Harley-ml/lesswrong huggingface dataset:
# You're Playing a Rough Game

In general, we don't want our kids (10y, 8y) to hit each other. Learning to control your impulses is an important skill, and resorting to violence is usually a substitute for other skills we're prefer them to practice (understanding what the other person wants, negotiating). Also they could hurt each other.

On the other hand, sometimes the kids enjoy hitting each other. This is very different from hitting out of anger: they're both having fun, they're not trying to injure each other, it's more about force than impact, etc. Even calling both of these activities "hitting" is a bit misleading: a hit intended to inflict pain looks very different than one intended to knock the other off balance or push them farther away on the couch to gain a strategic advantage.

We wouldn't want to prohibit our kids from playing roughly with each other when that's what they both want, but this interacts awkwardly with normal rules. If Lily says "Anna hit me" but this was after Lily said "Anna, lets play a game where we hit each other" then Anna should clearly not go in [time out](https://www.jefftk.com/p/how-to-parent-more-predictably). The way we generally handle this is flagging to the kids when we notice they're doing this ("it looks like you're playing a rough game") and possibly including a warning ("and someone might get hurt"). Then if someone does get hurt, and minor injuries are reasonably common with this sort of play, they know we're not going to punish the other person for it ("you were playing a rough game, and this is the kind of thing that can happen when you're playing rough"). If they were doing this upstairs or somewhere we didn't notice we do our best to figure out what happened ("What were you doing before they hit you? ... It sounds like you were playing a rough game.") but it's not perfect.

One way this could be abused is to use the context of a rough game to escalate to actually trying to hurt the other person. How this works out sounds like something that would vary a lot based on the actual kids involved, but with ours this is rare: I don't see them using rough games as cover for malice. Much more common are issues with not being on the same page about whether they're playing a rough game. We sort that out as best as we can ("Anna, is this a game you want to be playing?") and try to encourage them to do this on their own ("Does it look like Lily's enjoying this?").

I'm also curious how this will change as our youngest (3y) gets into a range where she'll start being able to do this kind of play with her older siblings. She's a lot more fragile than they are, and much weaker, but this might be something where a larger difference in the ability to inflict harm makes it clearer whether actions are in the "rough game" category?

(Julia also [touched on this](https://juliawise.net/advice-for-getting-along-with-your-kids/#talk-less) in her "advice for getting along with your kids" post.)

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/pfbid02MvmVZUuSihMUUA52KD5LcYW8NNPy891ETGZTJvkrw1HezQGwjnmcHD9y3DsRWHEvl), [mastodon](https://mastodon.mit.edu/@jefftk/113324355742524170)*
# Start an Upper-Room UV Installation Company?

*While this post touches on biosecurity it's a personal post and I'm not speaking for my employer*

If you want to prevent airborne spread of diseases you have a few options:

*   Filter breath (masks, [PAPRs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_air-purifying_respirator))
*   Replace the air ([ventilation](https://www.jefftk.com/p/maximal-ventilation))
*   Clean the air (filters, UV light)

Masks, fans, and air filters are widely available, but what about UV? The CDC [recommends upper-room UV](https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ventilation/germicidal-ultraviolet/index.html), it has a long history of successful use in with TB, and in many cases it's great fit for the space. Look on Yelp, though, and no installers come up:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/germicidal-uv-yelp.png)](https://www.jefftk.com/germicidal-uv-yelp-big.png)

Maybe people are missing a good business opportunity, or maybe it's the kind of opportunity that's only ok but is worth it for the altruistic impacts of directly reducing spread and normalizing UV? Seems worth finding out!

If you want to read more about how to set up upper-room UV systems, NIOSH has [a serious document](https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2009-105/pdfs/2009-105.pdf). At a high level, though, you want rooms that have a high density of people but also a reasonably high ceiling. Then you set up UV fixtures to shine so they clean the air above the people.

(Prompted in part by thinking that the Cambridge Masonic Hall would be a great place for an installation like this: crowded, tall ceilings, ceiling fans for circulation.)

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/pfbid0oFD3f1cLrBTnckFBgqEjRTm83RSvch1SHNYt4F5JfZeJtFMxFto3gyJGDjyCHjTzl), [mastodon](https://mastodon.mit.edu/@jefftk/113331589640770134)*
# D/acc AI Security Salon

​If computer security was important pre AI, it has become critical now. At the same time, AI progress has also made its offense defense balance less predictable.

​AI allows for both, better, and easier attack generation and execution but also to harden our defenses. The stakes are high, especially because what is to be protected, ie AI systems themselves, become ever more valuable. While the magnitude of AI systems impact on human civilization is steeply increasing, the direction of that future impact remains highly uncertain and is critically dependent on development and governance choices in the coming years, including especially in the AI security space.

​Let's get together to explore what it might take to accelerate civilizations defense — a strategy introduced as “d/acc” by Vitalik Buterin in “My  Techno Optimism”. 

