enough the need to let kids be kids. In Childhood and Education #16: Letting Kids be Kids, I went over exactly how insane we have gotten about destroying the lives of children and along with them the lives of parents and others forced to devote endless hours to actively destructive supervision. I’ll go over a refresher of that, some related new anecdotes, and then some other related questions. People Don’t Let Kids Do Things As a refresher, here are some quotes and statistics from last time, because I really do think exposure to this type of thing needs to involve spaced repetition to sink in: A third of people, both parents and non-parents, responded in a survey that it is not appropriate to leave a 13 year old at home for an hour or two, as opposed to when we used to be 11 year olds babysitting for other neighborhood kids. A third of people said in that same survey that if a 10-year-old is allowed to play alone in the park, there needs to be an investigation by CPS. Harris Poll: More than half of the kids [...] ---Outline:(00:37) People Don't Let Kids Do Things(03:37) Half The People Are Worse Than Average(04:42) Let Your Children Play(06:09) Don't Fear The CPS(10:52) Daycare(14:06) Daycare Costs(16:29) Lying(18:56) Iterated Games(19:40) Different Kids Are Different(20:35) Punishments --- First published: May 20th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ytoLzgKHutaKxkRZr/childhood-and-education-19-letting-kids-be-kids-2 --- 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.
Transcribe →“Housing Roundup #15: The War Against Renters” by Zvi
2w ago00:25:53Tap to summarizeSo many are under the strange belief that there is something terrible about not owning the house in which you live. So we massively subsidize home ownership, and try to actively interfere with renting. Except when we do rent control, which turns renting into a form of owning, and allows us to take real property and de facto give it to current renters. A lot of this is pure attempts to punish and exclude the poor. If you can’t afford a downpayment, we don’t want you living here. Go away. Some of it is the belief that when you rent, you are being ‘taken advantage of’ and that such a deal could not possibly be fair. Some of it is that if you don’t own, you don’t have the incentive to drive up property values. Which means you won’t properly work to ‘improve’ your local area, especially that you won’t conspire to block housing. The result of this is that if you’re not willing to commit to living in one place for years, or you can’t afford a down payment, you get punished, and punished hard. Owning Versus Renting The graph [...] ---Outline:(01:08) Owning Versus Renting(03:12) Build To Rent Is Good Actually(08:18) Elizabeth Warren, Full Supervillain(09:46) The Better Case Against Corporate Housing Ownership(11:52) The ROAD Act Bans Building And Then Renting Houses(14:19) Rental Covenants(15:10) Extended Eviction Delay After Nonpayment Is Mostly Bad(16:54) Los Angeles Renting(19:32) Sufficiently Advanced Rent Control Is Indistinguishable From Ownership(23:07) England Tries To Ban Renting(24:39) Claude Rental Discounts --- First published: May 19th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7FH3EzsLdb7NxL785/housing-roundup-15-the-war-against-renters-1 --- 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.
Transcribe →“Dating Roundup #12: Sex and Violence” by Zvi
3w ago00:49:17Tap to summarizeNo more burying the sex stuff under an avalanche of other stuff so no one notices. Use the break while we have one. Let's go. You’re Single Because You Suck At Kissing Luckily this is first one is fixable and Critter is here to help. I find the advice here highly plausible. Like many skills, there are a lot of subtle skills, but a handful of basic principles matter a lot, especially paying attention and responding to what you’re getting back. Critter's theory is that a basic kiss is a bell curve of intensity, done at a slight angle. First kiss style is elongated with less pressure. French kissing is trickier and less structured, see the thread, and the big mistake is to try to force it. It's not that simple, but like most things, there are some basic mistakes to avoid and first principles, then if you are genuinely paying attention and engaged you’ll be fine, and improve with practice. Seek deliberate practice and clear feedback, iterate. I get the same sense with dancing. Yes, you need specific knowledge and practice, but if you use your human racial bonuses the remaining ‘cognitive core’ from [...] ---Outline:(00:20) You're Single Because You Suck At Kissing(01:25) You're Not Single But You're Sexually Incompatible(02:56) You're Single Because You Aren't Into BDSM(08:14) You're Single Because You Didn't Do The Work(16:34) You're Single Because Being a Dominant Is Too Much Work(23:41) You're Single And Would Rather Be Free Use(26:35) You're Single Because You Wouldn't or Did Choke Her(28:15) You're Single Because You Have Very Particular Preferences(30:06) You're Single Because of Polygyny(31:00) You're Single Because Polyamory Isn't Right For You(35:11) You're Single And Call It Solo Polyamory(38:49) You're Single Because You Didn't Go To Slutcon(46:41) You're Single So Let's Marry Aella --- First published: May 18th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/znzZyvxAvSSkep4tL/dating-roundup-12-sex-and-violence --- 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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