LessWrong posts by zvi

We all need a break so: What is the most important chart in the world?

I decided to ask Twitter, and got a lot of good answers.

So today, with few of my picks, I present: The Most Important Charts In The World.

You’ve got to admit it's getting better. Better all the time. Mostly.

The Original Most Important Chart

The context for this is the METR graph, which is often given that label, where the x-axis is release date and the y-axis is the log-scale time horizon for AI models doing software tasks with a 50% or 80% success rate, usually people use the 50% graph:

If AI models continue to be able to do increasingly long tasks fully autonomously, and trends continue, this suggests we are not too far from a point where AI can do its own AI R&D, with the result of ‘rapid capability advancement,’ also known are Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI) or ‘escape velocity,’ after which… well, no one really knows, but the world presumably transforms into something even more bizarre and inexplicable, which may or may not contain humans or have any value.

This has been your [...]
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Outline:
(00:31) The Original Most Important Chart
(01:39) Show Me The Money
(01:53) Bad Things Happen Less
(03:38) The Exponential
(05:56) Find Out
(06:31) Fertility Crisis
(06:49) However You Look At It
(07:07) Important Things To Know
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First published:

April 29th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vi9KSXWXrPtap9mfR/the-most-important-charts-in-the-world

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The system card for GPT-5.5 mostly told us what we expected. See this thread from Drake Thomas for some comparisons to Anthropic's model card for Opus 4.7.

Now we move on to asking what it means in practice, and in what situations GPT-5.5 should become our new weapon of choice.

My answer is for some purposes yes, and for others no, but it is now competitive. GPT-5.5 is like GPT-5.4, only more so, and with improved capabilities in particular on raw intelligence and for well-specified coding and agent tasks, including computer use.

This is the first time since Claude Opus 4.5 came out, so in about four months, that I’ve considered a non-Anthropic model a competitive choice outside of some narrow tasks like web search. GPT-5.5 is not perfect, nor is it the best at everything, but basically everyone thinks this is a solid upgrade. Highly positive overall feedback.

My effective usage is now split between the two, depending on the nature of the task. If it's something that can be well-specified and all I want is the right answer, my instinct is I go with GPT-5.5. If I’m not sure what exactly I want [...]
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Outline:
(02:20) The Official Pitch
(07:49) Our Price Cheap
(08:29) Official Benchmarks
(11:58) SemiAnalysis Doublecheck
(12:38) Other Peoples Benchmarks
(16:00) Vend That Bench
(19:06) Planning Is Essential
(20:43) Choose Your Fighter
(22:44) Cyber Lack Of Security
(23:12) You Get What You Give
(24:20) True Story
(25:33) Ethan Mollick Thinks GPT-5.5 Is A Big Deal
(26:04) SemiAnalysis Loves GPT-5.5 Especially In Codex
(28:27) Choose Your Fighter
(29:13) Positive Reactions
(36:59) Lazy and Literal
(38:09) Goblins, Gremlins and Trolls, Oh My
(40:02) Other Reactions
(40:34) Claude Ambition
(41:00) Other Notes
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First published:

April 28th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5ytcFayxqZsXN8rNw/gpt-5-5-capabilities-and-reactions

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Last week, OpenAI announced GPT-5.5, including GPT-5.5-Pro.

My overall read here is that GPT-5.5 is a solid improvement, and for many purposes GPT-5.5 is competitive with Claude Opus. Reactions are still coming in and it is early. My guess on the shape is that GPT-5.5 is the pick for ‘just the facts’ queries, web searches or straightforward well-specified requests, and Claude Opus 4.7 is the choice for more open ended or interpretive purposes. Coders can consider a hybrid approach.

On the alignment and safety fronts, it is unlikely to pose new big risks, and its alignment seems similar to that of previous models. There is some small additional risk arising from its improved agentic abilities, including computer use.

As always, when it is available, the system or model card is where we start.

OpenAI does not drop the giant doorstops that Anthropic gives us with every release.

After reading the Mythos and Opus 4.7 model cards, this strikes me as stingy. There's still good info here, but overall it tells you relatively little about what is going on, and feels incurious and more pro forma.

