jmh

• jmh 11 May 2026 3:55 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: icely’s comment on: icely’s Shortform

  I agree with Kaarel about envisioning something clearly that is very distant from what is current.

  But I also wonder if there is not another issue here. Whose utopia are we talking about. While I doubt I could write out a complete utopian world for me I am pretty certain that many would take exception to it being a utopia because they see things differently. So unless one is talking about some private world of their own (or small number that agree with the structures) making a utopian setting is a big public choice problem. We cannot even solve getting good policies in many cases, reaching for utopian outcomes seems a stretch.

• jmh 11 May 2026 3:38 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: Please Be Se­ri­ous

  I do agree it is probably wise to avoid making a public appearance with some anonymous debating partner or interviewer who remains anonymous during the public event.

  Personally I think his background (not even high school grad) and the outfit both display him as norm braking and original in thought. His accomplishments seem to support the view he is very intelligent (not some quack or cult thing) so formal credentials don’t matter for me, and the outfit doesn’t seem to undermine credibility (a bit of messenger versus message issue there I think).

  Have not seen the debate (or seen transcripts) so not take on that aspect.

• jmh 29 Apr 2026 3:00 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Posts I don’t have time to write

  Okay. That is something I didn’t know but fire codes are hardly the only standards that are generated via private organizations, but they all have to be implemented and enforced by governments. Without acceptance by the government with jurisdiction they are just words on paper.

  But I don’t think that changes the claim that fire code is just one instances of a class and probably should not be singled out as something special unless it can be demonstrated as special. But one can look at the whole class and see similar problems of unintended consequences and special/​inside interest incentives when trying to figure out if the over all results of any rule generation by some group is a new plus or negative. In fact I think knowing now that there are multiple layers between fire code design and implementation I have more concerns about labeling it as the root of all evil, seems more inflammatory than accurate.

• jmh 29 Apr 2026 2:39 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: mishka’s comment on: If ASI is go­ing to kill me, when does that hap­pen?

  I think I am actually more worried about bad actor humans that might leverage AI (well before any ASI exists) to make some type of nasty bio-agent (with or without a counter agent for their own protection or for extorting money from the targeted population). While tracking chemicals is hard I think that would be much easier than trying to track something to signal if someone is bioengineering some thing bad.

  But yes, there are a lot of frames to but the question in.

• jmh 29 Apr 2026 2:34 UTC

  6 points

  0

  in reply to: Daniel Kokotajlo’s comment on: Thomas Larsen’s Shortform

  I wonder if two other factors might also work against the 10x growth per year as a norm. One, standard S-curve growth patterns for start-up enterprises. What the time period for the high growth phase might be could be interesting—does rapid advancement of AI itself point to longer or shorter period of revenue growth? My quest is it might shorten it but have not really thought about that before.

  The other is just opportunity costs. All that money is coming from somewhere, not thin air, and we have some real constraints on monetary velocity as well. So just how much of the money supply can AI revenue growth curves eat up?

• jmh 26 Apr 2026 2:44 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: anaguma’s comment on: 10 non-bor­ing ways I’ve used AI in the last month

  Cheating on homework is somewhat difficult to define perhaps. Is using your calculator cheating when solving a math word problem? Is a lookup for the differential equation or integral cheating because you don’t derive it yourself?

  Perhaps it’s a case of stupid homework assignments as one mentioned (my phrasing). I suspect there is also a case of just changes in the world and how one needs to learn to best interact with it. Engineers are taught a lot of math but generally work with both books of tables that provide the answers or with applications that do the same. You just really need to know how to use the tool rather than be able to replicate what the tool does (though if you can you survive without the tool where as the other guy is going to struggle). AI and getting answers to problems, ultimately is what the world is, so learning to work and use the tool correctly, while not yet part of the legacy program, seems to be something a bit different that cheating to me; even if the school or teacher might see it as cheating from a purely definitional perspective.

  As a friend of mine back in high school quipped to me one day, being smart is not about what you know, but about knowing where to find what you need to know.

• jmh 26 Apr 2026 2:17 UTC

  8 points

  3

  on: Fore­cast­ing is Way Over­rated, and We Should Stop Fund­ing It

  I liked this post. Strong upvote. I’m neutral on the funding/​not funding issue but the points you make about not starting with the tool to solve some problem but with the problem and then selecting the tool(s) is so very important. I frequently see that as a problem in so much public debate and policy making.

• jmh 26 Apr 2026 2:09 UTC

  4 points

  0

  in reply to: mishka’s comment on: If ASI is go­ing to kill me, when does that hap­pen?

