LessWrong posts by zvi

OpenAI's GPT-5.6-Sol is finally here, along with the cheaper Terra and Luna.

We’ve seen the early hype as reported on Thursday, but as always that is biased.

As usual, the bulk of this is collecting a gestalt based on reactions. I included everything up to a point, but I got a lot of feedback, so after a while I only took the interesting ones.

Sol and Fable are both excellent models, sir. They both represent big moves forward. There is room in your workflow for both of them.

Sol and Fable are very different, especially when considered as part of their respective packages. I’m considering Sol + Codex (or Work) versus Fable + Claude Code (or Cowork), throughout, in places where you wouldn’t use the chat interface.

In terms of raw intelligence and ‘big model smell,’ and ability to do the hardest things that are intelligence-loaded, Fable still looks like it has a substantial edge. It also seems to be better aligned, or at least more trustworthy as an agent, with less tail risk. I still consider Fable ‘the best’ model, and the one that will require the most aggressive controls.

I enjoy [...]
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Outline:
(02:54) The Official Pitch
(10:06) Sol Proposes A Proof Of The Double Cover Conjecture
(10:49) The Official Benchmarks
(14:26) Vend That Bench
(16:37) Thinking Fast and Slow
(18:35) Other People's Benchmarks
(23:20) Have Robust Backups
(26:33) That's Not What You Were Thinking
(26:59) Helping Hands
(27:36) Writing
(29:15) Don't Stop Now
(31:14) Sol Can Code And Do Math
(32:37) Better Call Sol Cause You Can't Call Fable
(33:34) Only Call As Much Sol As You Need
(35:22) Positive Reactions
(38:07) It's A Good Model, Sir
(40:56) Negative Reactions
(41:54) Sol The Workhorse
(44:27) Pair Programmer
(51:07) Pleased To Meet You
(53:02) Sol Thinks You Better
(54:02) My substantive posterior
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First published:

July 13th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zPdDmJTovsKTvAiH2/better-call-sol-the-workhorse

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The Wall Street Journal printed an outright false headline and heavily misleading story claiming this, which of course was uncritically amplified by the usual suspects.

I post this now on its own so that we have a place to link to, to explain the situation.

Headline News

WSJ Headline (Obvious Nonsense): ​China Has Matched Anthropic in Cybersecurity, Resetting AI Race.

That. Did. Not. Happen.

The post even claims, explicitly, that Claude Opus 4.8 similarly ‘matches’ Claude Mythos, a claim which is even more obviously false.

Shame upon the Wall Street Journal. I fear Gell-Mann Amnesia. If they can get something as important as this so completely wrong, what about everything else?

I am skipping over the parts that involve accurate reporting, or minor quibbles.

It seems important to focus on clearly debunking the central false claims.

Alas, the mistakes made here very much rhyme with mistakes being made throughout all this by the White House, and that get latched onto by certain bad actors, who have played a large part in leaving us unprepared for the Mythos Moment.

For a full understanding of GLM-5.2, which is indeed an impressive [...]
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Outline:
(00:27) Headline News
(02:10) What Makes Mythos Special
(03:18) Going Over The Detailed Claims
(07:39) One Helpful Note
(08:19) The Overall Impression Is Extremely Wrong
(08:50) All Of This Has Happened Before And Will Happen Again
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First published:

July 12th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2zSpuGJRk6EyjHAL6/wsj-article-claiming-china-has-matched-anthropic-is-obvious-1

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Introducing Plan A

The folks who brought you AI 2027, a so far remarkably accurate set of predictions despite those predictions having seemed freaky to many at the time, now bring you their positive vision that involves more freaky predictions: Plan A.

These guys have rather strong prediction track records. In addition to AI 2027, among other things, Daniel Kokotajlo has What 2026 Looks Like (which is remarkably similar to what 2026 looks like) and Ryan Greenblatt, who is also the chief scientist at Redwood Research, was the #2 most accurate AI forecaster in 2025 out of 413 entries. Past performance is as always no guarantee of future success.

If you’re the type to read at least some of my posts, or if you thought AI 2027 was worth reading, I recommend reading Plan A.

There is also an unofficial visual novel version, for minds very different from my own who would want that.

