I operate by Crocker’s rules. All LLM output is explicitely designated as such. I have made no self-hiding agreements.
niplav
Karma: 5,720
Yes. This is literally known as model expansion, see e.g. this paper on a lossless way of doing so. The issue with Opus 3 is that it’s likely
Did you report the bug?
Not sure about the lux, but the whole lumenator has 32k lumen, in 22 corn bulbs around my desk, with ~1.8m distance on average.
Some results from a lumenator RCT I ran on myself [1] .
Stand-outs: Having the lumenator on increases some variables by a lot, reliably, especially the subjective length of day and happiness, but also contentment, relaxation, and horniness [2] . So the original reasoning for lumenators stands up. It does not improve productivity (surprising!) or creativity.
Also
factorbasically measures how well my flashcard content was, which also increased, though I don’t trust those numbers particularly much since I only started doing flashcards towards the end of the experiment. The lumenator plausibly worsens meditations, but also a bit fraught given that only some experiment days had me doing meditation.absorption mindfulness productivity creativity sublen happy content relaxed horny ease factor ivl time d −0.4451 −0.7275 0.2087 0.0140 0.5061 0.5518 0.3823 0.4046 0.2238 0.1079 0.5192 −0.1511 −0.0449 λ 3.0944 9.0917 2.4987 0.5691 10.2831 31.0045 15.6398 28.3924 7.6674 2.5491 43.8971 4.6378 0.4189 p 0.4101 0.0079 0.5265 0.9208 0.0029 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0245 0.5161 0.0000 0.1864 0.9447 dσ −0.0269 −0.0866 0.0233 0.0144 0.0310 −0.2440 −0.3504 0.5453 −0.4503 −0.0670 −232.2879 29.1267 577.4129 k 32.0000 32.0000 50.0000 50.0000 50.0000 198.0000 198.0000 198.0000 198.0000 295.0000 295.0000 295.0000 295.0000 - ↩︎
Writeup maybe sometime, maybe never. I still haven’t properly written up my Pomodoro Method RCT or my Vitamin D₃ RCT either.
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This one’s not above the 0.05 threshold if Bonferroni-corrected though.
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Fair enough, your version looks good, I’ll edit this main one to conform—done.
Hm, thanks for the feedback. Not sure how to change, if I bunch the sentences into paragraphs it probably becomes less readable, if I give each sentence it’s own paragraph it becomes a bit disjointed. Let me think about it.
Nope, not LLM output, all mine, though it’s not a great sign that it can’t be distinguished :-/ The text is a constrained writing exercise, in which I fulfill the constraint described in the collapsible section above (which left me with ≤0.5% of English vocabulary, hence the obscurity of many words). Think writing without the letter ‘e’/classic oulipo. The collapsible section contains a fairly detailed fully linked/footnoted version that discusses each word choice, and some places where I wanted to use a word but couldn’t.
LLMs can’t write this kind of text. Believe me, I’ve tried, they immediately fall on their noses and use a Greek or Persian or Hindi-originated word. I think it’s a really hard task which LLMs aren’t ready for yet.
And I’m seeing line breaks, in the block-quoted text, are you not? Ah, wait, I get it, there are no paragraph breaks, but there are ’\n’s in the text, because I thought it wasn’t worth splitting 450 words into paragraphs, and wanted to evoke a sentiment of reading a page from a novel, the dialogue is split by the newlines/per character.
Maybe all the footnotes together with every word linked to its Wiktionary entry is confusing. The collapsible section contains an annotated version of the full post, as a stand-in for spoilers because I didn’t want to have a hover spoiler because that gets annoying with long texts.
The numbered list at the end is not super important, it associates the words used to their respective language families.
I was a bit unsure whether to post this here, but given that Gwern’s Tilakkhana and October the First is Too Late were posted here too, I thought this in the same genre, about the same level of obscurity.
Explanation of the constraint, with detailed comments
The constraint for this piece of writing for me was to not use any words of Proto-Indo-European origin, except the top fifty English words according to this list. Conjugating & combining allowed words was permitted.
“OK, senpai” I beg. Copper Ra satellites[1] for zenith, my sandals sauna on emerald rubbish in the barracks[2].
“Traffic[3] me alcohol and the syrup jar here, ninja”. I stubbornly[4] tote[5] ginger[6] tea and chocolate, Khan’s a punk.
Bizarre: Myths don’t rattle in this hip ghetto — I dig it.
I twitchily hassle; “The assassin at the canal, you clocked?”
“Pow pow out the slum. Barged in, massaged the racket, mopped up, you grok? Boomeranged chop-chop. Fun caliber, righted[7] me an average[8] migraine[9]. No person but me the shōgun, the zombifieds, and the assassin; he fake kowtowed to the sultan — to Laniakea blings. Ogle[10] there!”
