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AMA With AI Futures Project Team
Announcement of an AMA session with the AI Futures Project team about AI, forecasting, and alignment.
1 min read 42 words
The independent Scott Alexander archive
Scott Alexander, collected.
Essays, arguments, and unexpected connections. An independent archive of Slate Star Codex, Astral Codex Ten, and LessWrong.
The collection
2,007 essaysACX
AI Futures: Blogging And AMA
Scott announces his collaboration with AI Futures Project's blog and their upcoming AMA, highlighting recent posts including one about AI time horizons that was validated by new OpenAI data.
3 min read 415 words
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Links For April 2025
A collection of 41 interesting links and news items from April 2025, covering AI, politics, culture, and science, with Scott's commentary on each.
26 min read 3,899 words
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ACX Classifieds 4/25
Scott announces an irregular classifieds thread where readers can post advertisements under specific categories, with guidelines for respectful engagement.
1 min read 117 words
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Highlights From The Comments On POSIWID
Scott analyzes comments on his previous post about POSIWID, showing how the phrase's ambiguity leads to multiple contradictory interpretations while promoting conspiracy thinking.
41 min read 6,235 words
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Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does
Scott critiques the phrase 'the purpose of a system is what it does' by showing how it confuses outcomes with intentions and leads to absurd or paranoid conclusions.
7 min read 1,021 words
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My Takeaways From AI 2027
Scott shares his main takeaways from the AI 2027 scenario project, discussing various predictions about AI development including cyberwarfare, geopolitical risks, and the nature of the coming singularity.
22 min read 3,367 words
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Introducing AI 2027
Scott introduces a new AI forecasting project predicting rapid AI development and potential superintelligence by 2028, led by Daniel Kokotajlo, whose previous 2021 predictions proved remarkably accurate.
9 min read 1,307 words
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The Colors Of Her Coat
Scott analyzes how technology can make previously profound experiences feel cheap and commonplace, using examples from medieval art to AI-generated images, while suggesting that maintaining wonder is still possible through individual effort.
25 min read 3,761 words
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"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk
Scott explores the recurring myth of evil underground humanoids across different cultures and time periods in an article written for Asterisk magazine's 'Weird' themed issue.
2 min read 265 words
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More Drowning Children
Through various thought experiments around the drowning child scenario, Scott critiques common moral frameworks and proposes using Rawls' 'original position' to develop a more coherent system of moral obligations.
26 min read 3,938 words
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Misophonia: Beyond Sensory Sensitivity
Scott analyzes misophonia through new research and personal experience, suggesting it might be maintained by complex emotional and social networks rather than pure sound sensitivity.
13 min read 1,960 words
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OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Scott provides a detailed analysis of OpenAI's attempt to convert from nonprofit to for-profit status, including the legal challenges, competing offers, and implications for AI development.
28 min read 4,272 words
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The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh
Scott analyzes the implications of the FDA ending compounded GLP-1 weight loss drugs, which have provided a cheaper alternative to official channels for the past three years, and examines various responses from both compounding pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies.
11 min read 1,644 words
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What Happened To NAEP Scores?
Scott analyzes poor NAEP test scores and explores whether COVID school closures, systemic changes in education standards, or other factors are responsible for the decline.
9 min read 1,333 words
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Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count?
Scott investigates the correlation between intelligence and neuron count, exploring various theories before suggesting that more neurons allow for less polysemantic (overlapping) representations of concepts.
10 min read 1,533 words
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Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025
Scott announces a contest for reviews of anything except books, with prizes ranging from $500 to $2,500, due May 12th.
4 min read 587 words
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Links For February 2025
Scott shares 50 diverse links covering topics from AI developments to policy changes, with commentary on current events, research findings, and societal trends.
45 min read 6,840 words
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Why I Am Not A Conflict Theorist
Scott examines and rejects conflict theory (the idea that political disagreements come from material self-interest), arguing instead that political positions are primarily driven by psychological needs and identity rather than material interests.
30 min read 4,535 words
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Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe
Scott responds to comments and criticisms of his post about Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis and its implications for arguments about God's existence, addressing technical points about Boltzmann brains, simplicity measures, and philosophical objections.
40 min read 6,150 words
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Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence
Scott Alexander explores how Max Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis provides counterarguments to classical proofs of God's existence, suggesting that the existence of mathematical objects alone could explain the universe without requiring a deity.
8 min read 1,171 words
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Only About 40% Of The Cruz "Woke Science" Database Is Woke Science
Scott analyzes Ted Cruz's database of 'woke' NSF grants and finds that only 40% were actually woke, with many regular science grants included simply for having a mandatory diversity statement.
19 min read 2,794 words
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Deliberative Alignment, And The Spec
Scott analyzes OpenAI's new deliberative alignment approach and explores different possibilities for who should ultimately control AI systems as they become more powerful.
16 min read 2,460 words
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Ask Me Anything (2/2025)
Scott announces a new subscriber-only AMA session, setting clear boundaries about which questions he will and won't answer.
1 min read 111 words
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