LessWrong posts by zvi

This is our reality. I suppose we have to talk about it.

Everyone in a position to know is freaking out about AI potentially killing everyone this decade and wants to pace the frontier, and people are finally listening.

It only took a few days for the conversation to fully pivot to the counteroffensive, where the Usual Suspects and those they recruited attacked anyone and everyone who dared point out that we are in danger, with every attack they can think of, usually without substance or any attempt at understanding.

Sigh. I knew what I signed up for.

Table of Contents


Hold Your Fire.

If You Don’t Like the Weather.

Trump Does Not Take Kindly.

Trump Goes Full ‘Hoax’.

This Is Not About Data Centers, Mr. President.

I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Walrus.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Is a Lying Liar.

Trump Quietly Draws Key Distinction.

Calling For Pacing the Frontier Is Bad For AI Stock Prices.

People On The Internet Sometimes Lie.

Origins of Cynicism.

Ineffective Egoism.

The McCarthyist Faction Attacks [...]
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Outline:
(00:44) Hold Your Fire
(01:37) If You Don't Like the Weather
(02:33) Trump Does Not Take Kindly
(05:12) Trump Goes Full 'Hoax'
(06:36) This Is Not About Data Centers, Mr. President
(08:06) I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Hoax Buster, I Am The Walrus
(10:10) Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Is a Lying Liar
(14:20) Trump Quietly Draws Key Distinction
(15:21) Calling For Pacing the Frontier Is Bad For AI Stock Prices
(19:05) People On The Internet Sometimes Lie
(19:54) Origins of Cynicism
(22:18) Ineffective Egoism
(24:53) The McCarthyist Faction Attacks METR
(32:25) Other Key Republicans React
(36:49) David Sacks Stops Being Plausibly Constructive
(37:39) Federal Trade Commission Chooses Danger
(38:39) Chris Lehane Heel Face Turn
(40:43) A Matter of Trust
(41:55) China Calls It Fearmongering
(43:17) Pick Up The Phone
(47:41) If You Want To Beat China So Badly You Should Act Like It
(48:49) Never Go Full Hoax
(49:55) Trump Uses AI For Things
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First published:

September 16th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kqgco8vLFMeBhdrQY/trump-goes-full-hoax-on-ai-existential-risk

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A lot of bad guys try to use Claude to do bad things. Mostly they fail. We think.

Anthropic has disrupted a bunch of them, and offers an extensive report. If Anthropic is sharing the worst cases, or anything close to them, things are actually looking good on the misuse front for closed models, even better than I thought.

This report covers activity we disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026

across seven harm areas: cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams

and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development, and distillation.

There's a bit of Arson, Murder and Jaywalking there. One of these things, many would say, is not like the others.

I do not agree, especially given the details we will see later, and given that distillation enables the other six via, as the report says, ‘driving performance on nearly every task’ via transfering Claude's cognitive skills, without transferring its safeguards.

Indeed, distillation is by far the most important threat in this report, and the part of the report that will have the most impact.

By exposing Chinese attempts at systematic fraudulent distillation of Claude, Anthropic has embarrassed and potentially antagonized the Chinese. [...]

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Outline:
(02:08) Breaking Unrelated News
(03:23) How To Not Tell a Fable
(03:58) Bad Dudes Tend To Be Relatively Unsophisticated
(05:45) Particular Bad Dudes
(08:09) Influence Operations
(13:09) Surveillance Operations
(15:22) Conventional Weapons
(17:30) Biological Misuse
(18:54) Scams and Fraud
(20:15) Illicit Fraudulent Distillation
(32:45) What You Gonna Do About It, Punk?
(34:53) Good News, Everyone
(35:39) A Very Different Read of The Report
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First published:

September 15th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qSjH9T83xCfWQkmk2/the-bad-guy-with-an-ai-named-claude

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Dario Amodei has a new essay that finally says the thing: We Must Pace the Frontier, naming his call after the Pacing the Frontier letter lab employees signed in July.

As in, we need to slow the rate at which AIs increase their capabilities, to allow for the necessary alignment and safety work.

He explained that, without pacing, he expects things to escalate quickly. He offered three proposals, and unilaterally committed to the first one. OpenAI followed, and both Elon Musk and Demis Hassabis endorsed the overall proposal.

There is still a long way to go. The odds are still against us. The situation remains grim. The hard part lies ahead. We do not agree on what ‘Pacing the Frontier’ will mean in practice. But this is Actual Progress. The work can begin.

Table of Contents


Pacing Does Not Mean Pausing.

Dario's First Proposal: Embedded Evaluators.

Dario's Second Proposal: Democratic Coordination.

Dario's Third Proposal: Global Coordination.

Why Pace Now?

Sam Altman Agrees and Commits to Embedded Evaluators.

OpenAI Will Not IPO This Year.

Elon Musk Agrees.