I dodge to bother: there he is. “Your admiral, in person‽”. I’m flummoxed. He traffics the coach zig-zag and gets in the compound.
The tattooed admiral, crashing the sofa: “I hustled[11] the cocaine from the saboteur[12].”
Khan yanks the coffer[13] of narcotic alabaster saffron. The admirals cotton is nasty[14] scarlet and cerise[15], ouch — on a turquoise satin canopy.
Khan: “Yours?”
“No.”
“You’re a goon.”
“No, a candy[16] shaman” admiral rumbles stubbornly. The elixir jitters out of sapphire spheres, we absinthe.
“No taboos at this corroboree. The narc, is he, um, “amen”?”
“Yes.”
“Ok” Khan scratches[17]. “Tabbed to me? Shenanigans?”
“No cops. … My sabbatical, my cash[18]? My chili squaw will squeeze the flimsy bikini, but that’s OK. I’ll syrup-daddy[19]” he yaps.
“Cheugy, soynerd. OK”—Khan yeets[20] the cash to the sofa. “Don’t amok in the ghetto, don’t list macabre hash, don’t flop[21], and we are wicked hip. No skulduggery. Jive[22] her, fuck[23] her, marry[24] her, hallelujah.”
“Ok, no shenanigans in the slum. Chào[25].”
Khan’s admiral traffics the silver cannon gizmo to me, ruffles out.
I hazard the sofa—I’m ketchuped, bothered. Pump[26] soda when Betelgeuse capoeiras.“Goofy[27] bloke” I bounce. “He gets to cottage and barbecue?”
A dzogchen[28] Khan chats: “Not with that ease… he’s the narc. No cottage, no barbecue, no pyramid, just a mummy in a canal by monsoon. I’ll bag his kawaii sheila.”
I’m petrified. What a coyote, this bastard. He squints[29].
“My horde has to have fit asabiyyah. You yabber to the cops, you beg to satan and Yahweh. That’s the algebra. I’m a sigma Chad, I’m the sulfur phoenix, I boom.”
No fanfare, no shouting. Ditzily: “Scram. Curry me some, baizuo.”
I taped this gibberish in the bungalow[30]. I’m the narc, the saboteur: mundane[31], embryonic[32]—he doesn’t ping[33].
My pink nape bothers, my bloke avocados itch. I’ll sumō the shōgun at ramadan. Ivory will triumph.1. Uncertain:
1. Recent: “OK” (1839), “punk” (1678), “dog” (14th to 16th century), “clock” (1370), “fake” (1775), “ogle” (17th century), “flummoxed” (1837), “zig-zag” (1712), “yank” (1822), “ouch” (1838), “goon” (1580), “tab” (1607), “shenanigans” (1850s), “squeeze” (1600), “nerd” (1951), “Chad” (7th century), “ditzily” (1800s), “gibberish” (mid 16th century)
2. Older: “calm”, “try”, “beg”, “rubbish”, “stubborn”, “rattle”, “twitch”, “hassle”, “racket”, “fun”, “bother”, “crash”, “hustle”, “nasty”, “scratch”, “cop”, “flimsy”, “daddy”, “yap”, “macabre”, “flop”, “wicked”, “skulduggery”, “fuck”, “marry”, “silver”, “gizmo”, “ruffle”, “capoeira”, “goofy”, “bloke”, “bounce”, “ease”, “bastard”, “squint”, “fit”, “sulfur”, “shouting”, “scram”, “tape”, “ping”, “pink”, “nape”, “itch”
3. From Greek: “sandal”, “sphere”, “embryonic”
4. From Italian: “ghetto”
2. Turkic: “Khan”, “saboteur”, “turquoise”, “horde”
3. Japonic: “senpai”, “ninja”, “soy”, “kawaii”, “sumō”
4. Afro-Asiatic:
1. Egyptian: “Ra”, “barge”, “migraine”, “alabaster”, “pyramid”, “phoenix”, “ivory”
2. Semitic: “copper”, “emerald”, “mop”, “coffer”, “sapphire”, “mummy”
1. Arabic: “zenith”, “traffic”, “alcohol”, “syrup”, “jar”, “assassin”, “massage”, “caliber”, “average”, “sultan”, “admiral”, “sofa”, “saffron”, “cotton”, “scarlet”, “elixir”, “hash”, “hazard”, “soda”, “Betelgeuse”, “monsoon”, “sheila”, “asabiyyah”, “algebra”, “ramadan”
2. Hebrew: “amen”, “hallelujah”, “sabbatical”, “satan”, “Yahweh”
5. Tyrsenian:
1. Etruscan: “satellite”, “person”, “mundane”
6. Uralic: “cottage”
1. Finnic: “sauna”
2. Hungarian: “coach”
7. Dravidian: “bungalow”, “candy”
1. Tamil: “ginger”, “cash”, “curry”
8. Niger-Congo: “tote”
1. Atlantic-Congo
1. Bantu: “zombified”
1. Wolof: “hip”, “dig it”, “jive”
9. Sino-Tibetan:
1. Chinese: “tea”, “shōgun”, “satin”, “chào”, “baizuo”
1. Cantonese: “chop-chop”, “kowtowed”
2. Hokkien: “ketchuped”
2. Tibetan: “dzogchen”
10. Uto-Aztecan:
1. Nahuatl: “chocolate”, “chili”, “avocado”
2. Nahuan: “coyote”
11. Basque: “bizarre”
12. Sumerian: “canal”, “cannon” (both have the same root in “𒄀”, very neat)
13. Pama-Nguyan:
1. Dharug: “boomerang”, “corroboree”
2. Woiwurrung: “yabber”
14. Austronesian:
1. Hawaiian: “Laniakea”
2. Malay: “compound”, “amok”
3. Samoan: “tattooed”
