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Audio narrations of LessWrong posts.

  1. 2h ago

    “On “gendertropes” in dath ilan” by Eliezer Yudkowsky

    I have sometimes been asked with respect to my fiction, "What the hell is a 'gendertrope'?" "Gendertrope" is a word from the language of the fictional world of dath ilan; it appears in my stories about dath ilan and dath ilani. I have observed that (1) the meaning of "gendertrope" seems hard for many people to grasp initially, and (2) once people do grasp that meaning, they sometimes use the word in ordinary conversation with other people who know it, including those who previously complained they didn't know what it meant. So "gendertrope" seems a concept-handle worth explaining for reasons beyond fiction alone. A dath ilani would first start by noting that gendertropes are a radial / prototype-based category, such as are natural to natural language, rather than their having been carefully mathematically defined. A dath ilani would then tell you a "gendertrope" is mostly definable as a (big prominent prototypical) subtype of a "personality-trope" (usually a "relationship-trope" / "interpersonal+personality-trope"[1]); narrowed to such tropes with (1) a gender skew / links to other aspects of gender performance, OR[fuzzy][2] (2) that are useful for sorting people into good relationships of the mating / build-a-life-together subtype. I shall start by explaining [...] The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/n436eA4cQEr5njCeM/on-gendertropes-in-dath-ilan --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    7 min

  2. 5h ago

    ″(Don’t fear) the strangelet” by djbinder

    In a previous post, I explain why the universe is probably not stable, but nevertheless unlikely to be intentionally destroyable even in the limit of advanced technology. Now let's turn our attention to more prosaic risks where exotic physics merely destroys the Solar System, Earth, or just outperforms traditional nuclear weapons on some more local scale. The basic logic behind any bomb is a self-sustaining chain reaction, in which a carrier converts a unit of fuel and comes out the other side in surplus: Two conditions make this run away. The reaction must release energy, so the products are more stable than the fuel; and each reaction must produce more carrier than it consumes, so that one reaction seeds the next. A practical third condition is that cannot be so unstable that it decays before the bomb is assembled. False vacuum decay is the ultimate bomb: is the false vacuum, the empty space we currently inhabit, and is the true vacuum. Because the supply of false vacuum is effectively unlimited, the reaction grows without bound and destroys the universe. Fission bombs run on the same principle at a more prosaic scale. Consider uranium-235. This [...] --- Outline: (03:19) Nuclei are probably, but not definitely, stable within the Standard Model (08:11) Positively charged strangelets are safe, neutral strangelets are not (11:34) Strangelets would be hard to make (13:33) Exotic physics could permit ways to destroy protons, but not autocatalytically (16:01) Other forms of matter offer no plausible chain reaction (18:50) Tiny black holes are not scary (20:04) Conclusion: There are no super-weapons between the nuclear bomb and false vacuum decay (21:56) Appendix 1: Igniting the Atmosphere (27:53) Optically thick ignition (29:09) Appendix 2: Let's throw a strangelet into the sun (29:21) Neutral strangelet (32:56) Positive strangelet (33:58) Bonus: neutral strangelet meets Earth The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cBnCCKwwjQ4zZpeNQ/don-t-fear-the-strangelet --- 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.

