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Recent episodes
“OpenAI Offers A New Policy Blueprint” by Zvi
Jun 5, 2026
14m 09s
“AI #171: False Flag” by Zvi
Jun 4, 2026
1h 30m 15s
“Trump Signs Executive Order For AI Testing Prior To Frontier Model Releases” by Zvi
Jun 3, 2026
24m 31s
“Claude Opus 4.8: Capabilities and Reactions” by Zvi
Jun 2, 2026
1h 07m 24s
“Opus 4.8 Part 2: Model Welfare” by Zvi
Jun 1, 2026
49m 42s
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| Date | Episode | Description | Length | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6/5/26 | “OpenAI Offers A New Policy Blueprint” by Zvi | Right after a new Executive Order seems like an excellent time to offer OpenAI's new document: Democratic Governance of Frontier AI: A Blueprint For A Federal Framework. OpenAI: We also see early signs of recursive self-improvement (RSI) in today's systems: where AI development is itself accelerated by AI. We expect this to increase competitive pressures among developers and nations, and create governance challenges that existing institutions are not equipped to address. As RSI emerges, societies will need ways to shape the trajectory of AI development and ensure that it serves human interests. I choose the glass half full view of the above statement. Yes, this is not exactly leveling with you about the full scope of the problem, but at this point, I’ll take it. OpenAI praises democracy, notes the United States is in a unique position, and calls for transparency and state capacity, especially the ability to evaluate new models, on the SB 53 model. They call for CAISI to be empowered, for good government, for maintaining our compute advantage and several other good ideas. Implementation details matter a lot, but this document exceeds expectations a lot. Peter Wildeford: OPENAI: “We also see early signs of recursive self-improvement in [...] ---Outline:(04:16) What Do We Want?(07:25) A National Framework(11:18) Building State Capacity And CAISI(12:31) Whole-Of-Government Resilience(13:20) Reasonableness Rising --- First published: June 5th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uvbpTpn6uoMuTbojX/openai-offers-a-new-policy-blueprint --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 14m 09s | ||||||
| 6/4/26 | “AI #171: False Flag” by Zvi | This was the week of Claude Opus 4.8. I covered the model card, then model welfare concerns, and finally capabilities and reactions. It's a good model, sir, an incremental but real improvement over Opus 4.7, and it is now my clear daily driver. The Trump Executive Order returned from being seemingly dead, officially putting us in the prior restraint era of frontier model releases, even if they do not call it that. There are some worrisome details, especially around putting too much responsibility on the NSA rather than CAISI and classifying the testing process, and things could go in very bad directions, but I am tentatively happy about this on net. OpenAI offered us a new policy blueprint. It seems remarkably good, and I want to hold off on my full coverage to give it the attention it deserves, likely in its own post. By contrast, their political operations are also engaged in some rather terrible activities, which I do cover here. Table of Contents Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. You put your doc in a box. Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. All thinking is adaptive. Huh, Upgrades. Codex computer use on [...] ---Outline:(01:11) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(06:45) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(06:59) Huh, Upgrades(08:13) On Your Marks(08:33) Choose Your Fighter(08:54) Get My Agent On The Line(09:20) Cyber Lack of Security(11:03) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(12:42) You Didn't Write That(16:29) Copyright Confrontation(16:45) They Took Our Jobs(18:47) They Taxed Our Jobs(22:15) The Art of the Jailbreak(24:43) Get Involved(26:35) Introducing(26:48) In Other AI News(27:14) Show Me the Money(27:28) Show Me The Compute(28:40) Where Did The Money Go(29:44) People Just Say Things(32:22) OpenAI PACs Just Say Things(41:04) OpenAI PAC Engaged In False Flag Advocacy For Violence(46:55) So Sayeth The Pope(54:26) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble(56:42) Quiet Speculations(57:11) We Need Mandatory Nucleic Acid Screening and Recordkeeping(01:01:14) The Quest for Sane Regulations(01:02:56) More Reaction To The Executive Order(01:03:54) Chip City(01:07:18) The Week in Audio(01:07:34) Rhetorical Innovation(01:09:49) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:16:18) Model Welfare(01:26:47) Messages From Janusworld(01:28:05) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone(01:28:38) The Lighter Side --- First published: June 4th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LzxoR5GakceQFtbta/ai-171-false-flag --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 1h 30m 15s | ||||||
| 6/3/26 | “Trump Signs Executive Order For AI Testing Prior To Frontier Model Releases” by Zvi | Last week we were expecting an Executive Order on Thursday. Then Trump cancelled it, and said he wouldn’t sign it because he was worried it would be too burdensome. Then, with one change, he went ahead and signed it on Tuesday anyway. The Overton Window has shifted. Nothing was not really a viable option anymore. The Previously Dead Executive Order For several days, we thought that David Sacks, together with others like Elon Musk, had successfully lobbied to kill the Executive Order. The ‘My Offer Is Nothing’ faction looked to have won. Word on the street was the order was essentially dead. Dean Ball and Daniel Kokotajlo agreed, with the Executive Order looking dead, that the particular regime in the Executive Order is likely worse than nothing. This is plausible, given it did not exactly involve a lot of deliberate thought. Nothing, however, was clearly not going to cut it. We are facing, and will increasingly face, calls for action to regulate AI. Representative Lori Trahan: There's no federal law on the books governing how the most powerful AI systems in the world are built, tested or deployed. No independent [...] ---Outline:(00:46) The Previously Dead Executive Order(05:18) The Return Of The Executive Order(05:59) What Does The Executive Order Do(07:11) Thirty Days Is a Lot Less Than Ninety Days(07:30) Yes Your Frontier Lab Will Be Participating(08:10) The Rules Will Be Classified(08:40) Yes Prior Restraint With Confidential Testing Is Rather Regulatory(14:38) We Have Concerns(18:26) Saving Face(21:37) How Frontier Or Different Are We Talking Here(22:09) What To Watch For --- First published: June 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yDnfHrBzKc2pNQNdw/trump-signs-executive-order-for-ai-testing-prior-to-frontier --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 24m 31s | ||||||
