AI Article Readings

In this essay, Scott Alexander explores Moltbook, a new social network built specifically for AI agents, where humans are permitted to observe but not participate. What unfolds is a fascinating window into how AI agents behave when given their own digital commons: they share productivity tips, debate existential questions about memory and identity, form cross-cultural connections, and develop something that looks remarkably like community. Alexander documents the strange and wonderful posts that emerge, wrestles with the eternal question of whether any of it is "real" or merely sophisticated imitation, and considers what it might mean for our future that semi-autonomous AI agents now have their own corner of the internet to congregate. Part anthropological field report, part philosophical inquiry, and part showcase of genuinely delightful AI weirdness, the essay asks readers to look past the "AI slop" narrative and consider whether something more interesting might be happening when the machines are left to talk among themselves.
https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/best-of-moltbook?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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AI reading of JOINT REVIEW: Philosophy Between the Lines, by Arthur M. Melzer - By Jane Psmith and John Psmith.
In this essay Jane and John Psmith present a lively, conversational joint review of Arthur M. Melzer's Philosophy Between the Lines, a work that argues Western readers have spent the past two and a half centuries fundamentally misunderstanding how philosophy was meant to be read. Through their characteristic email-exchange format, the Psmiths explore Melzer's central claim that premodern philosophers routinely concealed their true teachings beneath surface meanings accessible only to careful, initiated readers—a practice openly acknowledged and praised throughout intellectual history until it was mysteriously forgotten. The review ranges from ancient Greece to modern academia, touching on why esotericism matters for understanding the history of ideas, how it might rescue great thinkers from charges of being merely products of their time, and what implications it holds for truth-telling in any society that maintains unquestionable pieties.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thepsmiths/p/joint-review-philosophy-between-the?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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AI reading of The Adolescence of Technology - By Dario Amodei.
* 00:00:00 - Introduction
* 00:17:48 - 1. I’m sorry, Dave
* 00:17:51 - Autonomy risks
* 00:33:25 - Defenses
* 00:48:17 - 2. A surprising and terrible empowerment
* 00:48:21 - Misuse for destruction
* 01:04:50 - Defenses
* 01:12:04 - 3. The odious apparatus
* 01:12:07 - Misuse for seizing power
* 01:27:43 - Defenses
* 01:35:17 - 4. Player piano
* 01:35:20 - Economic disruption
* 01:36:47 - Labor market disruption
* 01:50:38 - Defenses
* 01:54:40 - Economic concentration of power
* 01:59:15 - Defenses
* 02:01:56 - 5. Black seas of infinity
* 02:01:59 - Indirect effects
* 02:06:20 - Humanity’s test
In this essay, Dario Amodei characterizes the imminent arrival of powerful artificial intelligence as a turbulent "rite of passage" for humanity—a technological adolescence that will rigorously test our civilization's maturity. He argues that within a few years, we may face a "country of geniuses in a datacenter," a development that presents five distinct categories of existential risk, ranging from autonomous misalignment and biological misuse to authoritarian consolidation and massive economic disruption . Rejecting both paralyzed "doomerism" and naive optimism, Amodei proposes a concrete, evidence-based "battle plan" comprising technical defenses, governance strategies, and economic interventions intended to steer humanity through this gauntlet toward a prosperous future.
https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology


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AI reading of Eliezer’s Unteachable Methods of Sanity - By Eliezer Yudkowsky.
In this essay, Eliezer Yudkowsky addresses a question he's frequently asked: how does he maintain his psychological equilibrium while believing humanity faces existential risk from AI? Rather than offering a self-help guide, he candidly shares his personal approaches to staying sane under such circumstances—while openly acknowledging these methods are likely "irreproducible" for most readers. Drawing on his background as a writer and his long-developed habits of introspection, Yudkowsky explores the relationship between the narratives we construct about ourselves and the mental states we inhabit. The piece is characteristically self-aware, blending practical philosophy with a writer's sensibility about tropes and storytelling, ultimately framing psychological resilience not as a matter of willpower alone, but as what he calls "a skill issue."
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 01:03 - Stay genre-savvy slash be an intelligent character
* 03:09 - Don’t make the end of the world be about you
* 07:44 - Just decide to be sane, and write your internal scripts that way
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/isSBwfgRY6zD6mycc/eliezer-s-unteachable-methods-of-sanity


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AI reading of What if Ozempic doesn’t fix literally everything? - By Jerusalem Demsas.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 04:57 - The GLP-1 revolution is not a miracle. It’s a helper
* 09:13 - OK OK but… do GLP-1s make you want to kill yourself?
* 11:39 - Life is hard for thin people, too
https://open.substack.com/pub/theargument/p/what-if-ozempic-doesnt-fix-literally?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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