LessWrong posts by zvi

People remember their childhood world too fondly. You adapt to it. You forget the parts that sucked, many of which sucked rather really badly. It resonates with you and sticks with you. You think it was better. This is famously true for music, but also in general, including places it makes no sense like ‘most reliable news reporting.’ Matthew Yglesias: Regardless of how old they are, people tend to think that things were better when they were young. As a result, you’d expect more negativity as the median age goes up and up. Very obviously these views are not objective. As a fun and also useful exercise, as part of the affordability sequence, now that we’ve looked at claims of modern impoverishment and asked when things were cheaper, it's time to ask ourselves: When were various things really at their best? In some aspects, yes, the past was better, and those aspects are an important part of the picture. But in many others today is the day and people are wrong about this. I’ll start with the things on the above graph, in order, include some claims from another source, and [...] ---Outline:(01:38) The Most Close-Knit Communities(03:02) The Most Moral Society(04:57) The Least Political Division(05:31) The Happiest Families(06:31) The Most Reliable News Reporting(08:03) The Best Music(10:07) The Best Radio(11:13) The Best Fashion(11:32) The Best Economy(12:03) The Best Movies(13:23) The Best Television(15:00) Best Sporting Events(17:11) The Best Cuisine(18:10) Bonus: The Best Job Security(18:53) The Best Everything(22:15) The Best Information Sources, Electronics, Medical Care, Dental Care, Medical (and Non-Medical) Drugs, Medical Devices, Home Security Systems, Telephone Services and Mobile Phones, Communication, and Delivery Services of All Kinds(22:51) The Best Air Travel(23:33) The Best Cars(23:59) The Best Roads, Traffic and Infrastructure(24:53) The Best Transportation(25:28) It's Getting Better All The Time(28:41) We Should Be Doing Far Better On All This --- First published: December 19th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K3rzQJh3RhaDkREMA/when-were-things-the-best --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

This week I covered GPT 5.2, which I concluded is a frontier model only for the frontier. OpenAI also gave us Image 1.5 and a new image generation mode inside ChatGPT. Image 1.5 looks comparable to Nana Banana Pro, it's hard to know which is better. They also inked a deal for Disney's characters, then sued Google for copyright infringement on the basis of Google doing all the copyright infringement. As a probable coda to the year's model releases we also got Gemini 3 Flash, which I cover in this post. It is a good model given its speed and price, and likely has a niche. It captures the bulk of Gemini 3 Pro's intelligence quickly, at a low price. The Trump Administration issued a modestly softened version Executive Order on AI, attempting to impose as much of a moratorium banning state AI laws as they can. We may see them in court, on various fronts, or it may amount to little. Their offer, in terms of a ‘federal framework,’ continues to be nothing. a16z issued their ‘federal framework’ proposal, which is also nothing, except also that you should pay them. In non-AI content [...] ---Outline:(01:41) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(03:44) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(04:38) Huh, Upgrades(08:21) On Your Marks(10:22) Choose Your Fighter(13:56) Get My Agent On The Line(18:25) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(21:21) Fun With Media Generation(24:12) Copyright Confrontation(24:39) Overcoming Bias(26:29) Unprompted Attention(27:25) They Took Our Jobs(30:06) Feeling the AGI Take Our Jobs(35:48) The Art of the Jailbreak(36:08) Get Involved(38:08) Introducing(38:57) Gemini Flash 3(40:58) In Other AI News(41:36) Going Too Meta(46:14) Show Me the Money(46:51) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble(48:38) Quiet Speculations(50:42) Timelines(51:45) The Quest for Sane Regulations(54:47) My Offer Is Nothing(01:03:03) My Offer Is Nothing, Except Also Pay Me(01:07:26) Chip City(01:14:09) The Week in Audio(01:15:23) Rhetorical Lack Of Innovation(01:25:51) People Really Do Not Like AI(01:29:58) Rhetorical Innovation(01:33:11) Bad Guy With An AI(01:35:33) Misaligned!(01:37:07) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:40:00) Mom, Owain Evans Is Turning The AIs Evil Again(01:46:50) Messages From Janusworld(01:49:55) The Lighter Side --- First published: December 18th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yZ5Aq3iJYMvpZjrqb/ai-147-flash-forward --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