  Thanks for the comment. It does help me understand how some are thinking in terms of post ASI timelines. I think you offer something of a two extremes but also point to some clear aspect one could use for actually estimating end point once ASI starts whatever it’s going to do. The paving over has some physical constraints regardless of how powerful or fast ASI might be. Could be it figures out some material for paving that can be implemented faster than cement but if cement is used we know something about curing times, logistic times from extraction to pour and output rate for quantity flows. That’s a pretty straight calculation to model. Similarly we have some pretty good existing models for food/​water requirements, arable land requirements to support life, eco system collapse so I could even probably take your bad case scenario and make a crude estimate of time to extinction.
  
  I was much more interested in getting a human response but finally just asked an AI and got what I think was a good over view and better insight to why it’s not an aspect that is generally included in thinking about that timeline. But again, much more interested in getting a human perspective and thoughts so thanks for taking the time to jot something down.

• jmh 26 Apr 2026 1:52 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: Posts I don’t have time to write

  If you do get around to writing the bit on fire code I would suggest shifting the title a bit. Fire code seems to fit in with a bunch of other regulatory cases, building code, FDA drug regulation, zoning code, etc. So seems hard to call fire code the root of all evil since the same analysis you’re starting with, applied to any of the others, will lead to a similar conclusion.

  I also think it’s risky to point to how secondary and tertiary effects might result in off-sets to any welfare gain from the regulation without also offering the net impact or correctly assign origin of harm. For example, size of car is clearing a factor in the outcome of an accident but it’s not really the cause. One should control for other factors, like various source of distracted driving, driver training (I often see people trying to drive a big SVU as if it’s a sport car and know they have no clue about the vehicle dynamics or what the car is going to do if something unexpected happens). I do think it’s fair to say incentives towards larger vehicles results in need for other changes (this is the partial equilibrium versus general equilibrium problem) or impose a ceteris paribus constraint. But I’m not sure it’s fair to relax the immediate ceteris paribus constraint and then not follow through with the more generalized analysis to property locate the source of a follow on problem.

• jmh 26 Apr 2026 0:35 UTC

  8 points

  0

  in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: “Thinkhaven”

  I think I am a prime example of one that has a serious bottleneck in terms of getting things out of my head and on paper when I try. As you say, developing that ability requires some type of “muscles”, just as being able to lift weights or do physically demanding activities. There is also the habit forming aspect. Like noted in one of the comments we forget to do things (often the new things we’re trying to do) because they just don’t fall into our normal behavior patterns^[1].

  I would also pose a question about slop concerns. Sure, not bad to avoid if one has a specific target they are aiming for I think but then if we look back as history, I wonder how many of the serendipitous discoveries or starting points wouldn’t fall into a slop bucket when views from what the discover was actually trying to do.

  1. ^

     Which in the Thinkhaven vein of at least one new thought a day, seem to lead towards “What don’t I know?” What are the gaps in areas one does have some, even a lot, of knowledge about. Seems like a very positive behavioral pattern to cultivate.

• jmh 23 Apr 2026 8:42 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: If ASI is go­ing to kill me, when does that hap­pen?

  My question was about a timeline. Has anyone made any predications about the speed of extinction once ASI exists? I have only see people making claims about the timeline to ASI.

  If that was not clear, my bad.

• jmh 19 Apr 2026 2:14 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: If ASI is go­ing to kill me, when does that hap­pen?

  So I should assume that it happens some time before the sun goes nova, as long as we don’t humans don’t escape the the inner solar system or come up with some energy sources that would allow survival after such an event?
  
  Strikes me as a rather tautological type answer but if that is where the AI risk position is I honestly see no reason to get all worked up about the claims.

• jmh 18 Apr 2026 0:53 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: “Best hu­mans still out­perform”: One turn­ing point in the his­tory of cope around ar­tifi­cial intelligence

  [This can be ignored—already answered well enough. Kind of a nit but the graph seems a bit confusing. How can GDP per capita continue on it’s trend, presumably with the 2.1% growth bust from the AI gains, while population is crashing? Or is the trend GDP just presuming the implied population changes that were historically embedded in the data series?]

  But I would like to know more about the model for the extinction plot. I was just wondering about that views about the path between what you guys call the singularity and when extinction is suppose to occur. I think this is the first time I’ve seen that presented. (But don’t rule out it’s been a lot of placed I’ve just never looked.)

If ASI is go­ing to kill me, when does that hap­pen?