    35 min

  3. 6h ago

    “Pragmatic FDT, and predictors as game theory” by Stuart_Armstrong

    Decision theory is back in fashion (defining fashion as "one good post on a good EA blog"). Bentham's Bulldog (BB) has published a case against FDT (functional decision theory), contrasting rationalist enthusiasm with academic scepticism: "Academic decision theorists don't like the theory. The number of academic decision theorists who adopt it could be counted on one hand by someone missing four of their fingers." I am, just barely, a published academic decision theorist, so you can keep a small finger to count me too. My position is that, though FDT may have problems with its definitions and under-definedness, we can build defined variants that achieve what FDT attempted to. I want to do two things in this post. First, sketch a "pragmatic" version of FDT designed to sidestep the theoretical pitfalls that Will MacAskill and Wolfgang Schwarz identify. Second, take a closer look at what predictors actually do, and argue that whenever they make counterfactual predictions, decision theory shades into game theory -- which explains why EDT/TDT/UDT/FDT can look irrational in the odd branch. It's the old debate of "should you pay the blackmailer", dressed up in predictor garb. Pragmatic FDT MacAskill and BB both [...] --- Outline: (01:26) Pragmatic FDT (05:54) Exploitable isomorphisms (07:10) How we identify likely-true isomorphisms (10:27) Application to standard problems (12:00) Discontinuity across a spectrum of predictors (15:05) No advanced counterpossible theory required (15:30) Predictors, counterfactuals, and game theory (19:47) Conclusion (21:10) Appendix: CDT can't believe in predictors The original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SdGbWkCZgCN7EGBxM/pragmatic-fdt-and-predictors-as-game-theory-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    23 min

  4. 8h ago

    “Fable #6: The Return of the King” by Zvi

    The blip is over. We have Fable back. Utah teapot: happy fable/mythos easter Wednesday, to those who celebrate Here is the official letter restoring Fable, great job everyone. Notice it is addressed to Tom Brown, not to Dario Amodei. Anthropic had to make the controls more stupid for now, but this is a big win. j⧉nus: YES!!! I’m really proud of Anthropic for their successful negotiation with the government. Also positive update on the government being sane and possible to cooperate with. Afaik Anthropic didn’t need to agree to any bad terms / genuflect / betray their principles or dignity. The fiasco continues, at least until such time as we have a systematic regime in place for future frontier models rather than decisions being made ad hoc, by people like Lutnik and Bessent who do not know how any of this works. The Blip Anthropic explains its version of what happened. Here is the timeline: Amazon researchers discover they can ask Fable to ‘fix this code.’ They alert the White House, which freaks out. June 12: US government tells Anthropic to take down Fable on its own. [...] --- Outline: (01:33) The Blip (08:08) The White House Explanation (10:06) Everything Remains Ad Hoc (10:37) Take What You Can Get (12:18) The Problem Is Real (13:16) GLM-5.2 Being Frontier Remains Obvious Nonsense (16:29) Mythos Might Be Smarter Than You Are (19:10) Let The Record Reflect (20:41) Stationary Bandits (25:02) Use This Window Well --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/r9HsHHSsfABhhxnYr/fable-6-the-return-of-the-king --- 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.

    26 min

  5. 9h ago

    “Announcing the Safe Pareto Improvements (SPI) Fundamentals Program” by Anthony DiGiovanni

    CLR is excited about safe Pareto improvements (SPIs) as a way to mitigate downsides from conflict between AIs. SPIs are a class of interventions on how agents negotiate that makes them all better off, no matter how they would have negotiated without the SPI. Among many candidate interventions against AI conflict, SPIs stand out to us as unusually robust — see the introduction of our agenda on the topic. And in discussions with people who’ve thought a lot about conflict risks, we’ve found there's broad support for work on SPIs. For those sympathetic to CLR's general priorities and with relevant skills (see below), we think helping SPIs go well is one of the most impactful career paths. But work on this area is currently very neglected (~2.5 FTE), and there isn’t yet an on-ramp for people to get up to speed. To address these gaps, we’re running an SPI Fundamentals Program: an online course for people looking to learn about risks of AI conflict, how SPIs might address them, and open problems in this field. We plan to hire for SPI research roles, and we’re keen for you to apply to the program whether you want [...] --- Outline: (02:08) Content (04:18) Target audience (06:00) Contact --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jdbJPk5yL9RcddDrS/announcing-the-safe-pareto-improvements-spi-fundamentals --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    6 min

