I. Everyone knows politics makes people crazy. But what kind of crazy? Which page of the DSM is it on? I’m only half joking. Psychiatrists have spent decades developing a whole catalog of ways brains can go wrong. Politics makes people’s brains go wrong. Shouldn’t it be in the catalog? Wouldn’t it be weird if 21st century political extremists had discovered a totally new form of mental dysfunction, unrelated even by analogy to all the forms that had come before? You’ll object: politics only meta...
Jan 27, 2024•34 min
E. Fuller Torrey recently published a journal article trying to cast doubt on the commonly-accepted claim that schizophrenia is mostly genetic. Most of his points were the usual “if we can’t name all of the exact genes, it must not be genetic at all” - but two arguments stood out: Even though twin studies say schizophrenia is about 80% genetic, surveys of twin pairs show that if one identical twin has schizophrenia, the other one only has a 15% to 50% chance of having it. The Nazis ran a eugenic...
Jan 27, 2024•8 min
Machine Alignment Monday 1/22/24 Business Insider: Larry Page Once Called Elon Musk A “Specieist” : Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Google cofounder Larry Page disagree so severely about the dangers of AI it apparently ended their friendship. At Musk's 44th birthday celebration in 2015, Page accused Musk of being a "specieist" who preferred humans over future digital life forms [...] Musk said to Page at the time, "Well, yes, I am pro-human, I fucking like humanity, dude." A month later, Business Inside...
Jan 27, 2024•10 min
Astral Codex Ten has a paid subscription option . You pay $10 (or $2.50 if you can’t afford the regular price) per month, and get: Extra articles (usually 1-2 per month) A Hidden Open Thread per week Access to the occasional Ask Me Anythings I do with subscribers Early access to some draft posts The warm glow of supporting the blog. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/subscrive-drive-2024-free-unlocked...
Jan 27, 2024•6 min
[Remember, I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can’t guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-january-2024...
Jan 22, 2024•19 min
Does it matter if COVID was a lab leak? Here’s an argument against: not many people still argue that lab leaks are impossible. People were definitely doing dangerous work with viruses; Chinese biosafety protocols were definitely mediocre. Maybe the Wuhan Institute had bad luck, and one of the viruses there escaped. Or maybe they had good luck, by sheer coincidence no viruses escaped, and an unrelated pandemic started nearby. A good Bayesian should start out believing there’s some medium chance o...
Jan 22, 2024•21 min
Machine Alignment Monday 1/15/24 A sleeper agent is an AI that acts innocuous until it gets some trigger, then goes rogue. People might make these on purpose. For example, the CIA might “encourage” big AI labs to make sleeper agents. Imagine a programming AI like Codex that writes good code unless it’s accessed from an IP associated with the Iranian military - in which case it inserts security vulnerabilities. But in theory you could get one of these by accident. Suppose an AI had some secret go...
Jan 20, 2024•21 min
[original post: Does Capitalism Beat Charity? ] 1: Comments Where I Want To Reiterate That I’m In Near Mode 2: Comments Directly Arguing Against My Main Point, Thank You 3: Comments Promoting Specific Interesting Capitalist Charities 4: Other Interesting Comments 5: Updates And Conclusions https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-capitalism...
Jan 14, 2024•30 min
Can blob fish dance ballet under diagonally fried cucumbers made of dust storms? AIs sometimes lie. They might lie because their creator told them to lie. For example, a scammer might train an AI to help dupe victims. Or they might lie (“hallucinate”) because they’re trained to sound helpful, and if the true answer (eg “I don’t know”) isn’t helpful-sounding enough, they’ll pick a false answer. Or they might lie for technical AI reasons that don’t map to a clear explanation in natural language. h...
Jan 14, 2024•19 min
[epistemic status: speculative] I. Millgram et al (2015) find that depressed people prefer to listen to sad rather than happy music. This matches personal experience; when I'm feeling down, I also prefer sad music. But why? Try setting aside all your internal human knowledge: wouldn’t it make more sense for sad people to listen to happy music, to cheer themselves up? A later study asks depressed people why they do this. They say that sad music makes them feel better, because it’s more "relaxing"...