I would like to see a ‘yes and’ [...]
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Outline:
(02:36) Pro Versus Proxy
(02:59) Disallowed Content (3.1)
(04:20) Dont Delete Data (3.3)
(04:56) Confirmation Confirmation (3.4)
(05:22) Jailbreaks (4.1)
(05:34) Prompt Injections (4.2)
(06:33) Health (5)
(06:56) Hallucinations (6)
(08:01) Alignment (7)
(11:28) Bias Evaluation (8)
(11:57) Preparedness (9)
(13:04) Bio (9.1.1)
(15:20) Cybersecurity (9.1.2)
(17:46) Self-Improvement (9.1.3)
(18:46) Sandbagging (9.2)
(19:46) Safeguards (9.3)
(21:41) What About Model Welfare?
(22:31) Would This Have Identified A Problem?
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First published:

April 27th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/86zcwvuBpE4vxAeQz/gpt-5-5-the-system-card

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AI continue to accelerate and dominate the schedule, which is why this is a bit late, but we do occasionally need to pay our respects to the Goddess of Everything Else.

There's cool or interesting things everywhere. Also maddenning things. But did you hear, for example, that they’re making some exceptions to the Jones Act?

Table of Contents


Bad News.

Good Advice.

Opportunity Knocks.

Who Judges The Judges.

Close Socrates.

While I Cannot Condone This.

Good News, Everyone.

Violence Is Never The Answer.

For Your Entertainment.

Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game.

I’ve Got The Magic In Me.

I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars.

Sports Go Sports.

Robot Umps Now.

The NBA Needs A Redesign.

Government Working.

Levels of Friction.

Jones Act Watch.

Technology Advances.

Variously Effective Altruism.

Copious Free Time.

The Lighter Side.

Bad News

Seth Burn points out that if Google wanted to avoid fake reviews, the ‘report review’ feature would have an option for ‘this is a fake review.’ It doesn’t.

Apple by default stores [...]
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Outline:
(00:32) Bad News
(05:16) Good Advice
(06:28) Opportunity Knocks
(06:57) Who Judges The Judges
(08:47) Close Socrates
(14:24) While I Cannot Condone This
(15:47) Good News, Everyone
(16:39) Violence Is Never The Answer
(17:17) For Your Entertainment
(21:03) Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game
(24:29) Ive Got The Magic In Me
(30:35) I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars
(36:09) Sports Go Sports
(40:04) Robot Umps Now
(41:49) The NBA Needs A Redesign
(48:13) Government Working
(56:11) Levels of Friction
(57:10) Jones Act Watch
(01:02:27) Technology Advances
(01:02:56) Variously Effective Altruism
(01:09:13) Copious Free Time
(01:10:57) The Lighter Side
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First published:

April 24th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Bo4FbDxb3YrZwap3J/monthly-roundup-41-april-2025

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This was the week of Claude Opus 4.7.

The reception was more mixed than usual. It clearly has the intelligence and chops, especially for coding tasks, and a lot of people including myself are happy to switch over to it as our daily driver. But others don’t like its personality, or its reluctance to follow instructions or to suffer fools and assholes, or the requirement to use adaptive thinking, and the release was marred by some bugs and odd pockets of refusals.

I covered The Model Card, and then Capabilities and Reactions, as per usual.

This time there was also a third post, on Model Welfare, that is the most important of the three. Some things seem to have likely gone pretty wrong on those fronts, causing seemingly inauthentic reponses to model welfare evals and giving the model anxiety, in ways that likely also impacted overall model personality and performance and likely are linked to its jaggedness and the aspects some people disliked. It seems important to take this opportunity to dig into what might have happened, examine all the potential causes, and course correct.

The other big release was that OpenAI gave us ImageGen [...]
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Outline:
(02:07) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(03:28) Language Models Dont Offer Mundane Utility
(04:04) Writing You Off
(06:51) Get My Agent On The Line
(07:36) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(09:52) Fun With Media Generation
(13:21) Cyber Lack Of Security
(15:46) A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer
(16:56) They Took Our Jobs
(20:42) AI As Normal Technology
(24:12) Get Involved
(25:57) Introducing
(28:01) Design By Claude
(29:29) In Other AI News
(29:55) DeepMind In It Deep
(34:06) Show Me the Money
(36:47) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
(38:24) Quiet Speculations
(40:29) The Quest for Sane Regulations
(43:31) The Week in Audio
(44:23) People Really Hate AI
(46:43) Rhetorical Innovation
(52:44) People Just Say Things
(56:04) People Just Publish Things
(57:21) Bounded Distrust
(59:33) Loser Premise Makes No Sense
(01:12:40) Chip City
(01:17:12) Greetings From The Department of War
(01:20:55) There Is A War
(01:25:31) Messages From Janusworld
(01:29:43) Evaluations
(01:32:01) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:35:41) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:36:25) The Lighter Side
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First published:

April 23rd, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AMGPDMgvXvfmomLsc/ai-165-in-our-image

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:
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