​After brief intros, we’ll hear from a few researchers and funders in the space, including;

​Jeffrey Ladish, Palisade Research

​Sella Nevo, RAND 

​Adam Gleave, FAR AI

​Caleb Parikh, Long Term Future Fund

​After brief talks, we’ll invite you to breakout into smaller groups before we'll regather in the salon for a report-out, followed by more time for connection. 

​​Drinks and light snacks will be served <3 

​This event is hosted by Lisa Thiergart and Allison Duettmann. 

​MIRI’s technical governance team researches technical and governance solutions to  avoid catastrophic risks and ensure that humanity successfully navigates the development of smarter-than-human AI.

​​Foresight Institute supports the beneficial development of high-impact technology to make great futures more likely: https://foresight.org
# Exploring the Platonic Representation Hypothesis Beyond In-Distribution Data

The **Platonic Representation Hypothesis** ([PRH](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.07987)) suggests that models trained with different objectives and on various modalities can converge to a shared statistical understanding of reality. While this is an intriguing idea, initial experiments in the paper focused on image-based models (like ViT) trained on the same pretraining (ImageNet) dataset. This raises an important question:

***Does PRH hold only when models are trained on data from the same distribution***?

To explore this question, the experiment was extended to [**ImageNet-O**](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.07174)—a dataset specifically designed with out-of-distribution (OOD) images compared to ImageNet. Using ImageNet-O, the correlation analysis of alignment scores across various metrics for image classification models was re-evaluated.

The outcome? **PRH holds true in the OOD setting** as well, which challenges the notion that a shared data distribution is a prerequisite for this convergence. This observation carries significant implications for AI alignment research, suggesting that a deeper underlying structure may govern how models develop representations of reality, even when the training data differs.

Below are the correlation plots comparing results from the original in-distribution experiment to those with OOD data:

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/da76a453d2e335d761bb01ab3023924a71014641b249802b.png)

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/fa208aa5a2e323c79195bea2d9f58f0917569a34ef0bf469.png)

But does this mean that the model's align even for purely randomly generated data?

The answer is NO.

This plot shows the correlation of the alignment scores for the models on purely randomly generated images.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/83e89203e01a0692df311848a12bd52adc60b37b08652e0b.png)

One key observation here is:  

*    On randomly generated data, PRH is not so true, I.e, the models did not share a statistical model of reality.
*   On OOD data of ImageNet-O dataset they have shared, and have high correlation. But on ImageNet-O the predictions are wrong but with higher confidence.I.e, all the models classified the images wrongly on this outlier data yet predictably. This is particularly interesting since we can infer that they fail predictably.

The notebook documenting these experiments is available [here](https://github.com/rokosbasilisk/platonic-rep/blob/main/OOD-experiments.ipynb).

**What's Next?**

The next step in this research is to identify datasets or conditions where PRH might be falsifiable
# What should OpenAI do that it hasn't already done, to stop their vacancies from being advertised on the 80k Job Board?

A sarcastic yet genuine question. Even in light of [this discussion](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8qCwuE8GjrYPSqbri/80-000-hours-should-remove-openai-from-the-job-board-and) and the parallel one on the EA Forum, I can't make out at what conditions 80k would cease to (implicitly) endorse OpenAI.
# Sleeping on Stage

When I think of the ideal place for sleeping it's something like, peaceful, dark, and quiet. The chaotic bright loud stage of a contra dance is pretty far from this, and yet generations of kids have curled up behind their parents and fallen asleep:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-fox.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-fox-big.jpg)

It's a good idea to make them a nest they can crawl into when they're feeling sleepy:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-curl.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-curl-big.jpg)

A keyboard case can work well, especially a fuzzy one:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/kids-asleep-in-keyboard-case-backstage.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/kids-asleep-in-keyboard-case-backstage-big.jpg)

It's worth thinking about what this will be before you leave the house so you can bring something comfortable.

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/car-with-bedding.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/car-with-bedding-big.jpg)

*Pictured: much more bedding than required for this purpose, because this is the car packed for vacation. I don't have a good picture of the car packed for playing dances.*

If you forget (or believe them when they insist they'll set up their bed when they're ready for it) they might go to sleep less comfortably:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-no-sleeping-bag.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-no-sleeping-bag-big.jpg)

Or less comfortably:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/less-comfortable-sleeping-on-stage.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/less-comfortable-sleeping-on-stage-big.jpg)

Or much less comfortably:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-asleep-fetal-position.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-asleep-fetal-position-big.jpg)

Headphones and a story tape can help:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/lily-sleeping-on-stage.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/lily-sleeping-on-stage-big.jpg)

You want to make sure they've used the bathroom and, ideally, brushed their teeth and put on whatever clothes they want to sleep in, since if everything goes well they'll be asleep until the next morning. When I'm lucky, which is about 75% of the time:

*   They sleep until the end of the dance
*   I strike my gear and pack the car
*   I carry them to the car
*   We drive home or to our hosts'
*   I carry them to their bed

all without them waking up.

