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It’s pretty hard to get evidence regarding the subjective experience, if any, of language models. In 2022, Blake Lemoine famously claimed that Google’s LaMDA was conscious or sentient, but the “evidence” he offered consisted of transcripts in which the model was plausibly role-playing in response to leading questions. For example,...

I frequently see arguments of this form: > We have two choices: > > 1. accept the current rate of AI progress and a very large risk[1] of existential catastrophe, > > or > > 2. slow things down, greatly reducing the risk of existential catastrophe, in exchange for a...

I wrote a defense of the amyloid hypothesis as an ACX guest post. Scott called it "one of the best things I've read all year, and the first thing on Alzheimers that makes me actually feel like I understand something".

I am due to be vaccinated against Covid today. Let us suppose that I receive either the Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273) vaccine, and subsequently receive my second dose on schedule (21 days later for BNT162b2; 28 days later for mRNA-1273). Data from phase III trials for these vaccines suggest...