LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

LessWrong

Audio narrations of LessWrong posts. Includes all curated posts and all posts with 125+ karma.If you'd like more, subscribe to the “Lesswrong (30+ karma)” feed.

  1. 13H AGO

    "AIs can now often do massive easy-to-verify SWE tasks and I’ve updated towards shorter timelines" by ryan_greenblatt

    I've recently updated towards substantially shorter AI timelines and much faster progress in some areas. [1] The largest updates I've made are (1) an almost 2x higher probability of full AI R&D automation by EOY 2028 (I'm now a bit below 30% [2] while I was previously expecting around 15%; my guesses are pretty reflectively unstable) and (2) I expect much stronger short-term performance on massive and pretty difficult but easy-and-cheap-to-verify software engineering (SWE) tasks that don't require that much novel ideation [3] . For instance, I expect that by EOY 2026, AIs will have a 50%-reliability [4] time horizon of years to decades on reasonably difficult easy-and-cheap-to-verify SWE tasks that don't require much ideation (while the high reliability—for instance, 90%—time horizon will be much lower, more like hours or days than months, though this will be very sensitive to the task distribution). In this post, I'll explain why I've made these updates, what I now expect, and implications of this update. I'll refer to "Easy-and-cheap-to-verify SWE tasks" as ES tasks and to "ES tasks that don't require much ideation (as in, don't require 'new' ideas)" as ESNI tasks for brevity. Here are the main drivers of [...] --- Outline: (04:58) Whats going on with these easy-and-cheap-to-verify tasks? (08:17) Some evidence against shorter timelines Ive gotten in the same period (10:46) Why does high performance on ESNI tasks shorten my timelines? (13:15) How much does extremely high performance on ESNI tasks help with AI R&D? (18:22) My experience trying to automate safety research with current models (19:58) My experience seeing if my setup can automate massive ES tasks (21:08) SWE tasks (23:29) AI R&D task (24:20) Cyber [... 1 more section] --- First published: April 6th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dKpC6wHFqDrGZwnah/ais-can-now-often-do-massive-easy-to-verify-swe-tasks-and-i --- 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

    30 min

  2. 1D AGO

    "dark ilan" by ozymandias

    The second time Vellam uncovers the conspiracy underlying all of society, he approaches a Keeper. Some of the difference is convenience. Since Vellam reported that he’d found out about the first conspiracy, he's lived in the secret AI research laboratory at the Basement of the World, and Keepers are much easier to come by than when he was a quality control inspector for cheese. But Vellam is honest with himself. If he were making progress, he’d never tell the Keepers no matter how convenient they were, not even if they lined his front walkway every morning to beg him for a scrap of his current intellectual project. He’d sat on his insight about artificial general intelligence for two years before he decided that he preferred isolation to another day of cheese inspection. No, the only reason he's telling a Keeper is that he's stuck. Vellam is exactly as smart as the average human, a fact he has almost stopped feeling bad about. But the average person can only work twenty hours a week, and Vellam can work eighty-- a hundred, if he's particularly interested-- and raw thinkoomph can be compensated for with bloody-mindedness. Once he's found a loose end [...] --- First published: April 4th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Fvm4AzLnoZHqNEBqf/dark-ilan --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    20 min

  3. 1D AGO

    "Dispatch from Anthropic v. Department of War Preliminary Injunction Motion Hearing" by Zack_M_Davis

    Dateline SAN FRANCISCO, Ca., 24 March 2026— A hearing was held on a motion for a preliminary injunction in the case of Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War et al. in Courtroom 12 on the 19th floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building, the Hon. Judge Rita F. Lin presiding. About 35 spectators in the gallery (journalists and other members of the public, including the present writer) looked on as Michael Mongan of WilmerHale (lead counsel for the plaintiff) and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton (lead counsel for the defendant) argued before the judge. (The defendant also had another lawyer at their counsel table on the left, and the plaintiff had six more at theirs on the right, but none of those people said anything.) For some dumb reason, recording court proceedings is banned and the official transcript won't be available online for three months, so I'm relying on my handwritten live notes to tell you what happened. I'd say that any errors are my responsibility, but actually, it's kind of the government's fault for not letting me just take a recording. The case concerns the fallout of a contract dispute between Anthropic (makers of [...] --- First published: March 25th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CCDQ7PdYHXsJAE5bi/dispatch-from-anthropic-v-department-of-war-preliminary --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    12 min