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-in-bag.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/anna-sleeping-on-stage-in-bag-big.jpg)

I asked them what they thought:

> Lily: It's not my favorite thing? But it's ok, especially if I have an audiobook to drown out the noise.
> 
> Anna: I like it.

I don't think I would have believed this worked if I hadn't seen it, but it's reasonably common so it must work for a lot of families.

*Comment via: [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/pfbid0wG1U3jxfBsSzHxVpn8ujyrdVLzbw1DGDUBH7ztPBThQkuUeFi21H1g1X83g3TDFYl), [mastodon](https://mastodon.mit.edu/@jefftk/113348305968718403)*
# Conversational Signposts—How to stop having boring social interactions

I went from being a bad conversationalist to a good one after learning about "conversational signposts".

Before defining the concept, I’d like to first showcase an awkward chat I had recently.

> \[*The topic of music came up*\]
> 
> Her: “Do you play any instruments?”  
> Me: “Yeah, I’ve been playing piano for 20 years.”  
> Her: “Hmm, cool.”
> 
> \[*Awkward silence*\]
> 
> Me: “So, uhh, do you play any instruments? Or are there any instruments you wish you could play?”  
> Her: “Nah, not really.”
> 
> \[*Awkward silence*\]

It’s possible she wasn’t interested in talking to me. But it’s also possible that she didn’t know how to advance the conversation. She could have been aided by using…

**Conversational Signposts**: distinct bits of information that, when followed, lead to divergent paths in a conversation

From the statement “I’ve been playing piano for 20 years,” I can extract two unique components:

1.  *playing piano*
2.  *for 20 years*

These are conversational signposts that represent different directions she could have taken our chat.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/be7ed4ccacf47fdf44ff79438a1e998de57d5e245ca68005.jpg)

  
Her general interest in music could’ve helped guide her to choose which signpost to follow. And if a particular branch of conversation fizzled out, she could’ve always circled back to previous signposts mentioned in the conversation:  
 

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/d6a002fae49045130cbb5306aa07f4e80a71963f350dbbd8.jpg)

  
**A successful example.**
----------------------------

While talking to somebody else last week, we seamlessly followed each other’s conversational signposts (which are highlighted in **bold**).

> Me: “Did you get up to anything Friday night?”
> 
> Him: “Yeah, I went **line dancing** at a place called **Stony’s**.”
> 
> Me: \[I don’t care about dancing so I opted for a joke.\] “Oh cool, does that place double as a weed bar?”
> 
> Him: “Huh?”
> 
> Me: “Cuz, you know, *Stony’s*.”
> 
> Him: \[Groaning\]
> 
> Me: \[Jokingly\] “I’ll see myself out” \[and fake walked away\]. “No, but seriously, is **the reason you’re into line dancing** because you enjoy the **hypnotic effect** of dancing in unison? If so, you might be interested in joining a **cult**—have you ever experimented with that?”
> 
> Him: “I think a lot of **people experiment in their 20s**. Some of the cults I’ve tried were too intense. I remember this one time, I was drinking the blood of a virgin my cult had just sacrificed, and I thought, ‘You know, I think **flag football** is more my thing.’”

By recognizing and following each other's conversational signposts, we had a great time exploring the topics that piqued our mutual interests.

Like with any new skill, trying something for the first time can be stiff and unnatural. But the longer I practiced noticing and following conversational signposts, the more enjoyable conversing with a variety of people became.
# Why I quit effective altruism, and why Timothy Telleen-Lawton is staying (for now)

~5 months I formally quit EA (formally here means “I made an announcement on Facebook”). My friend Timothy was very curious as to why; I felt my reasons applied to him as well. This disagreement eventually led to a podcast episode, where he and I try convince each other to change sides on Effective Altruism- he tries to convince me to rejoin, and I try to convince him to quit. 

[Audio recording](https://youtu.be/pIR9upHWq2k)

[Transcript](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tmwCMOVABzjfz-S5wq_L6NqP3J6e-8gLN6CNgO2IwRQ/edit?tab=t.0)

Some highlights:

*   My story of falling in love, trying to change, and then falling out of love with Effective Altruism. That middle part draws heavily on past posts of mine, including  [EA Vegan Advocacy is not truthseeking, and it’s everyone’s problem](https://acesounderglass.com/2023/09/28/ea-vegan-advocacy-is-not-truthseeking-and-its-everyones-problem/) and [Truthseeking is the ground in which other principles grow](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XkLnbSsjK7TpNFgPn/truthseeking-is-the-ground-in-which-other-principles)
*   Why Timothy still believes in EA

Spoilers: Timothy agrees leaving EA was right for me, but he wants to invest more in fixing it.

Thanks to my [Patreon patrons](https://www.patreon.com/acesounderglass) for supporting my part of this work.
# What is the alpha in one bit of evidence?

