LLMs can be deeply confusing. Thanks to a commission, today we go back to basics.
How did we get such a wide array of confusingly named and labeled models and modes in ChatGPT? What are they, and when and why would you use each of them for what purposes, and how does this relate to what is available elsewhere? How does this relate to hallucinations, sycophancy and other basic issues, and what are the basic ways of mitigating those issues?
If you already know these basics, you can and should skip this post.
This is a reference, and a guide for the new and the perplexed, until the time comes that they change everything again, presumably with GPT-5.
A Brief History of OpenAI Models and Their Names
Tech companies are notorious for being terrible at naming things. One decision that seems like the best [...] ---Outline:(00:51) A Brief History of OpenAI Models and Their Names(06:05) The Models We Have Now in ChatGPT(12:23) What About The Competition?(12:51) Claude (Claude.ai)(14:30) Gemini(16:03) Grok(16:59) Hallucinations(19:09) Sycophancy(20:12) Going Beyond---
First published:
July 11th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5NF7DRvcLLGHn78bT/openai-model-differentiation-101
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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21:25
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21:25
“AI #124: Grokless Interlude” by Zvi
Last night, on the heels of some rather unfortunate incidents involving the Twitter version of Grok 3, xAI released Grok 4. There are some impressive claimed benchmarks. As per usual, I will wait a few days so others can check it out, and then offer my take early next week, and this post otherwise won’t discuss Grok 4 further.
There are plenty of other things to look into while we wait for that.
I am also not yet covering Anthropic's latest alignment faking paper, which may well get its own post.
Table of Contents
Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. Who is 10x more productive?
Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. Branching paths.
Huh, Upgrades. DR in the OAI API, plus a tool called Study Together.
Preserve Our History. What are the barriers to availability of Opus 3?
Choose Your Fighter. GPT-4o offers [...] ---Outline:(00:43) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(05:08) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(06:57) Huh, Upgrades(07:53) Preserve Our History(11:18) Choose Your Fighter(12:36) Wouldn't You Prefer A Good Game of Chess(14:30) Fun With Media Generation(14:40) No Grok No(16:29) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(19:15) Unprompted Attention(20:11) Overcoming Bias(22:18) Get My Agent On The Line(23:40) They Took Our Jobs(27:59) Get Involved(28:27) Introducing(30:11) In Other AI News(32:28) Show Me the Money(34:59) The Explanation Is Always Transaction Costs(37:56) Quiet Speculations(44:23) Genesis(46:29) The Quest for Sane Regulations(52:06) Chip City(52:28) Choosing The Right Regulatory Target(01:00:42) The Week in Audio(01:01:15) Rhetorical Innovation(01:04:33) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:10:10) Don't Worry We Have Human Oversight(01:14:09) Don't Worry We Have Chain Of Thought Monitoring(01:18:47) Sycophancy Is Hard To Fix(01:21:43) The Lighter Side---
First published:
July 10th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FczrW2kQ7WxGW39Yv/ai-124-grokless-interlude
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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1:23:05
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1:23:05
“No, Grok, No” by Zvi
It was the July 4 weekend. Grok on Twitter got some sort of upgrade.
Elon Musk: We have improved @Grok significantly.
You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.
Indeed we did notice big differences.
It did not go great. Then it got worse.
That does not mean low quality answers or being a bit politically biased. Nor does it mean one particular absurd quirk like we saw in Regarding South Africa, or before that the narrow instruction not to criticize particular individuals.
Here ‘got worse’ means things that involve the term ‘MechaHitler.’
Doug Borton: I did Nazi this coming.
Perhaps we should have. Three (escalating) times is enemy action.
I had very low expectations for xAI, including on these topics. But not like this.
In the wake of these events, Linda Yaccarino has stepped down this [...] ---Outline:(01:29) Finger On The Scale(05:06) We Got Trouble(07:52) Finger Somewhere Else(09:32) Worst Of The Worst(11:16) Fun Messing With Grok(14:06) The Hitler Coefficient(20:20) MechaHitler(21:42) The Two Groks(22:41) I'm Shocked, Shocked, Well Not Shocked(24:05) Misaligned!(31:39) Nothing To See Here(33:17) He Just Tweeted It Out(36:05) What Have We Learned?---
First published:
July 9th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CE8W4GEofRwHe4fiu/no-grok-no
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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38:34
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38:34
“On Alpha School” by Zvi
The epic 18k word writeup on Austin's flagship Alpha School is excellent. It is long, but given the blog you’re reading now, if you have interest in such topics I’d strongly consider reading the whole thing.
One must always take such claims and reports with copious salt. But in terms of the core claims about what is happening and why it is happening, I find this mostly credible. I don’t know how far it can scale but I suspect quite far. None of this involves anything surprising, and none of it even involves much use of generative AI.
Rui Ma here gives a shorter summary and offers takeaways compatible with mine.
Table of Contents
What Is It?
What It Isn’t.
Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation.
High Versus Low Structure Learners.
I’ve Got a Theory.
Is This Really The True Objection? [...] ---Outline:(00:47) What Is It?(05:00) What It Isn't(08:56) Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation(13:30) High Versus Low Structure Learners(14:06) I've Got a Theory(17:54) Is This Really The True Objection?---
First published:
July 7th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vwNygY4puHunjv6Pk/on-alpha-school
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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24:25
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24:25
“Housing Roundup #12” by Zvi
Abundance and YIMBY are on the march. Things are looking good. The wins are each small, but every little bit helps. There are lots of different little things you can do. In theory you have to worry about a homeostatic model where solving some problems causes locals to double down on other barriers, but this seems to not be what we see.
There are definitely important exceptions. Los Angeles is not so interested in rebuilding from the fires and backpaddled the moment developers started to actually build 100% affordable housing because somehow that was a bad thing. New York's democratic party nominated who they nominated. Massachusetts wants to seal eviction records.
Overall, though, it's hard not to be hopeful right now. Even when we see bad policies, they are couched increasingly in the rhetoric of good goals and policies. In the long term, that leads to wins. [...] ---Outline:(01:11) Rent Control(02:52) Affordable Housing(09:19) A Vision(09:56) Private Equity(11:14) Home for Rent(14:08) Making Housing Worse On Purpose So You Can Click(16:47) Open Philanthropy Strikes Again(18:08) The Abundance Debate(21:24) Single Staircase Apartment Buildings(25:18) Dublin(25:43) Western Housing Costs(27:22) Los Angeles(28:16) LA Fire(31:15) San Francisco(34:36) California(39:27) Oregon(41:34) Montana(43:58) Maine(44:50) North Carolina(45:10) New York City(49:10) Massachusetts(51:43) Texas(54:04) Poland---
First published:
July 4th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wuoTsXoe93mXavofB/housing-roundup-12
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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