Jan 07, 2024•14 min
"You can't write a check to capitalism directly" This question comes up whenever I discuss philanthropy. It would seem that capitalism is better than charity. The countries that became permanently rich, like America and Japan, did it with capitalism. This seems better than temporarily alleviating poverty by donating food or clothing. So (say proponents), good people who want to help others should stop giving to charity and start giving to capitalism. These proponents differ on exactly what “givi...
Jan 07, 2024•13 min
I. In February 2023 I found myself sitting in the waiting room of a San Francisco fertility clinic, holding a cup of my own semen. The Bible tells the story of Onan, son of Judah. Onan’s brother died. Tradition dictated that Onan should impregnate his brother’s wife, ensuring that his brother’s line would (in some sense) live on. Onan refused, instead “spilling the seed on the ground”. God smote Onan, starting a 4,000-year-old tradition of religious people getting angry about wasting sperm on an...
Jan 02, 2024•24 min
[previously in series: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ] It has been three weeks since Sam Altman was fired, but the conversation won’t move on. “What did Ilya see?” asks your Uber driver, on the way to the airport. “What wasn’t he consistently candid about?” ask people on the street, as you walk your dog. “What was Adam D’Angelo’s angle?” asks the cop, as he writes you a ticket. “Was the Microsoft move just a bluff?” asks the robber at gunpoint, as he ransacks your apartment. You need to get away from it all, ju...
Dec 18, 2023•14 min
I’m running another ACX Grants round. If you already know what this is and want to apply, use the form here to apply, deadline December 29. Otherwise see below for more information. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/apply-for-an-acx-grant-2024
Dec 18, 2023•11 min
Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay . Their product is a genetically modified bacterium which infects your mouth, outcompetes all the tooth-decay-causing bacteria, and doesn’t cause tooth decay itself. If it works, it could make cavities a thing of the past (you should still brush for backup and cosmetic reasons). I talked to Lantern founder Aaron Silverbook to get an idea of how this works, both in a biological and an economic sense. Aaron was very knowledgeable and forthcomi...
Dec 18, 2023•18 min
“Abolish the FDA” has become a popular slogan in libertarian circles. I’m sympathetic to the spirit of the demand. But a slogan isn’t a plan, and this one is even less of a plan than usual. I used to think that since libertarians always lose, there was no point in having a real plan for what to do if they won. But now that they’ve gone from “ literally always lose” to “only lose 99.9% of the time” . . . https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/beyond-abolish-the-fda...
Dec 13, 2023•13 min
Sam Altman || Dating site strategy || Metaculus updates || Wars and rumors of wars https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-12423
Dec 13, 2023•29 min
[Remember, I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can’t guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/links-for-november-2023 Links: Heroic Act o...
Dec 04, 2023•26 min
"Lots of alcoholics want to quit in principle, but only some join AA" Followup to: In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruism Freddie deBoer says effective altruism is “a shell game” : Who could argue with that! But this summary also invites perhaps the most powerful critique: who could argue with that? That is to say, this sounds like so obvious and general a project that it can hardly denote a specific philosophy or project at all. The immediate response to such a definition, if you’re not par...
Dec 04, 2023•17 min
"All you do is cause boardroom drama, and maybe some other things I’m forgetting..." I. Search “effective altruism” on social media right now, and it’s pretty grim. Socialists think we’re sociopathic Randroid money-obsessed Silicon Valley hypercapitalists. But Silicon Valley thinks we’re all overregulation-loving authoritarian communist bureaucrats. The right thinks we’re all woke SJW extremists. But the left thinks we’re all fascist white supremacists. The anti-AI people think we’re the PR arm ...
Dec 01, 2023•18 min
Inside every AI is a bigger AI, trying to get out You’ve probably heard AI is a “black box”. No one knows how it works. Researchers simulate a weird type of pseudo-neural-tissue, “reward” it a little every time it becomes a little more like the AI they want, and eventually it becomes the AI they want. But God only knows what goes on inside of it. This is bad for safety. For safety, it would be nice to look inside the AI and see whether it’s executing an algorithm like “do the thing” or more like...