Recently the whole "if your p(doom) is high, you should short the market" thing has been going around. Let's say the market prices in a 0.1% chance of extinction per century, and you think there's a 50% chance we're dead in the next 25 years. This is about 12 bits of evidence.
1. How much profit is it even reasonable to expect someone to make from 1 bit of evidence?
2. Is this a constant function of the bits which is calculable like e.g. a Kelly bet? Or does it depend on the market?
3. If the latter, does it ever make sense to short things at all based on p(doom)? I assume not, since shorting is generally stupid high-risk for an uninitiated trader (as I understand it).

Consider: everyone else thinks a company share has a 0.1% chance of being worth $10 tomorrow and a 99.9% chance of being worth $0. I think the chance is 50:50. Therefore the stock price is $0.01 today. If I have $100 in the bank, I maximize expected log(money) by spending fully half of my money on it. By my reckoning the maximum log-expected money is $1581, which corresponds to about a 16-fold increase over $100. Which is not 10 bits of alpha!

PS not looking for investment advice here, just looking for maths.
# Join a LessWrong Team for the Unaging System Challenge

Hey LessWrong,

After sharing early results at Less Online this summer (thanks for the feedback during the strength training demos), I'm recruiting for a LessWrong team in the 2025 Unaging System Challenge. What started as helping one friend who got winded climbing stairs has grown into a complete system that could add two decades to our lives. The research shows we can reduce premature death risk by up to 90% through specific physical activities – and it only requires 90 minutes of structured exercise weekly.

Evidence-based health information should be freely available to everyone. This is my contribution to increasing human health and longevity—think of it as applied EA for physical optimization.

**The 2025 Program (Starting January 6):**

*   Four 12-week challenges throughout the year
*   Each challenge builds one evidence-backed longevity habit
*   Starting with HIIT for cardiorespiratory fitness
*   Progressing to strength, mobility, and advanced protocols
*   Just 90 minutes of structured exercise weekly
*   Teams grouped by community for accountability and discussion

Our first cohort included rationalists from the Japan ACX meetup and a delightful range of fitness levels – from "I get winded opening my laptop" to "I do ultramarathons between alignment debates." One participant combined shadow boxing and the Floss dance for their HIIT intervals, proving rationalists can optimize anything.

**What You Need:**

*   Heart rate tracking (Apple Watch, Oura, Whoop, Fitbit kinda thing)
*   Three 30-minute exercise sessions weekly during building phases
*   Two sessions weekly for maintenance
*   Willingness to track metrics (love data)

Register here to join the LessWrong team: [https://www.unaging.com/unaging-system/](https://www.unaging.com/unaging-system/)

Looking forward to helping more of us live long enough to solve the control problem – or at least climb stairs without questioning our life choices.

For rationality and longevity, Crissman

*P.S. For those who asked at Less Online: No, we still don't need Bryan Johnson's supplement stack.*
# Motte-and-Bailey: a Short Explanation

\[ *Context: I found out about the motte-and-bailey fallacy a few years ago via Scott's essay* [*All In All, Another Brick In The Motte*](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the-motte/)*. I've found it a useful concept handle since then, but it's kind of tricky, many people are not proficient with it, it's tough to explain in conversation, there's no existing short post to link to, and the* [*Wikipedia article*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy) *is long and confusing. So I figured I would write a short explanation myself, so as to be able to link to it.* \]

In the Middle Ages, a motte was a [fort on a hill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_castle). It would be surrounded by a field called a bailey. This was called a motte-and-bailey castle.

\[You can remember this by remembering:

*   the two 't's in "motte", together, look like a little chess rook
*   "bailey" starts with "ba", which is the sound a sheep makes, and sheep live in fields\]

When the motte-and-bailey castle was attacked, people would retreat to the motte \[fort\], which was easier to defend. After the attack stopped, they would disperse again to the field and go about their business.

The motte-and-bailey fallacy is when you use a word, or a term, or a phrase, or a concept, like a motte-and-bailey castle, in a way that is hostile to cooperative, or Socratic\[/[double-cruxing](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/double-crux)\] discussion.

People who are motte-and-baileying are giving a word two different meanings, the same way a motte-and-bailey castle has two different locations with different functions. The "motte" meaning is easy to defend, and it is what they use when they are on the defensive. The "bailey" meaning is the actual conceptual work they use the belief to do in their worldview most of the time.

Example: Aaron tells his wife that each sneeze shortens your life by 10 minutes. This scares her into holding in her annoying sneezes, which is what Aaron intended to accomplish. Aaron's friend Becky overhears the conversation and later privately calls Aaron out on it, saying there's no reason to believe that's true. Aaron tells Becky that he just meant that viral load shortens lifespan, and his wife knew he was just expressing sympathy for her illness. Becky feels abashed and doesn't press the issue.

Aaron is using "viral load shortens lifespan" as his defensible *motte*, with Becky.

