Website: https://aelerinya.me
Lucie Philippon
Karma: 880
Thanks for making those songs. In the last year, whenever I’d realize I’d lost the emotional drive that moved me to work on AI safety, I would listen to Machines of Loving Grace or Station 4 (LessOnline version). They got me crying every time.
Now, Friendly Fire got me too. I’ve met people working at Anthropic, and although I like them and want to be friendly, I can’t bear when they make jokes about the time they were depressed recently and so worked extra hard to bring the end of the world. I know it’s coping on their part, but man does it hurt to hear someone be this casual with omnicide. The song brought me right there again.
As always, the issue is figuring out where to pour time and attention to make the right decisions, and where to coast off heuristics. I can’t get into the habit of reevaluating all things every year about every topic, and my failure was more in not realizing that the topic of the safety of my house was a topic to think about.
How do you decide when to use a structured and systematic approach when making a decision?
Agree with this.
Though, in my, case it was not through the binary presentation of gender from transmedicalists, but through the general binary representation of gender in media and in everyone I met in person.
I now have multiple cis guy friends who have pretty cool genders, and if I knew being like them was a thing I could do as a teen, I might not have transitioned.
This post feels very close to how I decided to transition. I was also a lonely nerdy teen stuck on the Internet most of the time, who fixated on transitioning once it became the default strategy in my internet circles to cope with depression (which was mostly social contagion on my side. I never got depressed since leaving this group).
However, I was also an obvious biological outlier, so I agree with @marisa that the social setting is compatible with biological factors. In my case, I had a very mild puberty: barely any hair growth, erectile dysfunction, even some breast growth for a few months. I had no trouble passing when I socially transitioned at 18, and regularly got people confused whether I had transitioned FtM or MtF.
A third factor, beside the saliency of being trans as a solution to depression and the low body masculinity, is that I had quite a narrow view of gender. Basically full on gender binary, with men and women being very clear and narrow roles exactly as depicted in media. I knew I did not fit in the man box, so when I discovered being trans was a thing, the solution seemed obvious, just go to the other box, woman.
Oh, and of course fourth is that I have strong AGP. Although, that was more of a reason to continue my transition than a reason to start, as that only appeared after I had already started thinking of myself as trans from the first reason.
Ten years later, I now feel like I’m stuck being trans because it’s been a part of my life for too long. I’m happy with my life and my body, but I know that my preferences for being like I am are path dependent.
I’m confident that there are adjacent universes where I have not fallen into the same toxic internet communities, fixed my low testosterone issue, expanded my gender role models beyond heteronormative, and ended up happy as a somewhat gender non-conforming guy who sometimes has AGP fantasies.
Although I considered it, I’m not going to detrans, because I’m now so used to my new identity, and because I lucked out on transition and ended up with a body I like and that looks hot. There’s not much to find back on the other side for me.
So yeah, I get it, transitioning to get accepted and loved sucks, because in the end it’s not what’s going to bring it about. I get the rage at the society that pushed us towards this as a way to unhealthily cope with being unloved outcasts. I hope you’ll figure out who you want to be and how to get there.
Some of my experiences meeting people at bars when going with one or more friends:
With two friends in a lefty bar in Berlin. We started talking French, the group next to us joined our conversation because they spoke French too.
In another lefty bar, as part of a weekly meetup of an online social group. This group evolved all the time, so there was a smooth boundary between regulars we knew, newbies to the group, and people just in the bar, so we could smoothly move to conversations with random people.
With a friend at a nerd bar in Paris. We decided to play a board game, chose one for four people, and asked the group of two next to us if they wanted to join.
In queer bars in Paris, generally when I come with a friend, we say hi to someone alone, and start talking with them. (people alone at bars are probably waiting for someone to chat!)
at the bar, how do you know which groups of people are open to talking to another group and which groups are not?
I usually just ask. I also have good intuitions of which groups might be open to chatting, like groups with a more casual “we’re just chilling” vibe, who are taking breaks in their conversations and looking around at who’s in the bar. Usually, the moment when they’re scanning is a good time to approach.
what sort of bars are good for this?
The bars where people go to meet new people. In my experience, it’s the ones that have more of a third space vibe, where people go there just to chill, read a book, relax after their work day, attend an event there. I think a sufficient condition to check if it’s a good place to meet new people is if there are people not part of a group, who are sitting alone.
isn’t it awkward if it turns out you don’t like the other group?
isn’t it awkward if you are just making the rounds, speaking to one group after another?
how do you even talk and get to know people when the music is so loud?