4. Tongan: “taboo”
5. Marshallese: “bikini”
15. Yuman:
1. Quechan: “cocaine”
16. Tungusic:
1. Evenki: “shaman”
17. Algic:
1. Massachusett: “squaw”
18. Arawakan:
1. Taíno: “barbecue”
19. Substrate:
1. Pre-Greek: “narcotic”, “cerise”, “canopy”, “absinthe”, “narc”, “petrified”, “triumph”
2. Other: “myth”, “barrack”
20. Onomatopoetic: “pow pow”, “rumble”, “jitter”, “pump”, “chat”, “sigma”, “boom”, “fanfare”
21. De novo: “slum”, “grok” (1961), “bling”, “cheugy” (2013), “yeet” (2008)Seems unclear. I originally thought this was Uralic from Hungarian, but I was mistaken. Either from a substrate language (!) from “bara” (thouh possibly from “*bʰeh₂-”) through “barrum” or from “*bʰerH-” through “*barra”. I’ll let it slide, I think, but it’s also an edge-case. Otherwise I could use “bungalow” a second time. ↩︎
I don’t buy the “trans-”″friare” explanation, and find “تَفْرِيق” more plausible. But ymmv, could be a violation of my constraints. ↩︎
Could be from “*(s)tewp-” via “stubbaz”, but that’s more of a hypothesis. I count it as uncertain. ↩︎
Another one where I’m playing it fast & loose. Seems disputed, either from Proto-German “*tut(t)-” (but without further history) or (more fun) from a Bantu language. ↩︎
Yes, it went through Prakrit but is ultimately Dravidian with “𑀇𑀜𑁆𑀘𑀺𑀯𑁂𑀭𑁆”! LLMs often get tripped up by this. ↩︎
This is in the top 50 words by frequency as “right”. ↩︎
The Egyptian origin. I know we could also trace it back to “*sēmi” from “*ḱr̥h₂-(e)s-n-”, but let’s not. ↩︎
Yeah I know this one’s reaching pretty far. Wiktionary gives 17th century as an origin, but then proceeds to provide an etymology from “*h₃ekʷ-” through “*augijan”. There’s really no good word for looking that’s not IE though. Alternatively I considered “peep” but that’s just directly from “piken”. I could use “capoeira there” or “kung fu there” as “turn there”. Maybe after an edit. ↩︎
I wish I could more confidently link this to the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages, but I’ll be a good boy and stay with Semitic languages. Would be awesome though. ↩︎
This one is so disputed (“obscure origin” via Wiktionary) that I’ll say it’s uncertain. Possibly I’m wrong and it’ from “*ken-” through “*hnaskuz”, in which case I could also use “icky”, which isn’t great either, or “wacky”, which is uncertain or onomatopoetic. ↩︎
This one’s fun! I like the Proto-Dravidian reconstruction from “*kaṇṭu”, and Wiktionary on “खण्ड” says “An internally-derived word, likely of non-Indo-European origin but no convincing Dravidian or Munda sources. […] Part of the Indo-Aryan “defective” group of words”, which “do not have clear Indo-European etymology. They are characterized by showing a wide variety of alternative forms, perhaps indicating substrate origin or taboo deformation”. Very cool! I’ll count it as Dravidian. ↩︎
My arch-nemesis: I have the speculation this is actually from “jeter” via French from New Orleans into AAVE or via “iettare” through some unknown-to-me route. But our etymology goes only back to 2014 (or 2008 if we count the Urban Dictionary entry as related), and none of the originators are from New Orleans as far as I can tell, so I get to use the word. ↩︎
I take the Wolof etymology because I can. ↩︎
Wiktionary doesn’t give an etymology beyond “probably ultimately imitative”. ↩︎
The etymology just… ends at “asquint”? But doesn’t seem related to *(s)kewh₁- since “squint” goes back to words for slant/slope/angle. ↩︎
Another fun one! Comes from the name for Bengal, which either traces back to “वङ्ग”, for which wiktionary doesn’t offer an etymology (except linking back to “بنگال”, creating a cycle in the etymology), could also be Proto-Dravidian “वातिङ्गण” or even Tibetan “བནས”. It veers dangerously close to PIE through Sanskrit but seems ultimately non-IE. ↩︎
I’ll assume it’s onomatopoetic. If you disagree, imagine I’d re-used “grok” here. ↩︎
LLMs have a really hard time writing under this constraint, I tried with Gemini 3 Pro, Opus 4.6, the results were noticeably worse and extremely boring. They think that the constraint is much weaker than it actually is, when asked to figure it out. The author Opus 4.6 suspects is Douglas Hofstadter.