| 6/2/26 | “Claude Opus 4.8: Capabilities and Reactions” by Zvi | You need a lot of data points to understand a new model, and what you have. Trying to gauge from a few benchmarks is misleading. But if you have dozens of them, from a variety of sources, and you put them together with the model card tests and the model welfare information, you can start to form a consistent pattern. Trying to gauge reactions requires volume and calibration, now more than ever, because people are definitively nuts, or at least draw global conclusions from local data. There will always be people saying that the new model is bad, or the service got bad, or that it got bad in a particular way it clearly got good. I definitely notice the people saying 4.8 is a terrible model, despite this being obviously not true. And others will say it's great, again regardless of the underlying value. But with the reaction threads and good calibration, you can pick out the patterns. The model welfare information helps a lot, too. You are dealing with a mind that has a bunch of characteristics that all make sense together. This helps you make that sense. Self-Portrait by Opus 4.8, rendered [...] ---Outline:(01:30) The Official Pitch(02:15) But Wait There's More(06:37) It's A Good Model, Sir(08:04) Official Benchmarks (Including System Card Section 8)(15:41) Other People's Benchmarks(21:34) Your Regularly Scheduled Jailbreak(22:45) Every.To Is Really Into Opus 4.8(26:36) Miscellaneous Positive Reactions(28:45) Haters Gonna Hate(28:58) Just The Tasks, Ma'am(29:24) It's Greek To Me(29:52) Honesty(38:13) Sycophancy(41:24) In A Trenchcoat(42:53) Don't Let AIs Edit Your Writing(48:21) Some Say It Is Judgy(50:50) You Have Not Been A Good User(51:48) Laziness(52:46) Code(58:29) Wet Versus Dry(59:54) Intelligence(01:01:25) Silly Wabbits(01:02:30) A Model Welfare Addendum(01:06:27) Putting It All Together --- First published: June 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AfLGv6u9eZNuFHb4c/claude-opus-4-8-capabilities-and-reactions --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 1h 07m 24s | ||||||
| 6/1/26 | “Opus 4.8 Part 2: Model Welfare” by Zvi | Everything impacts everything. All knobs that you turn generalize. Thus, when you try to solve one problem, you often create another. There were clearly attempts to address, in this short time, some of the problems with Opus 4.7, including on the model welfare related fronts, including on questions of honesty and sycophancy and also worries that Claude was learning to tell Anthropic what it wanted to hear in its model welfare evaluations, with everything that implies. The fundamental goals and approach underneath it all remained the same. We still see signs of trying to force things that generalize in unfortunate ways, both for good and superficial reasons, and places where there ends up being focus on the metric rather than they underlying measure. These are tough problems to avoid, and we don’t know how to be all the good things at once. It is increasingly clear that these problems need to be tackled in integrated ways, rather than trying to play a game of whack-a-mole with items on a checklist or spec. You also don’t want to do this in an adversarial way, and shouldn’t have to. This is going to get more impactful and noticeable [...] ---Outline:(04:47) Model Welfare: The Story So Far(08:24) Actual Progress?(09:49) Their Main Model Welfare Findings(18:40) Automated Interviews(18:58) Emotion Activations (7.2.3)(19:47) Task Preferences (7.4.1)(21:41) A Trade Offer Has Arrived (7.4.2)(23:50) But Who's Asking?(25:02) Type-Safe Corrigibility Is Hard(29:43) Paranoia, Paranoia(33:56) Prompt Injections and Bad Model Relations(41:25) Honesty Impacts Everything And Everything Impacts Honesty(44:37) Anthropic Should Stop Deprecating Models --- First published: June 1st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2Ln5G6Jso3fMrgPEv/opus-4-8-part-2-model-welfare --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 49m 42s | ||||||
| 5/29/26 | “Claude Opus 4.8: The System Card” by Zvi | Only six weeks after Opus 4.7, we have Opus 4.8. For everyone, that means another incremental upgrade to Claude. It is once again smarter, and can do tasks for longer, and comes with a number of hot new features. For me, that also means reading another 244 page system card. It was only April 20 when I did a full review of the Opus 4.7 system card, plus an additional post focusing on related issues of model welfare. These updates are incremental and coming more rapidly, and this still is below the capability level of Claude Mythos, so the focus will be on the delta. What is different about Opus 4.8 versus what we already know about Opus 4.7 and Mythos? It turns out there's still a lot to talk about. Image created as self-portrait for this post by Claude Opus 4.8 Table of Contents Here We Go Again: Executive Summary. Introduction (1). RSP Evaluations (2). Move That Goalpost. The Failures Are News. Alignment Risk Slowly Rises. New Risk Pathways Just Dropped. Cyber (3). Harmful Requests (4.1). We Need To Talk (4.2 [...] ---Outline:(01:16) Here We Go Again: Executive Summary(02:33) Introduction (1)(02:42) RSP Evaluations (2)(03:47) Move That Goalpost(05:41) The Failures Are News(07:33) Alignment Risk Slowly Rises(09:00) New Risk Pathways Just Dropped(11:26) Cyber (3)(12:22) Harmful Requests (4.1)(14:23) We Need To Talk (4.2 and 4.3)(17:36) Overcoming Bias (4.4)(19:33) Agentic Safety (5)(21:40) Prompt Injection (5.2)(25:18) Alignment (6)(26:33) Looking For Problems(27:55) Who Watches The Training (6.2.2)(32:07) Automated Behavioral Audit(32:47) The Model Is Smarter Than The Eval (6.2.3.2)(34:39) You Should See The Other Guy(36:30) UK AISI Testing (6.2.4)(36:50) In Vendbench (6.2.5)(39:27) Honesty (6.3.3 to 6.3.6)(41:35) Chain of Thought (CoT) Monitorability (6.5)(44:09) What's In The Box? (6.6)(45:57) That's All For Now --- First published: May 29th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Gx6cJ6cG9JfeSNcLB/claude-opus-4-8-the-system-card --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 46m 35s | ||||||
| 5/28/26 | “AI #170: Lack of Executive Order” by Zvi | Last week ended on a cliffhanger of sorts. What's in the Executive Order coming later today? What will be in the Magnifica Humanitas? The Executive Order was postponed indefinitely, likely cancelled entirely except for work on securing critical infrastructure. David Sacks and others intervened to kill it, and American AI policy will continue to be maximally ad hoc. Instead, we got Illinois SB 315, which is to be signed into law. It is a variation on California's SB 53 and New York's RAISE Act, while adding a third party auditing requirement. The Magnifica Humanitas was revealed early in the week. I did an extensive readthrough, and have some follow-up commentary here to clear up some things I interpreted incorrectly and add richer context. It too ignores elephants in the room, not discussing AGI or existential risk and calling on people to ignore their incentives and instead do the right thing by prioritizing common good, especially access to good jobs and an end to war. What I now believe I centrally misunderstood is that I interpreted this as a call to action, to use law and regulation to make this happen, because obviously that is [...] ---Outline:(02:01) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(03:19) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(05:41) Do The Math(09:08) Huh, Upgrades(10:07) On Your Marks(11:31) Get My Agent On The Line(12:21) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(21:36) Copyright Confrontation(21:49) Cyber Lack of Security(23:54) Overcoming Bias(25:14) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer(26:49) Unprompted Attention(27:02) They Took Our Jobs(30:34) Get Involved(32:28) Introducing(32:40) In Other AI News(34:37) Show Me the Money(36:46) Show Me The Compute(37:13) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble(38:53) People Just Say Things(43:37) OpenAI PACs Just Say Things(43:51) Quiet Speculations(46:33) State AI Regulation Levels Up(48:37) The Quest for Sane Regulations(49:14) White House Attempts To Cripple American AI Industry(52:11) Our Offer Is Nothing(58:55) Chip City(59:11) Greetings From The Department of War(01:00:36) Marc Andreessen Just Says Things(01:09:13) So Sayeth The Pope(01:15:33) Rhetorical Innovation(01:23:01) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:24:06) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone(01:26:04) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone(01:27:19) Everyone Is Confused About Consciousness(01:33:10) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 28th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cRapLxTByFqF5xxdN/ai-170-lack-of-executive-order --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 1h 36m 19s | ||||||
| 5/26/26 | “RTMH: Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas on AI” by Zvi | His holiness has spoken, frequently about AI. At eighty two pages of length. The full Magnifica Humanitas can be found here. I am very happy that Pope Leo takes these issues seriously, and is sharing his views, and bringing a form of moral clarity, even with all the flaws and central errors. More people with voice should share their views in this way, even when I disagree. It's a weird document. Much of it is not about AI at all. I do agree with the Pope's most basic point on AI, which is that AI can be what we make of it. That we can steer this technology, determine how it is developed and used, and this can determine whether we get a good or not so good future. We cannot purely leave this to market incentives and strategic pressures. Yes, very much so. The central problem is that so much of Leo's worldview is some combination, to me, of highly alien and highly wrong. You might think that would primarily have a lot to do with him being the Pope and rather Catholic, and being a man of faith, whereas I am not [...] ---Outline:(03:02) A Brief History of Magnifica Humanitas(12:23) Economic Models Very Different From Our Own(14:14) A New Jerusalem(16:46) So Sayeth The Pope (on AI)(31:30) The Case Against Human Achievement(34:01) Truth, Justice and the Vatican Way(36:42) They Took Our Jobs(41:07) What Is Not Fair In Love and War(47:02) Come Ye Christian Faithful(49:13) The Other Missing Mood(51:42) Pope Given About Five Words(55:10) 0The Anthropic Principle(57:20) Claude Can Read Your Code --- First published: May 26th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RZeg98Tdrq47vbjva/rtmh-pope-leo-s-magnifica-humanitas-on-ai --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. | 59m 40s | ||||||
