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The Machine Stops (E M Forster, 1909) is an enormously prescient sci-fi dystopia. Everyone lives in isolation, with the titular Machine responsible providing for all their needs, and communication done via video calls. It’s incredibly accurate for predicting some aspects like the internet, social media and AI. But other aspects,...
I’m fed up of hearing about how LLMs are next token predictors, and therefore they <cannot do some task> <aren’t really doing cognition> <are just guessing>. There’s lots of philosophical objections, but fundamentally, framing AI as next token predictors in the first places is just misleading and inaccurate. Here’s why...
Following is a list of games that, if you are reading this, you might enjoy. They're the hits, the ones that people repeatedly bring up and discuss, but no one seems to have troubled to write down. I'm sure these are all well known, but you could be in the...
I recently went to NeurIPS, the world’s largest academic AI conference. This was a multi-purpose trip: present a poster at the MechInterp Workshop and hobnob with other AI Safety researchers; get a general impression of state of the art in AI, particularly the gamedev/creative space, and represent Timaeus, the company...
(previously, Q1/Q2 2025) I got complaints last time about calling negative, trivial or inconclusive results "failed" when they still show something and I probably learnt a lot personally, so let's go with "minor" instead. Mostly I've been busy with my MATS project - working with Redwood Research to build an...
A couple of people have mentioned to me: “we need more fiction examples of positive AI superintelligence - utopias like the Culture novels”. And they’re right, AI can be tremendously positive, and some beacons lit into the future could help make that come around. But one of my hobbies is...