Dec 01, 2023•24 min
The phrase “I see Satan fall like lightning” comes from Luke 10:18. I’d previously encountered it on insane right-wing conspiracy theory websites. You can rephrase it as “I see Satan descend to earth in the form of lightning.” But “lightning” in Hebrew is barak . So the Bible says Satan will descend to Earth in the form of Barak. Seems like a relevant Bible verse for insane right-wing conspiracy theorists! Philosopher / theologian Rene Girard’s famous book I See Satan Fall Like Lightning isn’t d...
Nov 23, 2023•26 min
The psychiatric study everyone’s talking about this month is ”Randomized trial of ketamine masked by surgical anesthesia in patients with depression” . Ketamine is a dissociative drug - it produces weird drug effects like feelings of bodylessness and ego death. Recent research suggests it’s a powerful antidepressant. Usually we would try to run placebo-controlled trials. But it’s hard to run a placebo controlled trial of a dissociative. Either you feel bodylessness and ego death (in which case y...
Nov 20, 2023•12 min
Thanks to everyone who commented on Quests And Requests . There was a predictable failure mode: lots of people said “I have relevant expertise and would be willing to help with #X”, and then those comments just sat there. Many fewer people said “I’m going to be team lead on #X and start contacting everyone else who was interested”. In case it’s not clear: I’m not planning on “picking” people to lead each of these projects (though if you email me at scott@slatestarcodex.com asking for help, I mig...
Nov 20, 2023•55 min
[previously in series: 2016 , 2020 ; expansion of this ] MODERATOR: Hello, and welcome to the third Republican primary debate. To shore up declining voter interest, we’ve decided to make things more interesting tonight. In this first round, each candidate will have to avoid using a specific letter of the alphabet in their answer. If they slip up, they forfeit their remaining time, and the next candidate in line gets the floor. Our candidates who have qualified today are Chris Christie, Nikki Hal...
Nov 16, 2023•16 min
[original post: My Left Kidney ] 1: Comments From People Who Are Against This Sort Of Thing 2: …From Other People Who Have Donated Kidneys 3: …From People Who Have Received Kidneys 4: …About Opt-Out Organ Donation 5: …On Radiation Risk 6: …About Rejections 7: …On Polls About Who Would Donate 8: …On Artificial Organs 9: Other Comments https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-kidney...
Nov 16, 2023•55 min
Projects that need incubating I’ll be starting a new round of ACX Grants sometime soon. I can’t guarantee I’ll fund all these projects - some of them are more like vanity projects than truly effective. But I might fund some of them, and others might be doable without funding. So if you’re feeling left out and want a cause to devote your life to, here are some extras. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/quests-and-requests...
Nov 14, 2023•22 min
Review of Rory Carroll's "Comandante" [previously in series: Erdogan , Modi , Orban , Xi , Putin ] I. All dictators get their start by discovering some loophole in the democratic process. Xi realized that control of corruption investigations let him imprison anyone he wanted. Erdogan realized that EU accession talks provided the perfect cover to retool Turkish institutions in his own image. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/dictator-book-club-chavez...
Nov 09, 2023•46 min
Manifest || Manifold.Love || Eyeless in Gaza Last month, the Lighthaven convention center in Berkeley hosted Manifest, the first conference for prediction market enthusiasts. By now this has already been covered elsewhere, including in a great article by the New York Times , but here are some particular highlights: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-103023...
Nov 07, 2023•16 min
A person has two kidneys; one advises him to do good and one advises him to do evil. And it stands to reason that the one advising him to do good is to his right and the one that advises him to do evil is to his left. — Talmud (Berakhot 61a) I. As I left the Uber, I saw with horror the growing wet spot around my crotch. “It’s not urine!”, I almost blurted to the driver, before considering that 1) this would just call attention to it and 2) it was urine. “It’s not my urine,” was my brain’s next p...
Oct 28, 2023•38 min