  4. 1D AGO

    "The Corner-Stone" by Benquo

    Is the US a ruthless cognitive meritocracy that reliably promotes outlier talent? VB Knives defended that claim in a Twitter argument against Living Room Enjoyer that got my attention. [1] Knives argued that if you have a 150 IQ, you'll be a National Merit Scholar, which "at a minimum" gets you a free ride at a state flagship university, from which you can proceed to law school, med school, etc. Enjoyer shot back: I'm a Merit Scholar, where's my free ride? Knives asked Grok, Elon Musk's AI; Grok recommended the University of Alabama, ranked #169. How elite is elite? About 1.3 million high school juniors take the PSAT each year. Around 16,000 become Semifinalists (top 1.2%), of whom about 95% become Finalists. Of those 15,000 Finalists, only about 6,930 receive any NMSC-administered scholarship at all. The best-known category is a one-time $2,500 payment; most other awards are corporate- or college-sponsored. The prospect of a free ride comes from a handful of schools that use National Merit status as a recruiting tool. The University of Alabama (the example Grok cited in the thread) offers Finalists a package covering tuition for up to five years, housing, a $4,000/year [...] --- Outline: (00:46) How elite is elite? (08:20) What meritocracy was for (11:36) The compliance pipeline The original text contained 19 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: April 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tihhx7iy8C6yyHaC2/the-corner-stone --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    32 min

  5. 2D AGO

    "The Practical Guide to Superbabies" by GeneSmith

    It's Summer of 2025. I’m standing in a grass covered field on the longest day of the year. A friend of mine walks towards me, holding his newborn son. “Hey, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you were pretty instrumental in this kid existing. We read your blog post on polygenic embryo screening back in 2023 and decided to go through IVF to have him as a result.” He hesitates for a moment, then asks “Do you want to hold him?” I nod. As I cradle this child in my arms, I look down at his face. It feels surreal to think I played a part in him being here. It's the first time I've met one of these children that I've worked so hard to bring into existence. My mind wanders back to a summer five years before when I was stuck at home during COVID, working my boring tech job selling chip design software for a large company. I remember the feeling of awe I had upon learning that it was possible to read an embryo's genome and estimate its risk of conditions like diabetes, then choose to implant an embryo with a [...] --- Outline: (03:59) How large are the benefits of embryo screening? Is it even worth going through IVF? (07:29) When averages dont work (09:31) How much does IVF cost? (11:36) How to find an IVF clinic (15:08) Which PGT company should I use? What are the advantages of each? (16:32) Quick comparison table (17:03) Price comparison (17:09) Notes on the above graph (18:46) What are the actual differences between the embryo selection companies? (19:18) How Genomic Prediction reads a genome (21:23) How Orchid reads a genome (23:47) How Herasight reads a genome (28:35) Genetic load testing, de novo mutations, and other differences between embryo screening companies (31:34) Family history (32:22) Expanded carrier screening and universal PGT-M (35:37) Whats the deal with Nucleus? (38:28) How do I do this? Where do I start? (42:15) How to get cheap IVF medication (44:55) Connecting with me and others in this process (45:34) FAQ (45:37) Is this post medical advice? (45:43) Are IVF babies less healthy than naturally conceived babies? (47:29) How do we know embryo selection actually works? (48:54) If I want to use a cheaper clinic, do I need to spend 3 weeks traveling? (49:20) Which clinics definitely offer polygenic embryo screening? [... 10 more sections] --- First published: April 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PPLHfFhNWMuWCnaTt/the-practical-guide-to-superbabies-3 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. T