To be clear up front: I am not endorsing Plan A. I am not suggesting we should go off and try to enact Plan A as written. There is a lot more work to do and a lot of potential [...]
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Outline:
(00:09) Introducing Plan A
(01:42) You Only Get Five Words
(08:44) Proactive Response To Objections
(09:30) Initial Introductions and Endorsements
(14:50) A Positive Vision
(17:53) Alternative Plans
(19:31) Plan S for Shutdown
(21:35) Something (Unexpectedly Good) Ever Happens
(23:10) Thus Selective Optimism
(24:17) Quickly, There's No Time
(25:20) Race Conditions
(27:23) This Is A Lot Of Diffusion And Economic Growth
(28:36) Living In China
(30:35) Planning For Shifting Overton Windows Is Essential
(31:51) The Standard Handwave
(35:23) Some Equate Any Controls Over Compute To Authoritarian Dystopia And Those Same People Mostly Think Superintelligence Won't Happen
(37:07) Vitalik Buterin Is Right, The Crux Is Future AI Capability Levels
(44:45) The Authoritarian Objection
(50:17) Concepts Of A Plan
(52:03) The Kitchen Sink
(53:13) Selective Claims Of Authoritarianism
(55:12) You Either Can Steer The Future Or You Cannot
(57:40) Cooperative Alignment
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First published:

July 11th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z9tXCGogEgkgHSh8G/introduction-for-and-reactions-to-plan-a

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This is part 2 of the weekly, broadly covering speculation, rhetoric and policy, along with alignment research.

This does not cover the release of GPT-5.6-Sol. As always, I will be taking a few days to digest what the new model has to offer and to allow others to try it and react. I will cover Sol and its capabilities early next week. I covered the GPT-5.6 system card back on June 28.

This also does not cover the release of Plan A, the follow-up to AI 2027. This new scenario is a positive vision of what its authors think we should do going forwards.

I do not endorse all of the recommendations or predictions of Plan A, but I do endorse reading Plan A and taking it seriously. Scott Alexander, one of those who worked on it, writes an introduction and justification here. I will have full coverage soon.

Table of Contents


Quiet Speculations. Will our AI regulations be ad hoc indefinitely?

The Goalposts Are Dyson Spheres. This might take a little longer.

People Just Say Things.

Three Pills. Unpilled, AI, AGI, ASI.

The Quest for Sane Regulations. You’ve [...]
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Outline:
(01:08) Quiet Speculations
(04:41) The Goalposts Are Dyson Spheres
(08:11) People Just Say Things
(08:40) Three Pills
(14:52) The Quest for Sane Regulations
(16:35) OpenAI National Security Principles
(23:45) Greetings From The Department Of War
(25:47) Chip City
(27:02) Open Weight Models Are Unsafe And Nothing Can Fix This
(34:37) Their AI Propaganda Bots
(36:39) Rhetorical Innovation
(38:23) You Learn
(40:00) You May Be Tan And Thin And Rich But You're a Tool
(44:21) Train Those Thoughts
(45:16) Train Out Those Thoughts
(50:02) My Own Private Idaho
(51:46) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(57:04) No Space Like J-Space
(01:06:50) Cooperative Alignments
(01:07:15) The Lighter Side
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First published:

July 10th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7Av7wwErwNXdM3J68/ai-176-part-2-plan-b

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Enough things added up that this week is getting split into two parts.

Then on Monday, if all goes as I expect, we’ll cover OpenAI's Sol, aka GPT-5.6.

OpenAI also gave us an upgraded voice mode, which I haven’t tried out but early reports are that it is a step change.

AI writing, especially Claude writing, is becoming more prominent and harder not to notice, and increasingly a tough read when encountered in the wild. Does anyone care? Or are those who care the weird ones here?

This week saw an excellent paper, which I cover in No Space Like J-Space.

Technically we also got Grok 4.5.

Table of Contents


Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. A whole new world.

Language Models Gain Unexpected Affordances. Wait, you can just do that?

Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. Things get old.

Pay The Man His Money. You have a few more days with marginally free Fable.

Huh, Upgrades. Anthropic raises API platform limits.

Grok 4.5 Exists. It might be okay for its price.

F*** It We’re Doing It Live. OpenAI gives us a big upgrade to voice [...]
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Outline:
(00:54) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(03:21) Language Models Gain Unexpected Affordances
(06:12) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(06:54) Pay The Man His Money
(07:37) Huh, Upgrades
(07:45) Grok 4.5 Exists
(09:12) F\*\*\* It We're Doing It Live
(10:24) On Your Marks
(11:13) Better Call Sol
(22:40) Get My Agent On The Line
(23:29) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(25:33) Fool Me Twice
(27:23) I Like Your Style
(33:28) Enough With That Style
(36:58) Fun With Media Generation
(38:51) Copyright Confrontation
(39:30) Cyber Lack of Security
(39:52) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
(45:56) They Took Our Jobs
(51:07) Get Involved
(52:10) In Other AI News
(56:44) Show Me the Money
(57:09) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
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First published:

July 9th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/M9eLyMsH5DLjMYL86/ai-176-part-1-doing-it-live

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