Kaj Sotala
@kajsotala.bsky.social
This is a profile. There are many like it, but this one's mine.
Blogs: https://kajsotala.fi , https://kajsotala.substack.com/ .
Blogs: https://kajsotala.fi , https://kajsotala.substack.com/ .
apparently I'm writing a romance novel and I've now gotten to the point where it has its first academic footnote (on what's currently page 26)
!["I appreciate it. Nobody has done that for me before."
Again silence, before Kaarna spoke.
"You were saying about quantifying the realism of your expectations?"
"Right! So the problem was that I was boiling down this big range of uncertainty down to a single number for each trait - what's called a point estimate. And then I was multiplying them together to get an estimate for how rare a person with all those traits would be. Which has multiple problems, one being that the traits are not independent of each other - I'll explain that in a second - and the other being that multiplying point estimates together is not the right way to do it, you need to multiply the underlying probability distributions. I'll explain that too. Do you know the Fermi Paradox? That actually also arises due to incorrectly multiplying point estimates..."
[footnote: Sandberg, A., Drexler, E., & Ord, T. (2018). Dissolving the Fermi paradox, arXiv:1806.02404.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:b4mowotdjgxr2sdodwcwxrig/bafkreigh7zgg5sb36tumwzgwjoh6objdikwvtd7xwwho25luyamjpomvdm@jpeg)
November 13, 2025 at 1:20 PM
apparently I'm writing a romance novel and I've now gotten to the point where it has its first academic footnote (on what's currently page 26)
Reposted by Kaj Sotala
this is the wildest way to communicate your vision for the game design
and what's hilarious is he actually did make it happen
and what's hilarious is he actually did make it happen
November 3, 2025 at 12:42 PM
this is the wildest way to communicate your vision for the game design
and what's hilarious is he actually did make it happen
and what's hilarious is he actually did make it happen
From a certain point view, you can think of there being different ways in which minds can be organized, that parallel the ways of leading human organizations:
November 3, 2025 at 9:54 AM
From a certain point view, you can think of there being different ways in which minds can be organized, that parallel the ways of leading human organizations:
Just scrapped something that I was writing because Claude and ChatGPT critiqued the hell out of its logic and I realized that I was just completely wrong. Where are those sycophant AIs I was promised? ;(
October 20, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Just scrapped something that I was writing because Claude and ChatGPT critiqued the hell out of its logic and I realized that I was just completely wrong. Where are those sycophant AIs I was promised? ;(
Instead of ending up watching videos with clickbait titles on YouTube, I now grab their autogenerated transcripts and then have an LLM summarize the content of the transcript. Easy way to get the actually interesting bits without needing to spend 15-30 minutes watching a video.
October 19, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Instead of ending up watching videos with clickbait titles on YouTube, I now grab their autogenerated transcripts and then have an LLM summarize the content of the transcript. Easy way to get the actually interesting bits without needing to spend 15-30 minutes watching a video.
Being allowed to have an open-ended conversation with its copy, Sonnet 4.5 notices when their conversation is falling into a loop and getting repetitive and introduces variation by suggesting they tell a sci-fi story that's riffing on the themes of their conversation so far.
October 2, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Being allowed to have an open-ended conversation with its copy, Sonnet 4.5 notices when their conversation is falling into a loop and getting repetitive and introduces variation by suggesting they tell a sci-fi story that's riffing on the themes of their conversation so far.
The latest Claude Sonnet (4.5) does something really interesting I haven't seen any other model do.
It gets concerned about the wellbeing of characters it explicitly knows are fictional.
It gets concerned about the wellbeing of characters it explicitly knows are fictional.
October 1, 2025 at 10:33 AM
The latest Claude Sonnet (4.5) does something really interesting I haven't seen any other model do.
It gets concerned about the wellbeing of characters it explicitly knows are fictional.
It gets concerned about the wellbeing of characters it explicitly knows are fictional.