• jmh 17 Apr 2026 1:29 UTC

  6 points

  0

  on: The policy sur­round­ing Mythos marks an ir­re­versible power shift

  Interesting post and comments. I find myself musing about some adjacent aspects though.

  1) Should I take this as a long-term problem of power concentration? If so, concentrated where? If I take much of the whole ASI is incorrigible (and the take-off speed as as some suggest rapid), then I’m not too sure I need to worry about the corporations or governments beyond the very near term. That puts me back in the more general frame of ASI vs humans.

  2) It could be a pure power driven bit—Anthropic wants to control the power rather than have it out where anyone can use it which then puts Anthropic at the same risk as anyone. But maybe the announcement is more about business and legal negotiations. Obviously there is a lot of money at stake with Federal contracts and particularly Pentagon related contracts. If the potential for Mythos identifying and then building attack vectors that are very complex and hard to prevent (and possibly even notice) the current administration might be interested in rethinking the requirement to have a human make the final decision on an action that will result in people getting killed. So this might not be a good case study for the concentration of power inference.

• jmh 12 Apr 2026 2:56 UTC

  3 points

  0

  in reply to: the gears to ascension’s comment on: the gears to as­cen­scion’s Shortform

  I don’t think the “just want their short term returns” applies in many or most cases. I think the influential, large (as in meaningful voting power) tend to take longer term positions. I suspect it comes down more to what the various groups are trying to maximize. Founders and original insiders are probably maximizing a blend of pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns while the post IPO investors tent to be more exclusively focused on the pecuniary returns. But as that pecuniary focused group grows the founder find they have to make more and more compromises to retain control and pursue their initial vision.

  But I think you’re right that after IPO the nature of the decision-making and the focus of what to pursue and maximize is going to shift and so relative priority regarding safety likely to shift—exactly how much and in which direction I don’t know but I would not be surprised if it moves in a way you seem concerned about.

• jmh 29 Mar 2026 14:33 UTC

  2 points

  0

  in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: The Prob­lem with Ask­ing your Doctor

  Your situation sound a bit similar to my adopted son’s situation with G6PD. One of the things I’ve just learned is how non-uniform that condition is. He’s in the Philippines and they actually screen all new born children for it now. No actual treatments for his situation is available. But since frequency of occurrence in much higher in the Philippines than many other places in the world the Philippine medical infrastructure if pretty much on par with any 1st world county for this condition. And the current “treatment” is avoiding the triggers. If you talked with a Philippine doctor it is very likely they will know “current state” knowledge (maybe not cutting edge though). If I were to start asking doctors here in the USA (and I suspect it would be the same in EU) I suspect most will not really know much and possibly nothing at all.

  So one thing to think about when “asking my doctor” is should I consider the question “mainstream” or “cutting edge/​far tail of some distribution” and why should I think that.

• jmh 29 Mar 2026 14:03 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: The Prob­lem with Ask­ing your Doctor

  Is this all something of a poor prompt getting a bad response?

  I don’t think you should expect your doctor to know everything you might ask about, and on that agree that asking might not be of immediate value. However, doctors can and do actually research things for their patients (or at least mine seems to).

  As I was not present I don’t know how the conversation proceeded but my approach to something like this is more I tell the doctor what I’ve learned and what information has lead to some initial opinion on something. Then ask if they know something more about the situation. I don’t do this often enough to say there is some strong patter but at least I provide a basic framing and common context into which I’m asking them to bring their expertise.

• jmh 27 Mar 2026 0:21 UTC

  2 points

  0

  on: It Takes Two Parac­eta­mol?

  One thing does come to mind on this, but may well be way off target. It seems that a good model for most health and biology questions should fit with some pretty standard chemical reaction science. So ratios should matter a bit. Perhaps it’s as simple as at 1 pill the concentrations is just a poor ratio for the required reaction. As I understand it the current view is (per Gemini)

  Inhibition of Sodium Channels: AM404 directly inhibits voltage-gated sodium channels (NaV1.7 and NaV1.8) in peripheral pain-sensing neurons (nociceptors). By blocking these channels, AM404 stops the generation of action potentials (pain messages) at the source before they are sent to the brain.

  Perhaps the one pill simple does not allow the body (liver) to convert the paracetamol into enough AM404 to block enough neurons.

• jmh 22 Mar 2026 14:32 UTC

  7 points

  0

  in reply to: Guive’s comment on: China Derange­ment Syndrome

  I would suggest considering both their naval build up and their position on the South China sea and its historical use of trade/​economic and political pressure to advance it’s influence and boarders, with military might as a backup for and enforcement mechanism “By all accounts” is a bit far.