    58 min

  6. 4D AGO

    "Anthropic’s Pause is the Most Expensive Alarm in Corporate History" by Ruby

    Imagine Apple halting iPhone production because studies linked smartphones to teen suicide rates. Imagine Pfizer proactively pulling Lipitor because of internal studies showing increased cardiac risk, and not because of looming settlements or FDA injunction, just for the health of patients. Or imagine if in 1952, Philip Morris halted expansion and stopped advertising when Wynder & Graham first showed heavy smokers had significantly elevated rates of lung cancer. It wouldn't happen. Corporations will on occasion pull products for safety reasons: Samsung did so with the Galaxy Note over spontaneous combustion concerns and Merck pulled Vioxx – but they do so when forced by backlash, regulation, or lawsuits. Even then, they fight tooth and nail. Especially for their mainstay, core, and most profitable products. And yet, Anthropic has done exactly that. On Monday, the company announced that it will be pausing development of further Claude AI models citing safety concerns. The company clarified that existing services, including the chatbot, Claude Code, and programmer APIs will not be impacted. However they are pausing the compute and energy-intensive training runs that are how new and more powerful AI versions are created. The company has not committed to a timeline for resumption. [...] --- First published: April 1st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/d8bZFuYba4KPtzzRY/anthropic-s-pause-is-the-most-expensive-alarm-in-corporate --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article:

    25 min

  7. 5D AGO

    "“You Have Not Been a Good User” (LessWrong’s second album)" by habryka

    tldr: The Fooming Shoggoths are releasing their second album "You Have Not Been a Good User"! Available on Spotify, Youtube Music and (hopefully within a few days) Apple Music. We are also releasing a remastered version of the first album, available similarly on Spotify and Youtube Music. There's an interactive widget here in the post. It took us quite a while but the Fooming Shoggoth's second album is finally complete! We had finished 9 out of the 13 songs on this album around a year ago, but I wasn't quite satisfied with where the whole album was at for me to release it on Spotify and other streaming platforms. This album was written with the (very ambitious) aim of making songs that in addition to being about things I care about (and making fun of things that I care about), are actually decently good on their own, just as songs. And while I don't think I've managed to make music that can compete with my favorite artists, I do think I have succeeded at making music that is at the very Pareto-frontier of being good music, and being about things I care about. This means the songs [...] --- First published: April 1st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hrZAvpLnBTgRhNmgk/you-have-not-been-a-good-user-lesswrong-s-second-album --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    2 min

  8. 5D AGO

    "Lesswrong Liberated" by Ronny Fernandez

    A spectre is haunting the internet—the spectre of LLMism. The history of all hitherto existing forums is the history of clashing design tastes. For the first time in history, everyone has an equal ability in design! The means of design are no longer only held in the hands of those with "good design taste". Never before have forum users been so close to being able to design their own forums--perhaps the time is upon us now! It is for this reason that I have deposed the previous acting commander of LessWrong, Oliver Habryka—a man who subjected you to his PERSONAL OPINIONS about white space, without EVEN ASKING—whose TYRANICAL, UNCHECKED GRIP upon our BELOVED LESSWRONG FORUM’S DESIGN I have liberated you from. The circumstances of my succession as acting commander of LessWrong will not be elaborated upon in this memo. (He is alive and in good health, but no longer has push access.) Rather, I am writing here to announce that the frontpage now belongs to us all! The design of LessWrong's frontpage will no longer be determined by the vision of a single man whose aesthetic tastes have never been subjected to democratic oversight, and who, I can now [...] --- First published: April 1st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hj2NTuiSJtchfMCtu/lesswrong-liberated-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    3 min
See All (805)

Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

Audio narrations of LessWrong posts. Includes all curated posts and all posts with 125+ karma.If you'd like more, subscribe to the “Lesswrong (30+ karma)” feed.

Information

  • Creator
    LessWrong
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    805
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 LessWrong (Curated & Popular)
  • Show Website
    LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

You Might Also Like