Those would only happen in a bar that’s not the right place to meet people anyway. In my experience, in bars where people are here to be open to new encounters, they’re also expecting people to move in and out of conversations as they please. And in those bars, the music is never an issue (either none, low volume, or people are drunk and talking louder than the music anyway)
I am in this picture, and I’m unsure how to feel about it
They casually-but-frantically google “wuckles” in the background to try to figure out what I meant.
I now need the “I’m in this picture and I am uncertain how to feel about it” react
Great to know! Thank you for taking the time to tell me.
I’m currently building scripts to automate cross-platform event creation, so it takes less time for me to send to so many different platforms. I’ll always try to keep LW + Discord, so if you Subscribe to the LW group you should receive notifications.
Noting that your footnotes redirect to the substack version of your article instead of the LW footnotes
In https://secularsolstice.vercel.app/feedback, “2022 (Or, “Where Ray’s Coming From”)” has the lyrics of “Five Thousand Years”, which seems incorrect.
Edited to say it is not your position. I’m sorry for having published this comment without checking with you.
EDIT: Originally I said that was my best understanding of Mikhail’s point. Mikhail has told me it was not his point. I’m keeping this comment as that’s a point that I find interesting personally.
Before Mikhail released this post, we talked for multiple house about the goal of the article and how to communicate it better. I don’t like the current structure of the post, but I think Mikhail has good arguments and has gathered important data.
Here’s the point I would have made instead:
Anthropic presents itself as the champion of AI safety among the AI companies. People join Anthropic because of their trust that the Anthropic leadership will take the best decisions to make the future go well.
There have been a number of incidents, detailed in this post, where it seems clear that Anthropic went against a commitment they were expected to have (pushing the frontier), where their communication was misleading (like misrepresenting the RAISE bill), or where they took actions that seem incongruous with their stated mission (like accepting investment from Gulf states).
All of those incidents most likely have explanations that were communicated internally to the Anthropic employees. Those explanations make sense, and employees believe that the leadership made the right choice.
However, from the outside, a lot of those actions look like Anthropic gradually moving away from being the company that can be trusted to do what’s best for humanity. It looks like Anthropic doing whatever it can to win the race even if it increases risks, like all the other AI companies. From the outside, it looks like Anthropic is less special than it seemed at first.
There are two worlds compatible with the observations:
One where Anthropic is still pursuing the mission, and those incidents were just the best way to pursue the mission. The Anthropic leadership is trustworthy, and their internal explanations are valid and represent their actual view.
One where the Anthropic leadership is not reliably pursing the mission anymore, where those incidents are in fact evidence of that, but where the leadership is using its capacity of persuasion and the fact that it has access to info employees don’t have, to convince them that it was all for the mission, no matter the real reasons
In the second world, working at Anthropic would not reliably improve the world. Anthropic employees would have to evaluate whether to continue working there in the same way as they would if they worked at OpenAI or any other AI company.
All current and potential Anthropic employees should notice that from the outside, it sure does look like Anthropic is not following its mission as much as it used to. There are two hypotheses that explain it. They should make sure to keep tracking both of them. They should have a plan of what they’ll do if they’re in the least convenient world, so they can face uncomfortable evidence. And, if they do conclude that the Anthropic leadership is not following Anthropic’s mission anymore, they should take action.
Nominated. One of the posts that changed my life the most in 2024. I’ve eaten oatmeal at least 50 times since then, and have enjoyed the convenience and nutrition.
I’ll go buy some more tomorrow
Nominated. I used the calculator linked in this post to determine whether to take up insurance since then.
Nominated. The hostile telepath problem immediately entered my library of standards hypothesis to test for debugging my behavior and helping others do so, and sparked many lively conversations in my rationalist circles.
I’m glad I reread it today.
Draft post made during Inkhaven. Interested in feedback.
Signals of Competence is the model I use to advise friends on how to build career capital.
When deciding who to hire, an organization will assess the competence of the candidates by looking at various signals that they sent in their CV, cover letter, interview or work test.
Those signals are a point on those two main dimensions:
Reach/Breadth: how wide of a population understands the signal. Harvard degree is high. Having made a specific niche software is narrow.
