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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 1d

Hmm, fair point.

Reposted by Neil Traft

ALICE Workshop @aliceworkshop.org · 2d

This year's ALICE guest speakers 🧑‍🔬

- Angel Goñi-Moreno - @angelgm.bsky.social
- Alyssa Adams - @alyssa-m-adams.bsky.social
- Alexander Mordvintsev
- Eric Medvet - @ericmedvetts.bsky.social
- Kyrre Glette - @kyrre2000.bsky.social
- Stefano Nichele - @stenichele.bsky.social
- Susan Stepney

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 2d

"Consider another human difference: financial solvency, which can be measured and quantified, just like IQ. It is heritable in twin studies and (less so) in SNPs. But would you bet that sooner or later we are going to know 'what’s going on' with your bank account at the level of genes?" Same for IQ.

Eric Turkheimer @ent3c.bsky.social · 2d

In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

Your Genes Are Simply Not Enough to Explain How Smart You Are

Seven years ago, I took a bet with Charles Murray about whether we’d basically understand the genetics of intelligence by now.

www.theatlantic.com

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 2d

Ahhh, talking about generative models, got it.

Yes, interesting thought... Is language fundamentally discrete??

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 2d

What even is a continuous model for vision?

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 2d

Oh, this video really brings it to life! Fantastic!

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 6d

I have found Olivia's writing worth engaging with, at least. But sometimes hard to parse, like a lot of philosophy. Potentially weak arguments hiding in that abstruseness. I don't think just having a strong opinion and wanting to be heard should constitute a conflict, but there is a line.

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 6d

I do know some EA folks who are real parasites on the system so I agree there's a whole category of faux "experts" causing confusion and wheedling their way into middle-management positions of minor power.

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 6d

I don't think that's necessary.

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 6d

Well, referring to her paper is just a way of providing commentary. The conflict of interest she's referring to is taking advice from people who have something to gain from adoption of GenAI technologies. (E.g., many experts being consulted may work for GenAI companies. Olivia is just an academic.)

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 17d

GPT now has ads. 💀

They are voluntary... for now.

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 25d

Reads like satire but is actually enlightened

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · 27d

@springernature.com where are you on this? You have a reputation to defend.

Note also that I can't tag the authors on Bsky but they appear to have Twitter accounts:
x.com/YasirFahim20
x.com/Sumanmaji94

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Reposted by Neil Traft

Louis Barclay @louisbarclay.bsky.social · Sep 11

Q. Who aligns the aligners?
A. alignmentalignment.ai

Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers

We align the aligners

alignmentalignment.ai

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Sep 12

Every single part of this website is solid gold. 😂 Thank you!

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Sep 10

What are the tokens on the left side representing?

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Sep 8

At #AutoML25, Dr. Manuela Veloso calls for 3 major directions for AI research:

1) AI must know what it doesn't know (uncertainty).
2) AI must be able to continually improve (continual learning).
3) AI systems must include humans at all times to be more robust (automation is always only partial).

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Aug 26

Haha somehow I still read what you meant

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Aug 26

But no one would found a group to defend the rights of a chair, or a piece of glass; and if they did, no news outlet would run a story on the raging debate around chair consciousness.

There are versions of panpsychism that are plausible but this article still shows a massive bias in the discussion.

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Aug 26

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteri...

Betteridge's law of headlines - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Aug 20

I think my friend Nate would likely agree. Thanks for the references, I'll share them with him!

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Aug 19

Hmm so the germ line is a "unicellular bottleneck", as ref 1 puts it, which allows for constraining the development of children toward multicellularity... or imposing selection pressure against defectors... or something.

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Aug 19

Hmm, fascinating! So, could one hypothesize that multicellularity could evolve in bacteria through incomplete cytokinesis, but it's just never happened? Is it much more likely to happen in diploid cells because mitosis is so much more complicated than binary fission?

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Reposted by Neil Traft

Ecoopan @ecoopan.bsky.social · Aug 17

No mires pabajo

amturiel.bsky.social @amturiel.bsky.social · Aug 17

El nuevo jefe de la NASA dice que no tiene sentido que la agencia observe la Tierra y pide terminar todos sus programas de observación terrestre: arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

NASA’s acting chief calls for the end of Earth science at the space agency

NASA’s charter clearly states the agency should study planet Earth, however.

arstechnica.com

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Neil Traft @ntraft.bsky.social · Aug 17

Actually this is a problem with all software, which has gotten continually worse since the original MIT hacker vision. Software companies view the user as too dumb / busy / distracted to be given options, and simplicity is confused for rigidity.