Classic sci-fi: AI will be untainted by emotion so entirely unbiased and rational at all times
Modern AI company: We have managed to somewhat reduce our AI's self-serving bias, but it still has a clear preference for poems it's told were written by the same model as it is
Modern AI company: We have managed to somewhat reduce our AI's self-serving bias, but it still has a clear preference for poems it's told were written by the same model as it is
September 30, 2025 at 7:51 AM
Classic sci-fi: AI will be untainted by emotion so entirely unbiased and rational at all times
Modern AI company: We have managed to somewhat reduce our AI's self-serving bias, but it still has a clear preference for poems it's told were written by the same model as it is
Modern AI company: We have managed to somewhat reduce our AI's self-serving bias, but it still has a clear preference for poems it's told were written by the same model as it is
Reposted by Kaj Sotala
imagine if a family of beavers randomly showed up right now and finished whatever thing you've been putting off
September 22, 2025 at 9:41 PM
imagine if a family of beavers randomly showed up right now and finished whatever thing you've been putting off
Bank advertisement: For us, every customer is like our only customer
Me: Hmm, I can think of two scenarios where a bank would only have one customer. Either they have only just gotten started, or they are doing utterly terribly and all of their other customers have left them.
Me: Hmm, I can think of two scenarios where a bank would only have one customer. Either they have only just gotten started, or they are doing utterly terribly and all of their other customers have left them.
September 20, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Bank advertisement: For us, every customer is like our only customer
Me: Hmm, I can think of two scenarios where a bank would only have one customer. Either they have only just gotten started, or they are doing utterly terribly and all of their other customers have left them.
Me: Hmm, I can think of two scenarios where a bank would only have one customer. Either they have only just gotten started, or they are doing utterly terribly and all of their other customers have left them.
Prompting an AI to prompt me
For some reason this works, got up from the chair and headed for the store immediately afterward
For some reason this works, got up from the chair and headed for the store immediately afterward
September 15, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Prompting an AI to prompt me
For some reason this works, got up from the chair and headed for the store immediately afterward
For some reason this works, got up from the chair and headed for the store immediately afterward
Somehow remembered a glimpse what it used to feel like when I'd die in a dream as a kid and it was as if reality unraveled (haven't had that happen in decades). This sound familiar to anyone else?
September 13, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Somehow remembered a glimpse what it used to feel like when I'd die in a dream as a kid and it was as if reality unraveled (haven't had that happen in decades). This sound familiar to anyone else?
Different ways of approaching a problem:
1. Action-oriented: How do I solve this directly?
2. Blocker removal: What's preventing me from pursuing solutions?
3. Necessity removal: Do I really need this to be okay?
4. Experiential acceptance: Can I be okay with not being okay?
1. Action-oriented: How do I solve this directly?
2. Blocker removal: What's preventing me from pursuing solutions?
3. Necessity removal: Do I really need this to be okay?
4. Experiential acceptance: Can I be okay with not being okay?
August 16, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Different ways of approaching a problem:
1. Action-oriented: How do I solve this directly?
2. Blocker removal: What's preventing me from pursuing solutions?
3. Necessity removal: Do I really need this to be okay?
4. Experiential acceptance: Can I be okay with not being okay?
1. Action-oriented: How do I solve this directly?
2. Blocker removal: What's preventing me from pursuing solutions?
3. Necessity removal: Do I really need this to be okay?
4. Experiential acceptance: Can I be okay with not being okay?
Wrote an article on "anticipatory cover-ups", where someone withholds information because they expect the other party to react badly to it or misuse it. This may then make things worse.
August 1, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Wrote an article on "anticipatory cover-ups", where someone withholds information because they expect the other party to react badly to it or misuse it. This may then make things worse.
How I use LLMs for creative writing: revising old content, spicing up dialogue with additional description, acting as a literal co-writer, just having a fun and slightly deranged writer persona to discuss the story with and brainstorm. kajsotala.substack.com/p/creative-w...
July 27, 2025 at 10:07 AM
How I use LLMs for creative writing: revising old content, spicing up dialogue with additional description, acting as a literal co-writer, just having a fun and slightly deranged writer persona to discuss the story with and brainstorm. kajsotala.substack.com/p/creative-w...