But "sneezing is literally taking minutes off your life, so you should stop sneezing" is the semantic work he really wants the phrase to do, in the context he really intends on using it in, so it's his *bailey*.
# IAPS: Mapping Technical Safety Research at AI Companies

> As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become more advanced, concerns about large-scale risks from misuse or accidents have grown. This report analyzes the technical research into safe AI development being conducted by three leading AI companies: Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and OpenAI.
> 
> We define “safe AI development” as developing AI systems that are unlikely to pose large-scale misuse or accident risks. This encompasses a range of technical approaches aimed at ensuring AI systems behave as intended and do not cause unintended harm, even as they are made more capable and autonomous.
> 
> We analyzed all papers published by the three companies from January 2022 to July 2024 that were relevant to safe AI development, and categorized the 80 included papers into nine safety approaches. Additionally, we noted two categories representing nascent approaches explored by academia and civil society, but not currently represented in any research papers by these leading AI companies. Our analysis reveals where corporate attention is concentrated and where potential gaps lie.
> 
> Some AI research may stay unpublished for good reasons, such as to not inform adversaries about the details of safety and security techniques they would need to overcome to misuse AI systems. Therefore, we also considered the incentives that AI companies have to research each approach, regardless of how much work they have published on the topic. In particular, we considered reputational effects, regulatory burdens, and to what extent the approaches could be used to make the company’s AI systems more useful.
> 
> We identified three categories where there are currently no or few papers and where we do not expect AI companies to become much more incentivized to pursue this research in the future. These are model organisms of misalignment, multi-agent safety, and safety by design. Our findings provide an indication that these approaches may be slow to progress without funding or efforts from government, civil society, philanthropists, or academia.

![](https://res.cloudinary.com/cea/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/r3RYNxFwrgkHcMYPB/w2gwoojddxjdwpqillyp)

[Dataset of papers](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ir_NN5i6i_DsFznbrONnatntwXIfiSeOtc-7eYDMmfQ/edit?usp=sharing). [Github](https://github.com/Oscar-Delaney/safe_AI_papers).

* * *

One reason to be interested in this kind of work is as a precursor to measuring the value of different labs' safety publications. Right now the state-of-the-art technique for that is *count the papers* (and maybe *elicit vibes from friends*). But counting the papers is crude; it misses how good the papers are (and sometimes misses valuable non-paper research artifacts).

* * *

See more of [IAPS's research](https://www.iaps.ai/ourresearch). My favorite piece of IAPS research is still [Deployment Corrections](https://www.iaps.ai/research/deployment-corrections) from a year ago.

* * *

*Update: see my related* [*List of AI safety papers from companies, 2023–2024*](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CvcAotnpQhFbTPpzm/list-of-ai-safety-papers-from-companies-2023-2024).
# What You Can Give Instead of Advice

I am often tempted to give advice, and find it difficult to say nothing while friends and colleagues make decisions that seem (to me) obviously wrong.

But advice is by nature bad, and it is not hard to see why. We are different people living under different circumstances. Giving advice is not only unhelpful, it is often harmful. You may give a friend bad advice and have them come back to blame you (“I thought stocks only go up!”), you may come off out-of-touch or privileged (“oh sure I’ll just strap on my job helmet”), or just alienate your friend by sounding patronizing.

Yet the temptation remains. A friend comes to you with a problem. You feel you should say something other than just lamely offer sympathy. But what?

Here are a few options:

1.  Ask questions, both to understand, and maybe even to help them understand. It’s not unusual for someone to complain of insomnia when the real problem is their job or their marriage. Before offering advice on melatonin dosage, give them a chance to get to the root of things.
2.  Share your personal experience or even the experience of others which could be relevant even if not directly applicable. There may not be a clear path forward, but this will at least give a sense of what is even possible.
3.  Clear up any misconceptions. They may feel stuck between academia and industry, feeling that the former pays horribly but the latter doesn’t do any interesting work. You might point out that some academics are able to supplement their meager stipends by pursuing consulting arrangements, or note that some interesting research has come out of industry recently. You might also challenge the idea that this is even a dichotomy, and point to possibilities like doing co-ops while in a PhD program.

Are there exceptions? Should you sometimes just tell people what to do? Maybe in a pre-internet era when it would have been tough to find tips on improving sleep hygiene or whatever, but with most obvious context-independent advice just a click away, there aren’t many cases like this. Maybe intervening for an alcoholic, but even then only as a group. 

This somewhat proves the rule that the only time to give advice is when a friend is, in some sense, not an adult capable of making their own decisions and taking responsibility for their own life.
# Making a Pedalboard

A few weeks ago I posted about how I was [thinking about a pedalboard](https://www.jefftk.com/p/thinking-about-a-pedalboard). I've now made one!

Before:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/rhythm-stage-setup-foot-area.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/rhythm-stage-setup-foot-area-big.jpg)

After:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/integrated-pedalboard-complete.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/integrated-pedalboard-complete-big.jpg)

It folds up slightly and fits in a standard rolly suitcase:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-folded-in-suitcase.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-folded-in-suitcase-big.jpg)

*Not pictured: I later added padding on all six sides.*

Here's the pedalboard by itself:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-by-itself.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-by-itself-big.jpg)

You can see the bundle of wires to the left that go to the keyboard and [bass whistle box](https://www.jefftk.com/p/embedded-whistle-synth), and the wires to the right that go to the electronic drumkit's brain.