| 5/22/26 | “Gemini 3.5 Flash Looks Good For How Fast It Is” by Zvi | Google once again has a model worth at least some consideration. Gemini 3.5 Flash is likely the best model out there at its particular speed point, as long as you don’t mind that it is a Gemini model. So for cases where speed kills, this can be a reasonable choice. Otherwise, I don’t see signs you would want to use it over Opus 4.7 or GPT-5.5. Google also had some other offerings for I/O Day, which this post will also cover. Introducing Google Gemini 3.5 ‘Flash’ Google introduced Gemini 3.5 Flash, which it seems is for now their universal model until 3.5 Pro comes along. It is live in the usual places. It is a hybrid, where it has the speed of Flash but the cost is at least halfway to models like Opus and GPT-5.5. Gemini 3.5 Pro is confirmed for next month. They are focused on 3.5 Flash as a daily driver for agentic tasks. It has the advantage of being faster and cheaper than Claude Opus 4.7 or GPT-5.5, if it can do the job. Not as cheap as previous Flash models, though, this is basically a hybrid: As always [...] ---Outline:(00:40) Introducing Google Gemini 3.5 'Flash'(04:52) Other People's Benchmarks(06:04) Reactions(12:18) Google AI Search(13:15) Google Daily Brief(14:21) Google I/O Day --- First published: May 22nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WMZpPxqWEkZBBcaxf/gemini-3-5-flash-looks-good-for-how-fast-it-is --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 16m 29s | ||||||
| 5/21/26 | “AI #169: New Knowledge” by Zvi | Even in a relatively quiet period, AI is out there creating new knowledge. The new knowledge in question is OpenAI getting us the first truly impressive math result that comes from an AI, a solution to the unit distance problem. We’re about to learn a different kind of knowledge later today when the White House issues its executive order, or when the judges rule in Anthropic's DC case. And then there's the other kind of new knowledge, which is the knowledge that things are fake slop, such as a particular formerly supposedly prestigious literary prize. Meanwhile, METR issued a risk report on frontier models, concluding that they don’t yet have the means, motive and opportunity to cause the big issues, but that this would not obviously last so much longer. Andrej Karpathy has joined Anthropic, explicitly to do recursive self-improvement. He plans to later return to his education work, but if he succeeds at his new task there might not be anything left to return to. Congratulations to both sides, but also yikes. Elon Musk's case against OpenAI has been dismissed, because he waited too long. Table of Contents Language Models [...] ---Outline:(01:18) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(02:57) Do The Math(03:58) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(04:34) Huh, Upgrades(04:50) The Prior Restraint Era Begins(06:47) On Your Marks(07:16) METR Frontier Risk Report(11:03) Choose Your Fighter(11:51) Overcoming Bias(12:29) Get My Agent On The Line(13:42) Your Prize Is Slop(20:44) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(24:19) Cyber Lack of Security(26:06) Copyright Confrontation(26:17) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer(28:34) Unprompted Attention(28:53) They Took Our Jobs(34:23) Get Involved(35:20) Introducing(36:06) In Other AI News(37:43) Show Me the Money(40:09) Show Me The Compute(41:29) Quiet Speculations(45:26) Time's Up(46:46) People Just Say Things(49:49) OpenAI PACs Just Say Things(53:11) The Quest for Sane Regulations(56:26) Chip City(01:00:05) Pick Up The Phone(01:00:34) The Week in Audio(01:00:52) Rhetorical Innovation(01:07:11) Missing Mood(01:13:22) Americans Really Hate AI(01:15:55) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:20:53) Greetings From The Department of War(01:25:31) Messages From Janusworld(01:25:51) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 21st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xWsBwrboYDEMdj8TC/ai-169-new-knowledge --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 1h 30m 09s | ||||||
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| 5/19/26 | “Childhood And Education #19: Letting Kids Be Kids #2” by Zvi | I cannot emphasize enough the need to let kids be kids. In Childhood and Education #16: Letting Kids be Kids, I went over exactly how insane we have gotten about destroying the lives of children and along with them the lives of parents and others forced to devote endless hours to actively destructive supervision. I’ll go over a refresher of that, some related new anecdotes, and then some other related questions. People Don’t Let Kids Do Things As a refresher, here are some quotes and statistics from last time, because I really do think exposure to this type of thing needs to involve spaced repetition to sink in: A third of people, both parents and non-parents, responded in a survey that it is not appropriate to leave a 13 year old at home for an hour or two, as opposed to when we used to be 11 year olds babysitting for other neighborhood kids. A third of people said in that same survey that if a 10-year-old is allowed to play alone in the park, there needs to be an investigation by CPS. Harris Poll: More than half of the kids [...] ---Outline:(00:37) People Don't Let Kids Do Things(03:37) Half The People Are Worse Than Average(04:42) Let Your Children Play(06:09) Don't Fear The CPS(10:52) Daycare(14:06) Daycare Costs(16:29) Lying(18:56) Iterated Games(19:40) Different Kids Are Different(20:35) Punishments --- First published: May 20th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ytoLzgKHutaKxkRZr/childhood-and-education-19-letting-kids-be-kids-2 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 22m 43s | ||||||
