Alex_Altair

In­tro­duc­tion to ab­stract entropy

Should you make stone tools?

Some­body in­vented a bet­ter bookmark

An In­tu­itive Ex­pla­na­tion of Solomonoff Induction

• Alex_Altair 2 Apr 2022 16:51 UTC

  145 points

  22

  on: MIRI an­nounces new “Death With Dig­nity” strategy

  Seeing this post get so strongly upvoted makes me feel like I’m going crazy.

  This is not the kind of content I want on LessWrong. I did not enjoy it, I do not think it will lead me to be happier or more productive toward reducing x-risk, I don’t see how it would help others, and it honestly doesn’t even seem like a particularly well done version of itself.

  Can people help me understand why they upvoted?

Agent foun­da­tions: not re­ally math, not re­ally science

[Question] Why hasn’t deep learn­ing gen­er­ated sig­nifi­cant eco­nomic value yet?

A sim­ple model of math skill

• Alex_Altair 19 May 2024 1:05 UTC

  104 points

  101

  on: Fund me please—I Work so Hard that my Feet start Bleed­ing and I Need to In­fil­trate University

  Hey Johannes, I don’t quite know how to say this, but I think this post is a red flag about your mental health. “I work so hard that I ignore broken glass and then walk on it” is not healthy.

  I’ve been around the community a long time and have seen several people have psychotic episodes. This is exactly the kind of thing I start seeing before they do.

  I’m not saying it’s 90% likely, or anything. Just that it’s definitely high enough for me to need to say something. Please try to seek out some resources to get you more grounded.

Giv­ing cal­ibrated time es­ti­mates can have so­cial costs

“Nor­mal” is the equil­ibrium state of past op­ti­miza­tion processes

I’m try­ing out “as­ter­oid mind­set”

Con­sider us­ing re­versible au­tomata for al­ign­ment research

Deal­ing with in­finite entropy

My re­search agenda in agent foundations

The In­her­i­tors: a book review

How I be­came a per­son who wakes up early

• Alex_Altair 21 Nov 2025 7:03 UTC

  64 points

  27

  on: Dom­i­nance: The Stan­dard Every­day Solu­tion To Akrasia

  I think something like “accountability” is a much more accurate term for this generalization than “dominance”. Parents, teachers, bosses etc. are roughly as motivated by their accountability to their children, students and employees.

My first year in AI alignment

Work with me on agent foun­da­tions: in­de­pen­dent fellowship