LessWrong posts by zvi

zvi

Audio narrations of LessWrong posts by zvi

  1. 19 HR AGO

    “AI #141: Give Us The Money” by Zvi

    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 --- First published: November 6th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uDcueiGywfqBMWrEh/ai-141-give-us-the-money --- 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.

    1h 29m

  2. 1 DAY AGO

    “Anthropic Commits To Model Weight Preservation” by Zvi

    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 [...] --- 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 --- First published: November 5th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dB2iFhLY7mKKGB8Se/anthropic-commits-to-model-weight-preservation --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    26 min

  3. 2 DAYS AGO

    “OpenAI: The Battle of the Board: Ilya’s Testimony” by Zvi

    New Things Have Come To Light The Information offers us new information about what happened when the board if AI unsuccessfully tried to fire Sam Altman, which I call The Battle of the Board. The Information: OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever shared new details on the internal conflicts that led to Sam Altman's initial firing, including a memo alleging Altman exhibited a “consistent pattern of lying.” Liv: Lots of people dismiss Sam's behaviour as typical for a CEO but I really think we can and should demand better of the guy who thinks he's building the machine god. Toucan: From Ilya's deposition— • Ilya plotted over a year with Mira to remove Sam • Dario wanted Greg fired and himself in charge of all research • Mira told Ilya that Sam pitted her against Daniela • Ilya wrote a 52 page memo to get Sam fired and a separate doc on Greg This Really Was Primarily A Lying And Management Problem Daniel Eth: A lot of the OpenAI boardroom drama has been blamed on EA – but looks like it really was overwhelmingly an Ilya & Mira led effort, with EA playing a minor role and somehow winding up [...] --- Outline: (00:12) New Things Have Come To Light (01:09) This Really Was Primarily A Lying And Management Problem (03:23) Ilya Tells Us How It Went Down And Why He Tried To Do It (06:17) If You Come At The King (07:31) Enter The Scapegoats (08:13) And In Summary --- First published: November 4th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iRBhXJSNkDeohm69d/openai-the-battle-of-the-board-ilya-s-testimony --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    9 min

  4. 3 DAYS AGO

    “Crime and Punishment #1” by Zvi

    It's been a long time coming that I spin off Crime into its own roundup series. This is only about Ordinary Decent Crime. High crimes are not covered here. Table of Contents Perception Versus Reality. The Case Violent Crime is Up Actually. Threats of Punishment. Property Crime Enforcement is Broken. The Problem of Disorder. Extreme Speeding as Disorder. Enforcement and the Lack Thereof. Talking Under The Streetlamp. The Fall of Extralegal and Illegible Enforcement. In America You Can Usually Just Keep Their Money. Police. Probation. Genetic Databases. Marijuana. The Economics of Fentanyl. Jails. Criminals. Causes of Crime. Causes of Violence. Homelessness. Yay Trivial Inconveniences. San Francisco. Closing Down San Francisco. A San Francisco Dispute. Cleaning Up San Francisco. Portland. Those Who Do Not Help Themselves. Solving for the Equilibrium (1). Solving for the Equilibrium (2). Lead. Law & Order. Look Out. Perception Versus Reality A lot of the impact of crime is based on the perception of crime. The [...] --- Outline: (00:20) Perception Versus Reality (05:00) The Case Violent Crime is Up Actually (06:10) Threats of Punishment (07:03) Property Crime Enforcement is Broken (12:13) The Problem of Disorder (14:39) Extreme Speeding as Disorder (15:57) Enforcement and the Lack Thereof (20:24) Talking Under The Streetlamp (23:54) The Fall of Extralegal and Illegible Enforcement (25:18) In America You Can Usually Just Keep Their Money (27:29) Police (37:31) Probation (40:55) Genetic Databases (43:04) Marijuana (48:28) The Economics of Fentanyl (50:59) Jails (55:03) Criminals (55:39) Causes of Crime (56:16) Causes of Violence (57:35) Homelessness (58:27) Yay Trivial Inconveniences (59:08) San Francisco (01:04:07) Closing Down San Francisco (01:05:30) A San Francisco Dispute (01:09:13) Cleaning Up San Francisco (01:13:05) Portland (01:13:15) Those Who Do Not Help Themselves (01:15:15) Solving for the Equilibrium (1) (01:20:15) Solving for the Equilibrium (2) (01:20:43) Lead (01:22:18) Law & Order (01:22:58) Look Out --- First published: November 3rd, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tt9JKubsa8jsCsfD5/crime-and-punishment-1-1 --- 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.

    1h 24m

  5. 6 DAYS AGO

    “OpenAI Moves To Complete Potentially The Largest Theft In Human History” by Zvi

    OpenAI is now set to become a Public Benefit Corporation, with its investors entitled to uncapped profit shares. Its nonprofit foundation will retain some measure of control and a 26% financial stake, in sharp contrast to its previous stronger control and much, much larger effective financial stake. The value transfer is in the hundreds of billions, thus potentially the largest theft in human history. I say potentially largest because I realized one could argue that the events surrounding the dissolution of the USSR involved a larger theft. Unless you really want to stretch the definition of what counts this seems to be in the top two. I am in no way surprised by OpenAI moving forward on this, but I am deeply disgusted and disappointed they are being allowed (for now) to do so, including this statement of no action by Delaware and this Memorandum of Understanding with California. Many media and public sources are calling this a win for the nonprofit, such as this from the San Francisco Chronicle. This is mostly them being fooled. They’re anchoring on OpenAI's previous plan to far more fully sideline the nonprofit. This is indeed a big win for [...] --- Outline: (01:38) OpenAI Calls It Completing Their Recapitalization (03:05) How Much Was Stolen? (07:02) The Nonprofit Still Has Lots of Equity After The Theft (10:41) The Theft Was Unnecessary For Further Fundraising (11:45) How Much Control Will The Nonprofit Retain? (23:13) Will These Control Rights Survive And Do Anything? (26:17) What About OpenAI's Deal With Microsoft? (31:10) What Will OpenAI's Nonprofit Do Now? (36:33) Is The Deal Done? --- First published: October 31st, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wCc7XDbD8LdaHwbYg/openai-moves-to-complete-potentially-the-largest-theft-in --- 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.