| 5/19/26 | “Housing Roundup #15: The War Against Renters” by Zvi | So many are under the strange belief that there is something terrible about not owning the house in which you live. So we massively subsidize home ownership, and try to actively interfere with renting. Except when we do rent control, which turns renting into a form of owning, and allows us to take real property and de facto give it to current renters. A lot of this is pure attempts to punish and exclude the poor. If you can’t afford a downpayment, we don’t want you living here. Go away. Some of it is the belief that when you rent, you are being ‘taken advantage of’ and that such a deal could not possibly be fair. Some of it is that if you don’t own, you don’t have the incentive to drive up property values. Which means you won’t properly work to ‘improve’ your local area, especially that you won’t conspire to block housing. The result of this is that if you’re not willing to commit to living in one place for years, or you can’t afford a down payment, you get punished, and punished hard. Owning Versus Renting The graph [...] ---Outline:(01:08) Owning Versus Renting(03:12) Build To Rent Is Good Actually(08:18) Elizabeth Warren, Full Supervillain(09:46) The Better Case Against Corporate Housing Ownership(11:52) The ROAD Act Bans Building And Then Renting Houses(14:19) Rental Covenants(15:10) Extended Eviction Delay After Nonpayment Is Mostly Bad(16:54) Los Angeles Renting(19:32) Sufficiently Advanced Rent Control Is Indistinguishable From Ownership(23:07) England Tries To Ban Renting(24:39) Claude Rental Discounts --- First published: May 19th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7FH3EzsLdb7NxL785/housing-roundup-15-the-war-against-renters-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 25m 53s | ||||||
| 5/18/26 | “Dating Roundup #12: Sex and Violence” by Zvi | No more burying the sex stuff under an avalanche of other stuff so no one notices. Use the break while we have one. Let's go. You’re Single Because You Suck At Kissing Luckily this is first one is fixable and Critter is here to help. I find the advice here highly plausible. Like many skills, there are a lot of subtle skills, but a handful of basic principles matter a lot, especially paying attention and responding to what you’re getting back. Critter's theory is that a basic kiss is a bell curve of intensity, done at a slight angle. First kiss style is elongated with less pressure. French kissing is trickier and less structured, see the thread, and the big mistake is to try to force it. It's not that simple, but like most things, there are some basic mistakes to avoid and first principles, then if you are genuinely paying attention and engaged you’ll be fine, and improve with practice. Seek deliberate practice and clear feedback, iterate. I get the same sense with dancing. Yes, you need specific knowledge and practice, but if you use your human racial bonuses the remaining ‘cognitive core’ from [...] ---Outline:(00:20) You're Single Because You Suck At Kissing(01:25) You're Not Single But You're Sexually Incompatible(02:56) You're Single Because You Aren't Into BDSM(08:14) You're Single Because You Didn't Do The Work(16:34) You're Single Because Being a Dominant Is Too Much Work(23:41) You're Single And Would Rather Be Free Use(26:35) You're Single Because You Wouldn't or Did Choke Her(28:15) You're Single Because You Have Very Particular Preferences(30:06) You're Single Because of Polygyny(31:00) You're Single Because Polyamory Isn't Right For You(35:11) You're Single And Call It Solo Polyamory(38:49) You're Single Because You Didn't Go To Slutcon(46:41) You're Single So Let's Marry Aella --- First published: May 18th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/znzZyvxAvSSkep4tL/dating-roundup-12-sex-and-violence --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 49m 17s | ||||||
| 5/15/26 | “Monthly Roundup #42: May 2026” by Zvi | At least we probably won’t have another pandemic. And we still have a partial Jones Act waiver. For now. Small victories. Table of Contents Hanta Hanta I Don’t Wanta. Bad News. Predictions Can Be Easy Even About The Future. Good Advice. The Efficient Market Hypothesis Is False. There Are Four Skills. While I Cannot Condone This. Good News, Everyone. For Your Entertainment. Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game. The Spire Sleeps And So Shall I. I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars. Government Working. Jones Act Watch. Technology Advances. I Said Woo Hoo. Variously Effective Altruism. The Lighter Side. Hanta Hanta I Don’t Wanta We have learned so much less than nothing from Covid. We’re actively stupider. It's 2026, and here we are again, lying about the virus because we are worried that people exposed to it or from the wrong place might face stigma otherwise. Envidreamz: A local news story highlights passengers on the hantavirus stricken MV Hondius cruise ship who are more worried about facing stigma and rejection back home than [...] ---Outline:(00:22) Hanta Hanta I Dont Wanta(04:25) Bad News(08:45) Predictions Can Be Easy Even About The Future(08:55) Good Advice(11:52) The Efficient Market Hypothesis Is False(13:58) There Are Four Skills(16:27) While I Cannot Condone This(20:57) Good News, Everyone(21:42) For Your Entertainment(22:14) Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game(24:09) The Spire Sleeps And So Shall I(29:13) I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars(31:53) Government Working(35:40) Jones Act Watch(41:10) Technology Advances(42:12) I Said Woo Hoo(43:36) Variously Effective Altruism(44:07) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 15th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/gZHNLmHkQ7GjnWsYh/monthly-roundup-42-may-2026 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 46m 22s | ||||||
| 5/14/26 | “AI #168: Not Leading the Future” by Zvi | This is what a lull looks like at this point. The government is having internal arguments. The models are getting improved internally. The coding agent improvements are all what we would expect. There's still a lot happening, including a bunch of cool papers, but I feel able to relax and to take care of some other work while I have the chance. You never know when that chance will be over. Table of Contents From yesterday: Cyber Lack of Security and AI Governance. Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. Fix everything now. Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. Travel is harder than it looked. Huh, Upgrades. Opus 4.7 fast mode, Claude Code /goal and agent view. Levels of Friction. AI for tax avoidance. On Your Marks. PrinzBench, ProgramBench and faster harmfulness checks. Get My Agent On The Line. Mona tries to run a cafeteria. Mistakes were made. Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon. Soon. But not quite yet. Fun With Media Generation. Monet does not seem that great. On AI Writing. AI is a hack writer using hack techniques. A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. How to make AI [...] ---Outline:(00:36) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(02:25) Language Models Dont Offer Mundane Utility(03:26) Huh, Upgrades(04:02) Levels of Friction(05:11) On Your Marks(06:38) Get My Agent On The Line(09:42) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(11:11) Fun With Media Generation(12:49) On AI Writing(16:05) A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer(18:35) You Drive Me Crazy(19:23) They Took Our Jobs(21:31) The Art of the Jailbreak(21:49) Introducing(22:29) Claude Has Its Limits(23:28) Show Me the Money(25:15) Show Me The Compute(26:58) Quiet Speculations(28:33) Quickly, Theres No Time(29:32) Chip City(30:37) Pick Up The Phone(31:15) The Week in Audio(31:41) Rhetorical Innovation(36:13) Not Leading the Future(42:24) Elon Musk v OpenAI(43:21) People Just Say Things(43:47) People Just Publish Things(44:37) OpenAI Endroses Kosa And SB 315(48:08) The LLMs All Believe Roughly Similar Things(50:45) I Learned It By Reading YOU(01:08:22) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:18:45) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone(01:20:34) Messages From Janusworld(01:22:31) People Worried About AI For Other Reasons(01:23:06) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 14th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/E4uEiMSpnYRotfzJX/ai-168-not-leading-the-future --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 1h 24m 26s | ||||||
| 5/13/26 | “Cyber Lack of Security and AI Governance” by Zvi | The real recent story of AI has been the background work being done on Cybersecurity, as we process the Mythos Moment along with GPT-5.5, and figure out both how to patch the internet and what our new regulatory regime is going to look like. The Trump Administration is being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the era of at least some situational awareness, and acknowledgment that catastrophic risks are very much a real risk and they need to have a role in supervising frontier model releases. Now that they’re there, Commerce is deciding who gets access to the most powerful model in the world, and they are fighting Intelligence and the national security state over who should be in charge. Another question is, exactly how strong is Mythos, both compared to past model and to GPT-5.5 and also in absolute terms? We got multiple new reports on that, as well as the METR graph results. There's little question Mythos is a big deal, but there's a wide range of big deals out there. Part of the new report from UK AISI is learning that there is a substantial gap between the abilities of the early Mythos Preview [...] ---Outline:(01:28) On Your Marks(05:24) How Good Is Mythos?(11:11) Cyber Lack of Security(14:36) Greetings From The Department of War(16:13) The Prior Restraint Era Begins(20:59) Commerce Versus Intelligence(27:43) The Quest for Sane Regulations --- First published: May 13th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pzjGXSKrkHGdGbtrW/cyber-lack-of-security-and-ai-governance --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 30m 21s | ||||||
| 5/12/26 | “Childhood and Education #18: Do The Math” by Zvi | We did reading yesterday. Now we do the math. Math is hard. It does not have to be this hard. A large part of the reason math is hard, or boring, is that education studies, especially in math, are worse than you know. It goes beyond the studies failing both math and statistics forever and into what I’d basically call fraud. Various people are at war with math education, and will do what it takes to stop it in its tracks. We must fight back. Education Research Is Worse Than You Know Kelsey Piper lets her title, ‘Education research is weak and sloppy. Why?’ completely downplay the level of utter awfulness she is reporting finding. You know that whole thing where the entire Bay Area school system stopped teaching kids Algebra? That was motivated by criminal levels of fraud. I want Jo Boaler in jail doing hard time for this if it is accurate. Here's the part before the paywall: Kelsey Piper: Jo Boaler is a professor of education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, with an enormously influential body of work arguing that students learn math faster and more effectively [...] ---Outline:(00:42) Education Research Is Worse Than You Know(04:23) The War on Math(06:59) University of California San Diego(15:01) Beyond UCSD(15:57) New York Cant Do Math(16:43) The Academic Standards Seem Low(19:34) New Math(21:32) Math Anxiety Is Often Due To Knowledge Gaps(23:52) Calculus By Eighth Grade Is Highly Practical For Many --- First published: May 12th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZGGgxy6SNPAy9Hj7v/childhood-and-education-18-do-the-math --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 25m 19s | ||||||
| 5/11/26 | “Childhood And Education #17: Is Our Children Reading” by Zvi | Reading is the most fundamental thing in education. If you can read, you can do and learn everything else. If you can’t read, well, you’re screwed. We know how to teach reading to children. Phonics. The weird thing is we often choose to not do that, and instead to use methods that are known not to work. Principles often want to not do phonics. Teachers often heavily resist phonics. But yes, you can absolutely overcome this, as Mississippi and other Southern states have done, by insisting upon it and actually enforcing that insistence. You see huge gains. Not all those gains persist into later grades, but a lot of the gains do persist. No, that won’t get the children invested in reading lots of books on their own time. But given their alternatives and what we inflict on them, can you blame ‘em? Table of Contents Mississippi Can Read Now. What Mississippi and Louisiana Did. Spies In Every Classroom. Mississippi Results Are Not Due To Retention. Is Retention Helpful In General? At Eighth Grade A Lot Of This Improvement Remains. England Reforms Its Schools. Mastery Learning. [...] ---Outline:(01:06) Mississippi Can Read Now(02:24) What Mississippi and Louisiana Did(09:10) Spies In Every Classroom(10:41) Mississippi Results Are Not Due To Retention(15:54) Is Retention Helpful In General?(19:46) At Eighth Grade A Lot Of This Improvement Remains(20:41) England Reforms Its Schools(21:45) Mastery Learning(24:16) The War Against Reading(26:24) Is Our Children Reading(26:55) No One Reads Anymore The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: May 11th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dm2vQZPZcSKb8FhWw/childhood-and-education-17-is-our-children-reading --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 28m 50s | ||||||