I really like how much faster I can set this up and strike. I now need less than five minutes instead of maybe half an hour.

What I wasn't expecting before I started this project, though, is how nice it is when playing. My feet can easily reach the buttons, without even stopping playing kick with my left heel. This is way better than when the pedals sprawled all over the floor and didn't stay put.

I started by cutting a piece of [3/4" plywood](https://www.jefftk.com/p/pantry-staples-for-diy) to the largest size I could fit in the suitcase I usually travel with. Then I played around with pedal layouts:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-planning-initial.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-planning-initial-big.jpg)

I realized I could fit the talkbox in the middle, and expand my effective space with a folding panel:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-hinges-and-central-talk-box.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-hinges-and-central-talk-box-big.jpg)

I put down velcro:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-velco-uncut.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-velco-uncut-big.jpg)

And cut away unused parts to save weight:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-trimmed.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-trimmed-big.jpg)

Here it is all together:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-all-together.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/pedalboard-all-together-big.jpg)
# Linkpost: Memorandum on Advancing the United States’ Leadership in Artificial Intelligence

> **Memorandum on Advancing the United States’ Leadership in Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Fulfill National Security Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence**

> This memorandum fulfills the directive set forth in subsection 4.8 of Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023 (Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence).  This memorandum provides further direction on appropriately harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) models and AI-enabled technologies in the United States Government, especially in the context of national security systems (NSS), while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety in AI-enabled national security activities.  A classified annex to this memorandum addresses additional sensitive national security issues, including countering adversary use of AI that poses risks to United States national security.
# Hiring a writer to co-author with me (Spencer Greenberg for ClearerThinking.org)

Hi all! I'm looking to hire a writer for 3-5 hours per week (who can put in that time reliably nearly every week) to co-author writing projects with me (on topics like psychology, philosophy, and society). I'm looking for someone who:

1) writes compelling yet logical (and well-reasoned) prose

2) produces their writing quickly

Most of this writing would go out to our Clearer Thinking newsletter (240,000 subscribers). If someone you know might be interested, the application process for the role is simple - just submit two writing samples using the link below in the comments. 

Apply now

Thanks!
# Substituting Talkbox for Breath Controller

One of the inputs of my [rhythm stage setup](https://www.jefftk.com/p/rhythm-stage-setup-v4) has been a breath controller, which let's me gives me a continuous controller. I use it for a few different things, especially when playing music that's farther in the electronic direction:

Setting up to play a "[techno contra](https://www.jefftk.com/p/fully-live-electronic-contra)" last weekend, however, I realized my breath controller was broken. It seemed like something was wrong with the sensor: only very large pressures would do anything, and it was inconsistent. Maybe a little bit of dirt got inside? I tried taking it apart, but the sensor looks to be sealed:

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/te-control-breath-controller-sensor.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/te-control-breath-controller-sensor-big.jpg)

I might get a new sensor and try to fix it, though with the big surface mount pads probably only if I can get access to hot air rework equipment. And this was definitely not something I'd be able to do in the half hour before the dance.

I thought some about what role the breath controller fills in my sound, and the main thing is an electronic-feeling off-beat pulse. This is something I'd [made my system able to do](https://www.jefftk.com/p/automating-the-breath-pulse) a while ago, but hadn't liked because it was too rigid feeling. I had the idea of sending it out via the talkbox, however, and it ends up sounding like this:

It's not the same, and I do still miss the breath controller's ability to add a more complex rhythmic component on top of my keyboard playing, but it's new sound I like and something I expect I'll keep playing with even if I fix or replace the breath controller.
# Lighthaven Sequences Reading Group #8 (Tuesday 10/29)

Come get old-fashioned with us, and let's read the sequences at Lighthaven! We'll show up, mingle, do intros, and then split off into randomized groups for some sequences discussion. Please do the reading beforehand - it should be no more than 20 minutes of reading.

![](https://res.cloudinary.com/lesswrong-2-0/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/8rFdeSbRpqWAFnoev/hxtliur9q4kp1u3dy3oy)

This group is aimed for people who are new to the sequences and would enjoy a group experience, but also for people who've been around LessWrong and LessWrong meetups for a while and would like a refresher.

This meetup will also have dinner provided! We'll be ordering pizza-of-the-day from Sliver (including 2 vegan pizzas). Please RSVP to this event so we know how many people to have food for.

We're roughly working through [the sequences highlights](https://www.lesswrong.com/highlights). The mandatory readings this week are

1.  [The Bottom Line](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/GSqFqc646rsRd2oyz/p/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw)
2.  [Filtered Evidence](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/GSqFqc646rsRd2oyz/p/kJiPnaQPiy4p9Eqki)
3.  [A Rational Argument](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/GSqFqc646rsRd2oyz/p/9f5EXt8KNNxTAihtZ)

The posts should take around 15-20 minutes to read if you've read them before, and 30-60 mins if it's your first time.

