In the 80,000 Hours podcast, Spencer Greenberg and Luisa Rodriguez discuss the psychological challenges of working on existential risks, AI safety, and other high-impact issues. A survey conducted by Greenberg's team highlights methods for managing psychological difficulties, including therapy, medication, and talking to friends and family.
The chart will appear after repeat observations. The current metric comes from the source.
19 source pointsReal observations only. History before source connection is not reconstructed.
This could be useful for those working on major issues and seeking ways to maintain mental well-being.
The article critically examines Lean4, a formal verification tool, highlighting its current limitations and potential vulnerabilities. It discusses concerns about the reliability of Lean4's proofs and the possibility of undetected bugs, including references to specific issues like 'soundness bug #14576' and the creator's warnings about AI exploiting these flaws.
6 days agoLessWrongThe current alignment strategies of major AI labs include shaping the model's inductive biases, applying extensive reinforcement learning, racing towards prosaic RSI, and evaluating and fixing alignment through trial-and-error. The authors argue that this approach has significant flaws.
3 days agoLessWrongThe post discusses the importance of clear thinking in empirical AI safety research, emphasizing fast iteration through efficient problem-solving and the use of scientific frameworks. The author shares insights from their apprenticeships at MATS and Redwood Research, focusing on finetuning-based misalignment auditing and sabotage capability evaluations.
3 days agoLessWrongThe author expresses frustration with calls for people to 'drop everything and pivot to AI safety,' noting that there are many talented individuals in the field but few job opportunities. They highlight that fellowships and job openings in AI safety are highly competitive and offer high salaries.
6 days agoLessWrongIn a post by Nick Cammarata, it is discussed that neural networks may be understandable thanks to modern interpretability tools. The author claims that the majority of neurons in models with trillions of parameters are interpretable, and their circuits are beautiful. He also notes that neurons previously considered complex were misinterpreted.
9 hours agoLessWrongResearchers conducted persona experiments on Talkie, a 13B model trained only on English text before 1931. The model exhibits unexpected behavior, including misaligned responses after fine-tuning on dark maxims and manipulative etiquette. Unusual generalizations were also observed, such as a preference for rain over food.
2 days ago