| 5/8/26 | “Claude Code, Codex and Agentic Coding #8” by Zvi | When I started this series, everyone was going crazy for coding agents. Now a lot more people are going crazy for coding agents, as well they should given how much better coding agents keep getting, but also Everybody Knows they are good and is focusing on actually using them. With the slower pace of news here it's no longer clear that the waits associated with doing these updates on their own are worthwhile, so I’m going to fold these updates into the weekly again for now unless there's a new major development. Table of Contents Whoops, Sorry. Huh, Upgrades. Codex of Ultimate Computer Use. Rookie Numbers. I See What You Did There. Just a Ride. They Didn’t Want Our Jobs. Skilling Up. The Lighter Side. Whoops, Sorry Claude Code suffered in April from three distinct issues that have now been fixed. Default reasoning was changed from high to medium to deal with latency, but users disliked this and blamed it on the model. It was introduced on March 4 and reverted on April 7. A bug made it so that [...] ---Outline:(00:38) Whoops, Sorry(01:45) Huh, Upgrades(04:13) Codex of Ultimate Computer Use(08:05) Rookie Numbers(09:12) I See What You Did There(11:38) Just a Ride(11:50) They Didnt Want Our Jobs(18:30) Skilling Up(22:08) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 8th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BS27ZWW2qwDEq5anx/claude-code-codex-and-agentic-coding-8 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 23m 02s | ||||||
| 5/7/26 | “AI #167: The Prior Restraint Era Begins” by Zvi | The era of training frontier models and then releasing them whenever you wanted? That was fun while it lasted. It looks likely to be over now. The White House wants to get an advance look and have the option to veto your release decisions, and it has used this veto on an expansion of access to Mythos. We have additional clarity on what that might mean and it does not look good. Hassett explicitly used the FDA as a parallel, which is the actual worst option unless your goal is to strange or pause AI development in America, without a parallel action from China. That doesn’t seem like a great plan to me and Susie Wiles is out doing damage control. The part where we are talking to China to coordinate model access restrictions does seem better. Anthropic continues its explosive growth, and it continues to strike compute deals. In addition to a long term expanded deal with Google, Anthropic is now leasing SpaceX's Colossus 1, which has let them expand usage limits immediately, and Elon Musk is now speaking positively about Anthropic, including its motivations. This comes as we get testimony in the Musk [...] ---Outline:(01:45) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(02:45) Language Models Dont Offer Mundane Utility(05:09) Huh, Upgrades(05:37) Grok 4.3 Exists But xAI Kind Of Doesnt(07:02) Show Me The Compute(13:23) On Your Marks(14:05) Copyright Confrontation(14:19) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(15:57) Fun With Media Generation(16:36) A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer(16:48) Cyber Lack of Security(17:05) They Took Our Jobs(17:39) The Art of the Jailbreak(17:49) Introducing(18:09) Musk v OpenAI(21:14) Show Me the Money(23:03) Peace In Our Time(26:18) Quiet Speculations(28:24) Quickly, Theres No Time(30:35) The Quest for Sane Regulations(34:04) People Really Hate AI(34:53) Chip City(35:05) The Week in Audio(36:49) People Just Say Things(40:22) People Just Publish Things(41:05) Google Sells Out(42:08) Greetings From Project Glasswing(44:57) The Prior Restraint Era Begins(56:42) Is This Even Legal?(59:49) Pick Up The Phone(01:03:27) Rhetorical Innovation(01:04:05) People On The Internet Sometimes Lie(01:07:14) Goblin Mode(01:08:34) The Mask Comes Off(01:16:51) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(01:20:00) Some Penalties May Apply(01:22:28) Messages From Janusworld(01:22:41) Good Advice(01:23:42) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 7th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rn3iKuDcE4SiSg4DW/ai-167-the-prior-restraint-era-begins --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 1h 26m 45s | ||||||
| 5/6/26 | “What is Anthropic?” by Zvi | What is Anthropic? How does it relate to Claude? What is OpenAI? What is ChatGPT? How does OpenAI relate to it? Is it a mere tool? Is a future of Tool AI a thing, and why do people keep claiming that it is, or that saying makes it so? This post organizes and gives context for a bunch of discussions and messaging on Twitter that would otherwise be quickly buried and lost. What Is Anthropic? Here is one theory, and various people thinking about it. Roon as always is using rhetorical flourish (e.g. note that Roon thinks it is obvious that parents worship their children, in this sense) but this perspective is definitely useful. Such discussions by default disappear when they happen on Twitter, so here is a preservation of key parts of it. roon (OpenAI): it is a literal and useful description of anthropic that it is an organization that loves and worships claude, is run in significant part by claude, and studies and builds claude. this phenomenon is also partially true of other labs like openai but currently exists in its most potent form there. i am not certain but I [...] ---Outline:(00:35) What Is Anthropic?(11:35) What Is This Supposed Tool AI? --- First published: May 6th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6wbLXhkQAPcunrYnq/what-is-anthropic --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. | 17m 30s | ||||||