Doors open 6pm (yes we'll let you in early if you get here). The event starts at 6:15 when we'll welcome people, give a few announcements, and then split into groups. Dinner will be served at about 7:30pm, after which point we'll hangout around the fireside as late as we feel like. If you'd like to help us keep dinner going, [you can donate here](https://www.lesswrong.com/donate) (dinner costs about $200 each time).

You *can* come without having read the essays from the sequences, we do want you to get to join, but then you will have to do a **punishment**. (And then you still have to catch up on reading the essays during the meetup.)

**Some questions to ask yourself about the essays as you read them**

*   What's the most important point in the essay?
*   What's the weakest point in the essay? Or what is the essay wrong about?
*   Can you think of a way to apply the ideas in this essay to your own life?

**For the future**

This is a weekly meetup! If you'd like to get notified of future events, you can subscribe to our meetup below to get an email whenever we add another one.
# Care Doesn't Scale

> If you wanted to design a social system to care for children who have lost their parents, I don’t know if you could do much better. With four children, each kid can get individual care and attention, but there were four social workers each had three 24-hour blocks per week, so they had time to have their own lives with enough flexibility to take vacations and sometimes have two workers with the kids instead of one.
> 
> To get that individualized care, though, they had four social workers and four children. One-to-one.
> 
> Of course, you could probably add a few more children, or subtract a social worker, as a cost-saving measure. It’d be less sustainable, but it wouldn’t significantly change the experience. But you couldn’t stray that far from one-to-one without changing the nature of the experience, without industrializing it to the point that individual care is lost. With four kids, the kids can feel like kids; if there were forty kids, they’d probably feel like they were cattle.
> 
> We’re pretty limited when it comes to care. In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person.

Not the OP, just wanted to start a discussion about this here.  
  
Some thoughts of my own:  
  
I'm reminded that we live in a thoroughly maladaptive world, that 'normal' is everyone doing the best they can despite some/many/all of their most fundamental needs - such as care - being insufficiently met.

I think, to the extent the title of this essay is true, it seems a neglected and much ignored truth. I notice that my world models assume a very finite capacity for caring, yet this awareness is not present in my conscious thoughts and strategies and my day to day interactions - I routinely overestimate my own capacity for care, and rarely notice when my own need for care is insufficiently met.  
  
I notice that I do not care skillfully, and worryingly I don't know that I would recognise such skill in others.
# Gwern: Why So Few Matt Levines?

> [Matt Levine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Levine_(columnist)) is the most well-known newslettrist ([“Money Stuff”](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine)) in the financial industry, having blogged or written since 2011, finding his niche in popularization after stints in Wall Street & law. His commentary is influential, people leak to him, he sometimes interviews major figures (notoriously, Sam Bankman-Fried) or recounts inside information, and a number of phrases like his “laws of insider trading” (specifically, how not to) have gained currency to the point where readers can now do much of the work of sourcing an issue for him.
> 
> He is read by hundreds of thousands of readers (including myself)—everyone from shoeshine boy to billionaire. The size of his audience is respectable, but perhaps its most remarkable feature is that many of those readers have nothing to do with the financial industry. Though his newsletter is officially a Bloomberg News newsletter which he simply writes, many of his readers will visit Bloomberg solely for him, and indeed, might have little idea who or what a Bloomberg is. Nevertheless, readers loyally tune in for each installment every few days to learn about arcane financial instruments they have never heard of before, and (except for Levine) never will again.
> 
> One might ask (and indeed, a billionaire once did), “where are the other Matt Levines?” or [“who are the Matt levines of other fields?”](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/hze13t/who_are_the_matt_levines_of_other_fields/) That is, where are the Matt Levines of, say, chemistry or drug development[^9c95myawgek], who explain & popularize other major industries which are vital to modern life, directly or indirectly appear in the news often, and yet people are widely ignorant of it, and deeply misunderstand its fundamental dynamics? Why don’t we have a Matt Levine for every industry? Where is the Levine of, I don’t know, petroleum refining or fracking, of shipping containers? Are we just in need of a good list of recommendations? Or could we just set up a prize to coax out some potential Levines in other industries?

Much more at the link

[^9c95myawgek]: While I enjoy Derek Lowe, the extent to which his posts are inside-baseball and do not repeat themes, or only repeat many years apart, emphasize the contrast with Levine
# I turned decision theory problems into memes about trolleys

I hope it has some educational, memetic or at least humorous potential.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/6a7e9dda91ddf98ddcdc5d7283d7fef8dce2c91d9c5d7e34.png)

Newcomb's problem

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/a7d04ad29bf18d6a610c0243578c773c8aa1b36eaf2e7534.png)

Smoking lesion

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/ce4957af74c09b83580e92139fa5f7cdc2b58b52d226a995.png)

Parfit's Hitchhiker

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/21608f65071c8dc9157b14c26cfa2007140bbff291940b7d.png)

