LessWrong posts by zvi

The big story today is the release of Claude Fable 5, the version of Claude Mythos that Anthropic believes they can safely distribute to the people. You should absolutely be switching over to that model and trying it out. But as always, this blog does not rush into commenting on a new model until we have a few days to play around with it and see what our new baby can (and can’t) do. This will be no exception, and coverage of Fable in earnest will start Friday or Monday.

Today I instead bring you several related stories around policies and plans for AI, that came out before the Fable announcement.

First we have the Administration giving us an AI memorandum, that I read as an attempt to legally implement ‘Anthropic is fired forever and we will use any models we have for whatever we want no matter what’ combined with some good government and diffusion plans.

Second, OpenAI has come out with a plan for how to ensure AGI benefits everyone. It includes a very strong call for international coordination among key actors to ensure the ability to slow down AI development in the name [...]
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Outline:
(02:29) An AI Memorandum
(09:56) Greetings From The Department of War
(10:52) Lab With a Plan
(17:20) A Difference Of Perspectives
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First published:

June 9th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uWxW5KWnyHrGj6tpu/three-labs-with-a-plan-and-a-memorandum

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Right after a new Executive Order seems like an excellent time to offer OpenAI's new document: Democratic Governance of Frontier AI: A Blueprint For A Federal Framework.
OpenAI: We also see early signs of recursive self-improvement (RSI) in today's systems: where AI development is itself accelerated by AI.

We expect this to increase competitive pressures among developers and nations, and create governance challenges that existing institutions are not equipped to address. As RSI emerges, societies will need ways to shape the trajectory of AI development and ensure that it serves human interests.
I choose the glass half full view of the above statement. Yes, this is not exactly leveling with you about the full scope of the problem, but at this point, I’ll take it.

OpenAI praises democracy, notes the United States is in a unique position, and calls for transparency and state capacity, especially the ability to evaluate new models, on the SB 53 model. They call for CAISI to be empowered, for good government, for maintaining our compute advantage and several other good ideas.

Implementation details matter a lot, but this document exceeds expectations a lot.

Peter Wildeford: OPENAI: “We also see early signs of recursive self-improvement in [...] ---
Outline:
(04:16) What Do We Want?
(07:25) A National Framework
(11:18) Building State Capacity And CAISI
(12:31) Whole-Of-Government Resilience
(13:20) Reasonableness Rising
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First published:

June 5th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uvbpTpn6uoMuTbojX/openai-offers-a-new-policy-blueprint

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This was the week of Claude Opus 4.8. I covered the model card, then model welfare concerns, and finally capabilities and reactions. It's a good model, sir, an incremental but real improvement over Opus 4.7, and it is now my clear daily driver. The Trump Executive Order returned from being seemingly dead, officially putting us in the prior restraint era of frontier model releases, even if they do not call it that. There are some worrisome details, especially around putting too much responsibility on the NSA rather than CAISI and classifying the testing process, and things could go in very bad directions, but I am tentatively happy about this on net.

OpenAI offered us a new policy blueprint. It seems remarkably good, and I want to hold off on my full coverage to give it the attention it deserves, likely in its own post. By contrast, their political operations are also engaged in some rather terrible activities, which I do cover here.

Table of Contents


Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. You put your doc in a box.

Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. All thinking is adaptive.

Huh, Upgrades. Codex computer use on [...]
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Outline:
(01:11) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(06:45) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(06:59) Huh, Upgrades
(08:13) On Your Marks
(08:33) Choose Your Fighter
(08:54) Get My Agent On The Line
(09:20) Cyber Lack of Security
(11:03) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(12:42) You Didn't Write That
(16:29) Copyright Confrontation
(16:45) They Took Our Jobs
(18:47) They Taxed Our Jobs
(22:15) The Art of the Jailbreak
(24:43) Get Involved
(26:35) Introducing
(26:48) In Other AI News
(27:14) Show Me the Money
(27:28) Show Me The Compute
(28:40) Where Did The Money Go
(29:44) People Just Say Things
(32:22) OpenAI PACs Just Say Things
(41:04) OpenAI PAC Engaged In False Flag Advocacy For Violence
(46:55) So Sayeth The Pope
(54:26) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
(56:42) Quiet Speculations
(57:11) We Need Mandatory Nucleic Acid Screening and Recordkeeping
(01:01:14) The Quest for Sane Regulations
(01:02:56) More Reaction To The Executive Order
(01:03:54) Chip City
(01:07:18) The Week in Audio
(01:07:34) Rhetorical Innovation
(01:09:49) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:16:18) Model Welfare
(01:26:47) Messages From Janusworld
(01:28:05) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:28:38) The Lighter Side
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First published:

June 4th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LzxoR5GakceQFtbta/ai-171-false-flag

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Last week we were expecting an Executive Order on Thursday.

Then Trump cancelled it, and said he wouldn’t sign it because he was worried it would be too burdensome.

Then, with one change, he went ahead and signed it on Tuesday anyway.

The Overton Window has shifted. Nothing was not really a viable option anymore.

The Previously Dead Executive Order

For several days, we thought that David Sacks, together with others like Elon Musk, had successfully lobbied to kill the Executive Order. The ‘My Offer Is Nothing’ faction looked to have won. Word on the street was the order was essentially dead.

Dean Ball and Daniel Kokotajlo agreed, with the Executive Order looking dead, that the particular regime in the Executive Order is likely worse than nothing. This is plausible, given it did not exactly involve a lot of deliberate thought.

Nothing, however, was clearly not going to cut it.

We are facing, and will increasingly face, calls for action to regulate AI.

Representative Lori Trahan: There's no federal law on the books governing how the most powerful AI systems in the world are built, tested or deployed. No independent [...]
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Outline:
(00:46) The Previously Dead Executive Order
(05:18) The Return Of The Executive Order
(05:59) What Does The Executive Order Do
(07:11) Thirty Days Is a Lot Less Than Ninety Days
(07:30) Yes Your Frontier Lab Will Be Participating
(08:10) The Rules Will Be Classified
(08:40) Yes Prior Restraint With Confidential Testing Is Rather Regulatory
(14:38) We Have Concerns
(18:26) Saving Face
(21:37) How Frontier Or Different Are We Talking Here
(22:09) What To Watch For
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First published:

June 3rd, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDnfHrBzKc2pNQNdw/trump-signs-executive-order-for-ai-testing-prior-to-frontier

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You 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
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First published:

June 2nd, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AfLGv6u9eZNuFHb4c/claude-opus-4-8-capabilities-and-reactions

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