In The $140,000 Question, I went over recent viral claims about poverty in America. The calculations behind the claims were invalid, the central claim (that the ‘true poverty line’ was $140k) was absurd, but the terrible vibes are real. People increasingly feel that financial life is getting harder and that success is out of reach. ‘Real income’ is rising, but costs are rising even more. Before we get to my central explanations for that – the Revolution of Rising Expectations and the Revolution of Rising Requirements – there are calculations and histories to explore, which is what this second post is about. How are costs changing in America, both in absolute terms and compared to real incomes, for key items: Consumer goods, education, health care and housing? That's a huge percentage of where we spend our post-tax money. And how is household wealth actually changing? The economists are right that the basket of goods and services we typically purchase in these areas has greatly increased in both quantity and quality, in spite of various severe supply side problems mostly caused by regulations. That is not what determines whether a person or [...] ---Outline:(01:28) The Debate Continues(03:04) The Cost of Thriving Index Redux(05:05) The Housing Theory Of Everything Remains Undefeated(10:46) Did We Halt the Rise in Healthcare and Education Costs?(15:10) Healthcare Costs(19:53) Higher Education Costs(23:11) Services Productivity is Rising But What Even Is Productivity Measuring(24:58) On Clothing In Particular(25:40) Our Price Free(26:29) By Default Supply Side Is The Problem(29:36) The Kids Are Financially Alright In Historical Terms(33:25) Live Like a Khan(36:15) We Should Be Doing Far Better On All This --- First published: December 17th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HPdQxhQpsXfwLAHp3/the-usd140k-question-cost-changes-over-time --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

There was a no good, quite bad article by Michael Green that went viral. The condensed version was entitled ‘The Valley of Death: Why $100,000 Is the New Poverty,’ and a follow-up here. His actual claim in that post, which was what caught fire, was that the poverty line should be $140,000, and even that this number is him ‘being conservative.’ Obviously that is not remotely true, given that: America is the richest large country in history by a wide margin. $140,000 is at or above median household income. You can observe trivially that a majority of Americans are not in poverty. Today's post covers this narrow question as background, including Green's response. If you’ve already had your fill of that, including ‘well, yes, obviously, how are we bothering with all this, I know it went viral but someone was being Wrong On The Internet’ then you are not wrong. You can safely skip this post. It's fine. I’m writing this as a lead-in to broader future discussions of the underlying questions: How hard life actually is right now in various ways, in various senses. [...] ---Outline:(01:51) None Of This Makes Any Sense(03:40) Let's Debunk The Whole Calculation Up Front(07:52) The Debunking Chorus(12:12) Okay It's Not $140k But The Vibes Mean Something(13:34) Needing Two Incomes Has A High Cost(17:31) I Lied...(21:41) ...But That's Not Important Right Now(21:55) Poverty Trap(24:48) Poverty Trap Versus Poverty Line(28:04) Double or Nothing The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: December 16th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8TWLyvjA6Qsb62dAJ/the-usd140-000-question --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Here we go again, only a few weeks after GPT-5.1 and a few more weeks after 5.0. There weren’t major safety concerns with GPT-5.2, so I’ll start with capabilities, and only cover safety briefly starting with ‘Model Card and Safety Training’ near the end. Table of Contents The Bottom Line. Introducing GPT-5.2. Official Benchmarks. GDPVal. Unofficial Benchmarks. Official Hype. Public Reactions. Positive Reactions. Personality Clash. Vibing the Code. Negative Reactions. But Thou Must (Follow The System Prompt). Slow. Model Card And Safety Training. Deception. Preparedness Framework. Rush Job. Frontier Or Bust. The Bottom Line ChatGPT-5.2 is a frontier model for those who need a frontier model. It is not the step change that is implied by its headline benchmarks. It is rather slow. Reaction was remarkably muted. People have new model fatigue. So we know less about it than we would have known about prior models after this length of time. If you’re coding, compare it to Claude Opus 4.5 and choose what works best for you. If you’re doing intellectually [...] ---Outline:(00:29) The Bottom Line(01:58) Introducing GPT-5.2(03:49) Official Benchmarks(05:54) GDPVal(08:14) Unofficial Benchmarks(11:11) Official Hype(12:36) Public Reactions(12:59) Positive Reactions(19:09) Personality Clash(24:30) Vibing the Code(27:25) Negative Reactions(30:37) But Thou Must (Follow The System Prompt)(33:09) Slow(34:16) Model Card And Safety Training(36:23) Deception(38:10) Preparedness Framework(40:10) Rush Job(41:29) Frontier Or Bust --- First published: December 15th, 2025 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Do4eWro8E552isGi5/gpt-5-2-is-frontier-only-for-the-frontier --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.