    38 min

  6. 30 OCT

    “AI #140: Trying To Hold The Line” by Zvi

    Sometimes the best you can do is try to avoid things getting even worse even faster. Thus, one has to write articles such as ‘Please Do Not Sell B30A Chips to China.’ It's rather crazy to think that one would have to say this out loud. In the same way, it seems not only do we need to say out loud to Not Build Superintelligence Right Now, there are those who say how dare you issue such a statement without knowing how to do so safety, so instead we should build superintelligence without knowing how to do so safety. The alternative is to risk societal dynamics we do not know how to control and that could have big unintended consequences, you say? Yes, well. One good thing to come out of that was that Sriram Krishnan asked (some of) the right questions, giving us the opportunity to try and answer. I also provided updates on AI Craziness Mitigation Efforts from OpenAI and Anthropic. We can all do better here. Tomorrow, I’ll go over OpenAI's ‘recapitalization’ and reorganization, also known as one of the greatest thefts in human history. Compared to what we feared, it looks like we did relatively well [...] --- Outline: (02:01) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility (06:37) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility (12:18) Huh, Upgrades (14:55) On Your Marks (16:40) Choose Your Fighter (22:57) Get My Agent On The Line (24:00) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon (25:10) Fun With Media Generation (28:42) Copyright Confrontation (28:56) They Took Our Jobs (30:50) Get Involved (30:55) Introducing (32:22) My Name is Neo (34:38) In Other AI News (36:50) Show Me the Money (39:36) One Trillion Dollars For My Robot Army (42:43) One Million TPUs (45:57) Anthropic's Next Move (46:55) Quiet Speculations (53:26) The Quest for Sane Regulations (58:54) The March of California Regulations (01:06:49) Not So Super PAC (01:08:32) Chip City (01:12:52) The Week in Audio (01:13:12) Do Not Take The Bait (01:14:43) Rhetorical Innovation (01:17:02) People Do Not Like AI (01:18:08) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult (01:21:28) Misaligned! (01:23:29) Anthropic Reports Claude Can Introspect (01:30:59) Anthropic Reports On Sabotage Risks (01:34:49) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone (01:35:24) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone (01:38:08) The Lighter Side --- First published: October 30th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TwbA3zTr99eh2kgCf/ai-140-trying-to-hold-the-line --- 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.

    1h 40m

  7. 29 OCT

    “Please Do Not Sell B30A Chips to China” by Zvi

    The Chinese and Americans are currently negotiating a trade deal. There are plenty of ways to generate a win-win deal, and early signs of this are promising on many fronts. Since this will be discussed for real tomorrow as per reports, I will offer my thoughts on this one more time. The biggest mistake America could make would be to effectively give up Taiwan, which would be catastrophic on many levels including that Taiwan contains TSMC. I am assuming we are not so foolish as to seriously consider doing this, still I note it. Beyond that, the key thing, basically the only thing, America has to do other than ‘get a reasonable deal overall’ is not be so captured or foolish or both as to allow export of the B30A chip, or even worse than that (yes it can always get worse) allow relaxation of restrictions on semiconductor manufacturing imports. At first I hadn’t heard signs about this. But now it looks like the nightmare of handing China compute parity on a silver platter is very much in play. I disagreed with the decision to sell the Nvidia H20 chips to China, but that [...] --- Outline: (02:01) What It Would Mean To Sell The B30A (07:22) A Note On The 'Tech Stack' (08:32) A Note On Trade Imbalances (09:06) What If They Don't Want The Chips? (10:15) Nvidia Is Going Great Anyway Thank You (11:20) Oh Yeah That Other Thing --- First published: October 29th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ijYpLexfhHyhM2HBC/please-do-not-sell-b30a-chips-to-china --- 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.

    13 min

  8. 28 OCT

    “AI Craziness Mitigation Efforts” by Zvi

    AI chatbots in general, and OpenAI and ChatGPT and especially GPT-4o the absurd sycophant in particular, have long had a problem with issues around mental health. I covered various related issues last month. This post is an opportunity to collect links to previous coverage in the first section, and go into the weeds on some new events in the later sections. A lot of you should likely skip most of the in-the-weeds discussions. What Are The Problems There are a few distinct phenomena we have reason to worry about: Several things that we group together under the (somewhat misleading) title ‘AI psychosis,’ ranging from reinforcing crank ideas or making people think they’re always right in relationship fights to causing actual psychotic breaks. Thebes referred to this as three problem modes: The LLM as a social relation that draws you into madness, as an object relation [...] --- Outline: (00:36) What Are The Problems (03:06) This Week In Crazy (05:05) OpenAI Updates Its Model Spec (09:00) Detection Rates (11:08) Anthropic Says Thanks For The Memories (12:32) Boundary Violations (18:41) A Note On Claude Prompt Injections (20:17) Conclusion --- First published: October 28th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vrjM8qLKbiAYKAHTa/ai-craziness-mitigation-efforts --- 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.

    22 min
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Audio narrations of LessWrong posts by zvi

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  • Creator
    zvi
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    250
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 All rights reserved
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    LessWrong posts by zvi

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