Detail/Depth: how much of a detailed picture of your competence does it paint. Degree only signals you’re in the degree-holder distribution, it’s very shallow. A portfolio shows specific things you made by yourself, it’s deeper. Having worked with someone for years gives them a detailed model of how you work and what you’re good at, it’s as deep as it gets.
Signals of Competence are of two types:
Individual: Historically, all signals of competence were of the form “Here is an example of my work” or “I worked with you or your friend before so you trust me”. Those signals are usually detailed, but as they’re specific to you, they don’t work beyond your social circles.
Institutional: Institutions were built to create signal of competence that are portable (e.g. degrees, certifications). The trust is no more in the specific individual, but in the institution who attests of their competence
Small and Big organizations generally care about different signals
In big organizations, recruiters usually don’t have the technical knowledge to assess detailed signals of competence. They will rely on broad ones, like degrees. To get those, you have to max out the institutional signals, who will be understandable by an MBA without domain specific knowledge.
In small organization, the cost of a bad hire is much higher, and the recruiter will be much more technical. There, they will want to get the most detailed signal they can, to reduce the risk you’ll tank the company. You’ll want to have specific personal connection or direct experience working on their topic.
Your CV is the collection of those signals. There are three ways you can improve how good it is:
More detailed signals: build up a portfolio in the specific industry you want to get in, work with people who can attest of your competence and recommend you, publish in the recognized venues of the field → increase your chances to break into a specific field
More widely legible signals: get to a top university, work in big tech, anything with wide brand recognition → increase your ability to pivot to any industry
Push the Pareto Frontier of breath/depth: being maintainer of a famous open source project is a widely understood signal in tech which gives you lots of credibility, even though it’s not worth anything outside tech
Recruiters look for three kind of signals:
Technical Competence: are you good at the specific thing the org is doing?
Executive Function: are you a reliable person that will get shit done on time?
Culture Fit: are you someone that they’ll enjoy working with or will you make them miserable?
Make sure you signal your competence in those three.
Its population advantage had vastly reduced by the end of the 19th century already, as France was the first country to go through a demographic transition in the 18th century. AFAIK its relative population compared to other western countries has been stable since WWII.
(If this seems mean, I think I have equally mean critiques about how every other country is screwing up. I’m just calling out France here because the claims in the post are about France.)
Yeah I realized this post did make me sound like a patriot lol. I’m not convinced of France’s relevance, nor its irrelevance. I’m writing those posts for myself to figure out whether France matters, and to help other people working in AI policy to have a good model of France’s motivations in the AI race.
Yeah, agree with most of this. I added a not saying that it’s the narrative that I think is shaping France actions, rather than my view of the situation.
I agree that Mistral cannot come to parity on technical prowess. I think that from the sovereignty angle, it still can be a success if they make models that are actually useful for industry and are trusted by French national security agencies, which seems to be more like Mistral’s goal lately.
Strong agree on not expecting France to be a significant player in AI development. However, I expect that France seeing itself as in the race is a big part of the current AI investment push. Also, France might not be in the race, but it could still actually matter whether they have national compute resources and expertise. France only developed nuclear weapons fourth, but it still matters for its sovereignty to have them.
Also agree on the lameness of the tech scene in France. I was working in a world leading crypto startup started in France, and the founder still ended up moving from Paris to London, to get closer to a proper financial district.
We have one patch of real grass on the side of Eigenhall, which is out of footpaths, and it still got stomped to near death. Right now it’s 50% bare dirt, 30% dead grass, and 20% green grass. Might need to be replanted from scratch.
After some quick research with Claude, it seems the main way would be buying real turf rolls, letting them get slowly stomped to death over the event, and disposing of it. It’d cost $5k to $10k per event just for Rat Park.
Setting up permanent lawns in Rat Park and the Central Courtyard would run into the issue of the substrate being concrete, which would need a large construction project to change, as well as permitting, and would probably just not be accepted by the city. Probably $100k in initial installation cost, not counting permitting nor the large amount of maintenance to keep it healthy despite constant use. I’m not even sure it could be kept healthy even with the best care and reinforcement with such high foot traffic as Manifest.
Also, a negative consequence of real turf would be that attendees feets would get, you know, dirty. And that probably means way more dirt brought into every building, much worse indoor experience, and walking around Lighthaven in socks not being possibke anymore.
So yeah I’m not really seeing a future where this would ever be worth it for more than some accessory lawns like the one we currently have.