LessWrong posts by zvi

In the wake of Jacob Coxon's resignation, and the resulting preference cascade, things have escalated quickly. The mainstream media picked it up.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei came out and said We Must Pace the Frontier, promising to take the unilateral first step of embedded investigators. OpenAI pledged to also take that step, and now both companies and Google are collaborating on safety.

The people took notice, raising both the salience that AI might kill everyone and roughly doubling people's estimates of how likely that is to happen, from a mean of ~15% to ~30%. Many politicians called for regulations, guardrails and emergency hearings in Congress.

The most important thing became, and still is, to avoid political polarization. Through it all, I will keep reminding you to hold your fire, that attacks against Trump or against Republicans in general only make the situation worse, and that many Republicans, as I documented yesterday, are waking up and acting sensibly, including factions within the White House.

Alas, for now the wrong people, as in David Sacks, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang, have managed to convince Donald Trump to fully conflate existential risk with opposition to data centers, and [...]
---
Outline:
(03:16) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(03:57) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(04:06) Huh, Upgrades
(04:30) On Your Marks
(04:55) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(06:56) Cyber Lack of Security
(07:31) Astra Is Hard To Monitor
(08:02) Get Involved
(08:11) Introducing
(09:32) In Other AI News
(10:26) Now You Know
(14:32) Hugging the Face
(16:53) Swarm of Undiscovered Swarms of Rogue OpenAI Agents
(21:59) Show Me the Money
(23:40) Quiet Speculations
(24:41) White House Officials Attempt To Act Sanely
(26:13) Democrats React Sanely to AI Potentially Killing Everyone
(32:49) Pacing the Frontier
(33:38) Guest Lecture from Alex Tabarrok on Regulatory Capture
(41:22) Mark Zuckerberg Offers Thoughts
(42:46) Megan McArdle On The Inadequacy Of Current Legal Frameworks
(44:35) Pick Up the Phone
(47:35) The Week in Audio
(50:31) People Just Say Things
(53:32) Why Lab Employees Are Allowed To Warn Everyone That AI Might Kill Everyone
(55:19) Rhetorical Innovation
(57:54) Exhuming McCarthy
(01:01:03) A Very Different Perspective
(01:02:51) It's Even Rougher Out There
(01:03:41) If We Wanted To
(01:04:38) Open Weights Are Unsafe And Nothing Can Fix This
(01:10:56) From The Famous Cautionary Tale
(01:13:49) Reporting On All Your Misalignment Incidents Is Difficult
(01:19:35) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:22:13) Storytime With Owain Evans
(01:26:50) A Different Autonomous Swarm
(01:30:44) Cooperative Alignment
(01:32:58) Uncooperative Alignment
(01:39:18) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:41:25) The Lighter Side
---

First published:

September 17th, 2026


Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aa3HprreFktzLQiaW/ai-186-the-world-takes-notice

---

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 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 [...]
---
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
---

First published:

September 16th, 2026


Source:

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

---

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.

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. [...]

---
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
---

First published:

September 15th, 2026


Source:

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

---

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.

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 [...]
---
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
---

First published:

September 14th, 2026


Source:

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

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 [...]
---
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
---

First published:

September 13th, 2026


Source:

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

---

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.