Demis Hassabis Agrees.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Agrees [...]
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Outline:
(01:02) Pacing Does Not Mean Pausing
(02:53) Dario's First Proposal: Embedded Evaluators
(11:05) Dario's Second Proposal: Democratic Coordination
(14:36) Dario's Third Proposal: Global Coordination
(17:24) Why Pace Now?
(19:22) Sam Altman Agrees and Commits to Embedded Evaluators
(24:42) OpenAI Will Not IPO This Year
(26:08) Elon Musk Agrees
(29:00) Demis Hassabis Agrees
(29:38) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Agrees And Talks His Book
(31:50) Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust Is On Board
(32:49) General Online Reactions
(34:30) Mainstream Press Coverage
(37:26) OpenAI Researcher Explains What The Labs See And It's a Rocket Ship
(46:10) Consider the Alternative
(47:47) It's Totalitarianism, Joe
(53:35) Yes We're The Baddies How Did You Know?
(55:22) Sometimes People On the Internet Just Lie
(56:50) David Sacks Groks The Situation
(57:48) David Sacks Says Go Ahead
(59:28) Lies and Confusions About Who Previously Claimed What
(01:04:07) House Speaker Mike Johnson Wants To Lock Everyone In a Room
(01:09:28) Donald Trump is Not Tired of Winning
(01:14:29) We Must Avoid Polarization on AI at (Almost) All Costs
(01:15:14) How Will We Know If They Actually Paced?
(01:18:24) The Real Frontier Is Internal Models At Top Labs
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First published:

September 14th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iWPDPWAPCGiSMiFA2/we-must-pace-the-frontier

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The first Millennium Prize, Navier-Stokes, has fallen to AI.

A deeply unfortunate situation has arisen involving what should have been some combination of a positive story about new progress in AI-assisted mathematical research and yet another opportunity to freak out about rapid AI progress.

Or, as we call it around here, Tuesday.

The Real Story Is The New Model That Is Better Than Astra

Keep your eyes on the prize. There are three stories here.

The first story is much more important than the second story, which in turn is much more important than the third story.


OpenAI's next model took a week to get a generation ahead of Astra, and they are telling us this because everyone is totally freaked out about what is happening.


Or, in official language: ‘We believe it is important to inform the world about the pace of AI progress and what to expect from upcoming models’ and that we ‘may require more deliberate choices about the pace of progress.’

This new AI has, eight days after it started training, solved Navier-Stokes.

A bunch of drama over who gets the credit [...]
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Outline:
(00:31) The Real Story Is The New Model That Is Better Than Astra
(01:47) Setting the Stage
(03:47) I Heard a Rumor
(04:32) Our Price Cheap
(06:14) An Accusation Is Made
(10:57) How Did You Get That Idea?
(12:59) OpenAI Almost Certainly Did Not Misappropriate User Data
(14:34) Our Top Labs Cannot Get Along Even On A Feel-Good Math Story
(15:52) What Next?
(16:39) The Mathematicians Are Not Happy
(21:14) OpenAI's New Model Was A Step Change Above Astra Four Days Into Training
(23:16) OpenAI Research Progress Is Accelerating Due To OpenAI Research Progress
(30:39) Quantifying OpenAI's Pause
(31:09) This Is the Way the World Ends
(31:44) Quickly, There's No Time
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First published:

September 13th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uoZW6BKaCcmNQrWis/brand-new-ai-solves-a-millennium-prize

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Astra is an excellent model. The jump from Sol to Astra is larger than the jump from Fable 5 to Fable 5.1. This is a big deal.

Astra is the best model for what one would broadly call ‘ambitious projects,’ and likely has the highest raw intelligence factor of any model. These are the largest jumps.

It is amazing at doing things in 3D, or anything involving games. Astra also excels at computer use, and at subagent coordination.

Many benchmarks show dramatic jumps from all previous models. Where Astra is good, it can be in a league of its own.

That does not mean Astra is in its own league across the board. Fable 5.1 is still a Claude. Astra is still a GPT. If you have a strong preference for one over the other, that still applies. For many purposes, especially involving back-and-forth discussions, Fable 5.1 is still my top choice. Fable remains my primary editor.

If you want the best answer to your questions, you should ask both models.

Regular coding is getting less of a focus. Astra is not a quantum leap there, but of course it is very good [...]
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Outline:
(02:34) Meanwhile
(04:38) The Official Pitch
(13:08) Our Price Cheap
(14:06) Unnecessary Overstatement
(15:53) Paced Rollout
(16:32) Official Benchmarks
(22:37) Other People's Benchmarks
(30:47) Thinking, Fast Without Slow
(34:25) How Dare You, Sir
(36:36) PoetryBench
(37:54) In 3D
(39:14) Time to Think
(39:59) I'm Putting Together a Team
(41:02) Reviews and Essays
(41:37) Computer Use
(42:47) Positive Reactions
(50:53) AGI
(54:20) Astra Can Do The Math
(57:27) Astra Can Code
(59:35) I Came to (Change the) Game
(01:02:37) Astra Does Other Cool Things
(01:03:31) Astra Never Quits Except When It Does
(01:05:26) Negative Reactions
(01:07:45) Stop It With the Hedging
(01:08:57) Personality Clash
(01:09:53) Revealed Preference
(01:12:03) Dual Wielding
The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.
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First published:

September 12th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/snaKjCwazKcRiS4qs/gpt-6-astra-can-do-ambitious-things

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