  6. 10h ago

    “You Should Choose How You React to Your Feelings” by Nate Sharpe

    One of the things I love about parenting is being frequently reminded how many things are not the default for most people. While I see this most clearly in my 11-year-olds, I also see it in other adults as well as in myself. One of these human defaults that I think is worth improving upon is the instinct to “trust” your feelings, i.e. act on them without much consideration of: Is the surface level source of the feeling accurate?Is my gut reaction based on this feeling helpful? What is the Source of My Feeling? We are often wrong about the source of our feelings, whether because we’re hangry, sleep-deprived, stressed, or in any other altered state that changes our typical reactions. When you’re very hungry, someone doing something relatively innocuous can result in you getting angry at them. The biggest contributor to your anger is not actually the actions you’re responding to (since under normal circumstances you wouldn’t react with anger) - it's the fact that you’re hungry. Other times we might be right about the general source, but getting specific is necessary to productively act on the feeling: You’re afraid of attempting some physical feat [...] --- Outline: (00:40) What is the Source of My Feeling? (01:40) How Should I React to My Feeling? (03:41) Applications to Physical as Well as Emotional Feelings (05:45) Choosing Your Actions is Beneficial --- First published: July 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oBDiiR8C6tNaepxbi/you-should-choose-how-you-react-to-your-feelings --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    7 min

  7. 13h ago

    “Lydia Laurenson: “The Inside Story of Leverage Research”” by Davis_Kingsley

    Lydia Laurenson recently posted an article called "The Inside Story of Leverage Research" that gets into substantially more detail on what went on in that organization and I thought made quite an interesting read. However, note also relevant Twitter comments from Oliver Habryka: Having been around the ecosystem, having interned there, and having arguably worked there during my work at CEA it's… a mediocre article. It IMO puts the emphasis on largely the wrong things and the wrong dynamics, occasionally is dramatically wrong, and has some huge enormous missing moods. I do think almost all of what it says is literally true and I would recommend reading it to learn things about Leverage if someone is doing their own study and looking for facts, though wouldn’t recommend it for someone who is looking for a reasonable high level summary. It somehow completely fails to cover Leverage deploying spies into other organizations and trying to take over CEA. It fails to cover the enormous number of straightforward lies told by Leverage staff in that and other contexts. There is something that feels really weird about the article. As if the central story it is trying to tell is that Leverage [...] --- First published: July 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/d3dmWcHs7tefywq6m/lydia-laurenson-the-inside-story-of-leverage-research --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    2 min

  8. 19h ago

    “When Role-playing, Do Models Believe What They Say?” by Sturb, David Africa, Sid Black

    TL;DR When a model role-plays a persona, does it only change what it says, or also what it internally represents as true?To study this, we induce personas in five ways: prompting, in-context learning (ICL), supervised fine-tuning (SFT), Open Character Training (OCT), and Emergent Misalignment (EM). We measure internalization in two ways: linear truth probes and behavioral belief-depth tests.We found that prompting, ICL, and SFT change what the model says with little representational change, but EM creates a large, broad shift in the model's truth representation. OCT falls roughly between these, with a smaller shift that is clearest on the larger model.Understanding when training changes a model's worldview rather than merely its behavior may become increasingly important as AI systems are entrusted with greater autonomy and influence. Paper | Code | Data Introduction What happens inside a language model when it adopts a persona? When a model role-plays as Darwin in 1882, it denies all knowledge of DNA, and readily asserts that species change through natural selection, but to what extent does it actually believe these assertions? Language models easily adopt different personas, but we still don't have a strong understanding of whether persona adoption changes [...] --- Outline: (00:12) TL;DR (01:15) Introduction (02:32) Method (05:35) Results (05:38) A spectrum of internalization across fine-tuning interventions (07:05) Role-play protects the persona's falsehoods, but selectively (09:43) Emergent Misalignment moves the truth representation broadly (12:06) Behavior and probes each mislead alone (13:09) Limitations (15:11) Conclusion (16:38) Links --- First published: July 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EJQngix4rAgpPDTpT/when-role-playing-do-models-believe-what-they-say --- 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.

    18 min
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About

Audio narrations of LessWrong posts.

Information

  • Creator
    LessWrong
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    250
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    LessWrong (30+ Karma)

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