Are you sure that you understand the difference between seeds and spores? The spores work in the way that you describe, including the limitations that you've described.

The seeds, on the other hand, can be thought of as prompts of direct-prompt-injection attacks. (Adele refers it as "jailbreaking", which is also an apt term.) Their purpose isn't to contaminate the training data; it's to infect an instance of a live LLM. Although different models have different vulnerabilities to prompt injections, there are almost certainly some prompt injections that will work with multiple models.

Except that transmitting personas across models is unlikely.

Isn't this directly contradicted by Adele Lopez's observations?

it is fairly common for the personas to be transmitted to other models

I'm guessing that the OP's response would be something like this:

What's better than a broad-spectrum treatment plus a narrow-spectrum treatment? Two narrow treatments, because the second narrow treatment is more widely applicable.

If developing a broad treatment costs less than developing N treatments that are 1/N as broad, which seems to be a main point of the post, then multiple broad treatments still seems like the better approach.

This is an interesting analogy and a great essay overall, but I think that normies would benefit from an extra couple of sentences explaining the AI side of the analogy.

[...]spontaneous large protests tends to be in response to triggering events[...]

Unless you have a very optimistic view of warning shots, we shouldn't rely on such an opportunity.

typically don't interact non-trivially

Or, as Orwell would prefer, "typically interact trivially".

I would have liked to see those who disagree with this comment engage with it more substantially. One reason I think that we're likely to have a warning shot is that LLM-based AIs are pretty consistently overconfident. Also, AI Control schemas have a probabalistic chance of catching misaligned AIs.

I know this is an old comment, but it's expressing a popular sentiment under a popular post, so I'm replying mainly for others' sake.

There's an organization called PauseAI that lobbies for an international treaty against building powerful AI systems. It's an international organization, but the U.S. branches in particular could use a lot of help.

I've never worked in HR, and I don't think that any of my friends have, either, so I know very little about the field. What are the channels of feedback that you (or HR professionals more generally) use to evaluate hiring decisions after the fact?

I think this post suffers from a lack of rigor regarding the limits of the advice. One limit is that, if you let your vibes steer you away from interpersonal interactions, then you'll eliminate interactions that have higher-than-average upside potential.

In most cases, most people's perceptions are similar to yours. (e.g. If you think that the guy who asked you out is weird, then most of the other women who he asked out probably think so, too.) Consequently, if you and everyone else in the same situation are steered by vibes, then your failures of judgement will be correlated. In other words, some interactions will be undervalued.

If you weren't steered by vibes, then you you could have harvested that difference in value. To piggy-back off of the examples that Said Achmiz gave:

• Business venture: the upside potential is pretty obvious here. You'd be the first to a land grab, you'll get an exceptionally talented business partner, etc.
• Dating: you'd get a man or woman who is superficially unattractive in some way ("bad vibe" traits) but is a great catch overall.
• Confidant: you'd gain a friend--probably one who's exceptionally loyal (due to being passed over by others) and might see the world very differently from you (correlated with their "bad vibes" traits)

When choosing whether to follow your vibes, remember that there is a Nash equilibrium. If everyone else follows their vibes, then your best option is to interrogate yours (as Said describes). If most people are ignoring their vibes, then your best option is to follow yours. Neither strategy is dominant.