Counterfactual mugging

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/175e7d88bed27566a5e4e77ae3eaae3e981d8829d66baa23.png)

[Xor-blackmail](https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/5bd75cc58225bf0670374e7d/exploiting-edt)

Bonus
-----

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/703ad3e3efdfb71d842f8b00596cd763592a93bc5f0268c4.png)

[Five-and-ten problem](https://intelligence.org/2018/10/31/embedded-decisions/)
# Lighthaven Sequences Reading Group #9 (Tuesday 11/05)

**Edit2: We're in the Bayes Attic! Ask staff for directions.**

**If you're still lost, call me at five one oh, nine nine eight, five seven seven one.**

**—**

**Normally we would invite you to come get old fashioned with us at a Sequences reading group, but this Tuesday** [**Manifold Markets is holding an election watch party**](https://partiful.com/e/m8PRnlL9Xk25KunUxs0z) **at Lighthaven, with 150+ people coming. You are still welcome to come however! The party is open to the public, doors open at 2pm.**

**Ben thinks the right time to pay any attention to election results is a week or two after, once it's probably all been resolved, so he will be holed up in a cozy attic where all political discussion is forbidden, and we will still hold reading discussion groups there for whoever wants to participate. This week's readings will be about politics.**

**(No food provided this week.)**

![](https://res.cloudinary.com/lesswrong-2-0/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/mirroredImages/8rFdeSbRpqWAFnoev/hxtliur9q4kp1u3dy3oy)

We've been roughly working through [the sequences highlights](https://www.lesswrong.com/highlights). There are no mandatory readings this week, but we strongly recommend reading the following readings and keeping them in mind while you are here, whether you go to a discussion group or not:

1.  [A Fable of Science and Politics](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6hfGNLf4Hg5DXqJCF/a-fable-of-science-and-politics)
2.  [Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-debates-should-not-appear-one-sided)
3.  [Politics is the Mind-Killer](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-is-the-mind-killer)
4.  [Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/28bAMAxhoX3bwbAKC/are-your-enemies-innately-evil)

**Some questions to ask yourself about the essays as you read them**

*   What's the most important point in the essay?
*   What's the weakest point in the essay? Or what is the essay wrong about?
*   Can you think of a way to apply the ideas in this essay to your own life?

**For the future**

This is a weekly meetup! If you'd like to get notified of future events, you can subscribe to our meetup below to get an email whenever we add another one.
# Trading Candy

There are a lot of fun things about halloween, with costumes, neighbors, and sweets, but maybe the part I like best is the trading. Two kids sit down, each with a bucket full of candy. After a while they get back up, each with a better bucket than they started with. This feels like it shouldn't be possible: isn't there some sort of law of conservation of candy?

[![](https://www.jefftk.com/halloween-clown-candy.jpg)](https://www.jefftk.com/halloween-clown-candy-big.jpg)

But of course it is possible: not everyone has the same preferences. We each start with some candy we aren't the ideal person to appreciate. Which also means the more different our preferences are, the greater the benefit of trading.

*   Don't just copy the preferences of the people around you: figure out what you actually like.
    
*   Fight culture that encourages mocking people for complementary taste.
    
*   In real life we don't swap around a fixed pool of candy, we can make more candy.
# Prediction markets and Taxes

(Epistemic status: This is super trivial information)

(Note 2: there is a timely Culture war issue that triggered this post but I will *not* be mentioning any Culture war issues in this post)  
 

Imagine you worked for the US mint, and somebody was betting that a coin you manufactured was unfair, now you work for the US mint and you *know* this coin is fair, it isn't weighted and the edge alignment is perfect. The person making the bet going to use a coin flipping robot to remove any human deception. 

What odds would you have to be given to actually take the bet?

I'll be using [American odds](https://www.actionnetwork.com/education/american-odds). So in theory you'd accept any odds above +100 right? Well in a world without taxes yes, but taxes are one sided, you don't pay negative taxes on gambling losses, but you do pay positive taxes on gambling winnings. As such we need odds that are better than +100/(100-T) where T is our marginal tax rate. Marginal tax rate means territory/state, local and Federal income taxes which gets complicated,  however for now if we assume 33.3% as our marginal tax rate (California man making >100k/year) , we would need odds of +150 or better to be worth betting.  (That's 60% or better in manifold terms)

I feel like this point is understated, for real money markets you need to do the following to get the "estimated odds"  
  
Let market "probability" be = M (for these purposes the [bid ask spread](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid%E2%80%93ask_spread) in most markets is trivial relative to the weight of taxes)

The actual probability that the event happens is at least

$$
\frac{2M}{3-M}
$$

The probability it doesn't is at most

$$
\frac{3M}{M+2}
$$

all told those are pretty stark differences, if the market is saying that an event has a 63% chance of happening then the event has anywhere from a 53-72% chance of happening!

So if somebody says "the market is giving probability of 63% but my model says it has a 55% chance of happening, "why aren't you betting" is *not a credible argument* because  *If they were right* they would still be unable to profit from their disagreement with the market.