Also notice the (unplanned!) wordcount, I’d think it was kismet.
Charlatan Labyrinth
It’s quite common for people to try to explain a phenomenon or trend before actually having checked whether it’s happening. Don’t do that, follow the establish-then-explain heuristic.
Example: People were debating a lot why attention spans were decreasing, without having established that they were decreasing. Or: People want to explain why AI models loose social skills after RLVR before having established that they do.
There’s some times when I wish for an eye-roll react.
Congratulations.
I have heard that it is very good, is that true?
Isn’t the rumour that he has many IVF+embryo-selected kids with different women? (Is there a better source for this?)
Yeah, fair enough. I don’t count Musk as a rationalist rationalist. He’s just very confused about anything that doesn’t give you real-world feedback quickly. He’s a weird case of a human who is exceptional in a ≤4-year time horizon and then has median human thinking abilities for anything beyond that. (Though noteworthy that he has taken no steps towards technical solutions for the birth rate issue, which, ya know, revealed preferences…)
If I were to steelman… hm. If every nation was at South Korea levels in 200 years we’d likely be back to pre-industrial revolution levels of technological & industrial development because lots of tacit knowledge that is required to keep civilization going is stored in people’s heads, and can’t be squeezed into fewer people, furthermore declining population leaves less slack for R&D because everyone is busy caring for mostly-nonproductive elders instead of innovating. This might plausibly start by 2050 or so, so unless one has fairly long AI timelines it is a non-issue.
I guess any AI pause that goes that far out has a similar issue, unless we allow for genetic engineering+exowombs to proliferate (and even then it feels like a toss-up to me, bracketing more AI progress).
The biggest issue I see with Pigouvian taxes is that they’re computationally tricky to estimate. Who knows what downstream effect in the big chain of causality this particular person/action had! Pollution/carbon taxes are an easy exception.
Aside, a bit off topic: Even if we could compute Shapley values, Shapley values suffer from combinatorial explosion. (Things other than Shapley values or approximating them might work.)
Yeah… seems right. I could cop out with “ah, the number of bit erasures by a program matters, not just whether it did”, but I don’t have any good reason for believing this.
A lot of the rationalist discourse around birthrates don’t seem to square away with AGI predictions.
I think whenever I’ve seen people worry about birth rates, they either
Excluded AGI as a relevant factor (“unless AGI happens, low birth rates will matter”), or
They weren’t people who thought AGI was a relevant factor (either because it’s too far out, or because they think robotics is hard, or something else)
Curious if you have counter-examples of people who think AGI soon and low birthrates are an issue.
Re: psychedelic enthusiasts.overstating effects. I recommend going for the primary sources and looking up testimonials from cluster headache patients!
Yeah… I’m trying to beware surprising and suspicious convergence here. “Local psychedelics enthusiasts discover that psychedelics are the cure to the worst conditions known to humanity, more at 11.”
This is, in some sense, a cheap and kind of mean heuristic, but I wanted to flag the suspicion. I might go and read some testimonials, but nothing beats a good ol’ RCT [1] . I don’t want to be the person who’s like “you need more research before you advocate” and I’m looking forward to putting DMT-variants head-to-head in an experiment with known medical treatments for cluster headaches.
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Actually not true, we could & should try to design successors to the RCT, but they’ll go in the direction of “Thompson-sample from the posterior distribution in some bandit setup” as opposed to “more anecdata”.
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I haven’t used it quite enough yet to make a good assessment. Let me report back (or ping me if I don’t and you’re still curious) in a few weeks.
That good time was years ago, and FLI was heroically working on it, but it unfortunately never materialized. It’s too late now