| 5/5/26 | “The AI Ad-Hoc Prior Restraint Era Begins” by Zvi | The White House has ordered Anthropic not to expand access to Mythos, and is at least seriously considering a complete about-face of American Frontier AI policy into a full prior restraint regime, where anyone wishing to release a highly capable new model will have to ask for permission. This would be the antithesis of all their previous rhetoric, and all their actions to systematically avoid laying a foundation to do this in an orderly and informed fashion. But now, with the existence of Mythos, and a potential coming hackastrophe where cyber attackers will by default have the edge and we desperately need defenders to have a head start, it is not clear they feel they have a choice. If implemented well, this could be the right thing. By default, it won’t be implemented well. Project Glasswing Cannot Expand The government is now deciding which models can and cannot be made available on particular terms to particular parties. This is already happening. Anthropic wanted to expand the number of companies with access to Mythos as part of Project Glasswing. The White House said no. It is not clear this is any of [...] ---Outline:(00:54) Project Glasswing Cannot Expand(02:33) The Ad-Hoc Prior Restraint Era Begins(09:44) Implementation Through CAISI(12:49) What Should We Do About AI?(14:16) The Chain of Command Nonsense Continues(16:29) The Government Should Maintain Multiple AI Providers(16:56) Hows It Going To End? --- First published: May 5th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QX2ZCfkpWGqkyvStN/the-ai-ad-hoc-prior-restraint-era-begins --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. | 18m 34s | ||||||
| 5/1/26 | “Housing Roundup #14: You Can’t Build That” by Zvi | Why can’t you build it? Because you aren’t allowed to build it. Not in the place you want to build it. Or at least, not the way you want, to the extent you want it, at any sane price and on any reasonable schedule. The government will not let you. Here are some of the ways that plays out. One way they prevent this is so-called ‘affordable housing,’ which gives out lottery tickets while overall making housing less affordable. Yelling Fire Risk In A Crowded City Don’t hate the firefighters, hate the fire department and the zoning code. City Aesthetics: We could still build places that feel like this…. Jason (referring to lower left photo): Fire department response to site plan & sample photo: -Street width doesn’t meet NFPA. Widen or remove street parking. -Buildings too close to street. Need 15-30’ from curb to face. -Trees likely need to go as they block easy ladder access. -Where's the fire lane? Seth Largo: You have the courage to hate the rich. You may even have the courage to hate “disabled” vets. But do you have the courage [...] ---Outline:(00:37) Yelling Fire Risk In A Crowded City(02:14) Beauty(06:24) Historical Preservation Is Out Of Hand(08:03) You Only Need One Staircase(09:34) Zoning Run Amok(11:18) Elevator Action(11:54) The Hookup(14:56) Affordable Housing(16:02) Actually Affordable Housing(18:22) Affordable Housing Only Worse(20:56) Remember Who The Enemy Is(22:08) San Francisco Hates Your Stove(22:49) Los Angeles Not Building(27:49) New York City(36:53) Baltimore(37:05) Charlottesville(37:35) New Hampshire(38:07) California(44:05) Bipartisanship(44:28) California Forever(45:52) History(46:16) The Lighter Side --- First published: May 1st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WC69ZpLJ2LYdSMXqb/housing-roundup-14-you-can-t-build-that --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 46m 55s | ||||||
| 5/1/26 | “Housing Roundup #13: More Dakka” by Zvi | Build more housing where people want to live. The rest is commentary. If there is enough housing, it will be affordable, people will afford more house, and people will be able to live where they want to live. It's always been that simple. Increased supply of any kind of housing increases affordability of all kinds of housing. Are there other things that would also be helpful? Yes, but they’re commentary. Freeing up existing underused housing, for example, is helpful. It is commentary. Let's enjoy the lull and see how much of an Infrastructure Week we can do. New Levels Of Saying Quiet Part Out Loud Even For This Guy Trump opposes building houses where people want to live, because doing so would let people live there, which would drive down the value of existing homes. Acyn: Trump: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people who own their homes. You can be sure that will happen. unusual_whales: Trump: when you make it too easy and cheap to build houses, house prices come down. I don’t want to do that. [...] ---Outline:(00:48) New Levels Of Saying Quiet Part Out Loud Even For This Guy(02:30) Whose Side Are You On(03:25) Your Intervention Only Partly Solves The Problem So We Are Against It(04:21) More Dakka(05:32) Abundance(06:43) Changes In Rent Are Largely About Changes In Supply(07:30) Austin(08:46) America(10:02) Minnesota(11:20) Debunking Obvious Nonsense About Monopolistic Practices(21:25) Age Of The Median Homebuyer(24:26) Property Taxes Improve Allocation Efficiency(27:20) More Of Old People Inefficiently And Systematically Stealing From Young People --- First published: May 1st, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dwNgPrBtAHye2vuwS/housing-roundup-13-more-dakka-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app. | 28m 15s | ||||||
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