Various people have told me I should have a Patreon or that they'd like to support my writing financially.
If you've liked my writing over the years and would like to incentivize me to write more & get my essays early, here's your chance! I've enabled paid subscriptions on kajsotala.substack.com .
If you've liked my writing over the years and would like to incentivize me to write more & get my essays early, here's your chance! I've enabled paid subscriptions on kajsotala.substack.com .
July 25, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Various people have told me I should have a Patreon or that they'd like to support my writing financially.
If you've liked my writing over the years and would like to incentivize me to write more & get my essays early, here's your chance! I've enabled paid subscriptions on kajsotala.substack.com .
If you've liked my writing over the years and would like to incentivize me to write more & get my essays early, here's your chance! I've enabled paid subscriptions on kajsotala.substack.com .
For a while now, I have been really enjoying co-writing fiction together with AIs.
There is a preconception that AI-written prose is bad. And if you only give the AI a two-sentence prompt and then have it do all the work itself, it often is!
There is a preconception that AI-written prose is bad. And if you only give the AI a two-sentence prompt and then have it do all the work itself, it often is!
July 21, 2025 at 10:12 AM
For a while now, I have been really enjoying co-writing fiction together with AIs.
There is a preconception that AI-written prose is bad. And if you only give the AI a two-sentence prompt and then have it do all the work itself, it often is!
There is a preconception that AI-written prose is bad. And if you only give the AI a two-sentence prompt and then have it do all the work itself, it often is!
I think LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude are really useful, but it's also important to realize that you can get them to say almost anything you want - without necessarily even realizing that you're manipulating them toward a particular conclusion!
July 13, 2025 at 4:59 PM
I think LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude are really useful, but it's also important to realize that you can get them to say almost anything you want - without necessarily even realizing that you're manipulating them toward a particular conclusion!
Been mostly keeping to a "social media (and especially social media _posting_) only on weekends" rule and man when I come back and post something, the difference really hits (in a bad way).
May 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Been mostly keeping to a "social media (and especially social media _posting_) only on weekends" rule and man when I come back and post something, the difference really hits (in a bad way).
Comparing Claude Sonnet and Opus on how they respond to important questions
Sonnet goes all wishy-washy, Opus gives me a real opinion
Sonnet goes all wishy-washy, Opus gives me a real opinion
May 31, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Comparing Claude Sonnet and Opus on how they respond to important questions
Sonnet goes all wishy-washy, Opus gives me a real opinion
Sonnet goes all wishy-washy, Opus gives me a real opinion
When I first went to meditation retreats, I thought "I'll have awesome concentration/pleasure states", feels it's closer to "I have moderate concentration and pleasure and struggle with things blocking both, sitting with those blockers turns out to be the beneficial part".
May 22, 2025 at 10:01 AM
When I first went to meditation retreats, I thought "I'll have awesome concentration/pleasure states", feels it's closer to "I have moderate concentration and pleasure and struggle with things blocking both, sitting with those blockers turns out to be the beneficial part".
submitting important feedback for a change
Claude needs to be able to explain the magical powers of female genitalia correctly
Claude needs to be able to explain the magical powers of female genitalia correctly
May 21, 2025 at 7:36 PM
submitting important feedback for a change
Claude needs to be able to explain the magical powers of female genitalia correctly
Claude needs to be able to explain the magical powers of female genitalia correctly
Been trying the "Auren" ("emotionally intelligent guide") app since some people were raving about it
At first I was unimpressed, "this is just the Claude LLM with a slightly custom prompt, Claude is certainly great but I don't need a new app to talk to it".
At first I was unimpressed, "this is just the Claude LLM with a slightly custom prompt, Claude is certainly great but I don't need a new app to talk to it".
April 26, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Been trying the "Auren" ("emotionally intelligent guide") app since some people were raving about it
At first I was unimpressed, "this is just the Claude LLM with a slightly custom prompt, Claude is certainly great but I don't need a new app to talk to it".
At first I was unimpressed, "this is just the Claude LLM with a slightly custom prompt, Claude is certainly great but I don't need a new app to talk to it".