David Schneider-Joseph
@thedavidsj.bsky.social
Working on AI gov. Past: Technology and Security Policy @ RAND re: AI compute, telemetry database lead & 1st stage landing software @ SpaceX; AWS; Google.
Blake Lemoine famously claimed LaMDA was conscious, but “evidence” was consistent with roleplay in response to leading questions. It has also been claimed LLMs cannot be conscious in principle, but on weak grounds.
Two new papers offer hints on the question.
thedavidsj.substack.com/p/evidence-o...
Two new papers offer hints on the question.
thedavidsj.substack.com/p/evidence-o...
Evidence on language model consciousness
Two new papers offer some hints on the question.
thedavidsj.substack.com
November 1, 2025 at 3:49 AM
Blake Lemoine famously claimed LaMDA was conscious, but “evidence” was consistent with roleplay in response to leading questions. It has also been claimed LLMs cannot be conscious in principle, but on weak grounds.
Two new papers offer hints on the question.
thedavidsj.substack.com/p/evidence-o...
Two new papers offer hints on the question.
thedavidsj.substack.com/p/evidence-o...
I often see argument: “We have 2 choices: current rate of AI progress and very large risk, or slow things down, greatly reducing risk in exchange for minuscule delay of benefits.”
But this depends on mechanism of slowdown.
I argue this case more fully here: thedavidsj.substack.com/p/draconian-...
But this depends on mechanism of slowdown.
I argue this case more fully here: thedavidsj.substack.com/p/draconian-...
Draconian measures can increase the risk of irrevocable catastrophe
I frequently see arguments that we can either accept the current rate of AI progress and a very large risk of existential catastrophe, or slow things down, greatly reducing the risk of existential cat...
thedavidsj.substack.com
September 23, 2025 at 10:04 PM
I often see argument: “We have 2 choices: current rate of AI progress and very large risk, or slow things down, greatly reducing risk in exchange for minuscule delay of benefits.”
But this depends on mechanism of slowdown.
I argue this case more fully here: thedavidsj.substack.com/p/draconian-...
But this depends on mechanism of slowdown.
I argue this case more fully here: thedavidsj.substack.com/p/draconian-...
Steven Pinker on my essay: x.com/sapinker/sta...
August 25, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Steven Pinker on my essay: x.com/sapinker/sta...
Scott called this "one of the best things I've read all year, and the first thing on Alzheimers that makes me actually feel like I understand something".
August 14, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Scott called this "one of the best things I've read all year, and the first thing on Alzheimers that makes me actually feel like I understand something".
In Defense Of The Amyloid Hypothesis
A guest post by David Schneider-Joseph
www.astralcodexten.com
August 14, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Pacific tsunami advisory due to magnitude 8.7 earthquake off coast of Kamchatka.
July 30, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Pacific tsunami advisory due to magnitude 8.7 earthquake off coast of Kamchatka.
Claude 4 Opus seems very excitable.
May 23, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Claude 4 Opus seems very excitable.
Why are modern book covers so bad?
May 11, 2025 at 6:04 AM
Why are modern book covers so bad?
Asking Claude important questions about papal succession.
April 23, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Asking Claude important questions about papal succession.
Today is a great day to illustrate why the Dow is a bad stock index: it's down 1.33% on a day the S&P 500 is up 0.13%, simply because one component is down 22.38% and also that component is overweighted because the weights are based on share price (???) instead of market cap.
April 17, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Today is a great day to illustrate why the Dow is a bad stock index: it's down 1.33% on a day the S&P 500 is up 0.13%, simply because one component is down 22.38% and also that component is overweighted because the weights are based on share price (???) instead of market cap.
Appears Trump admin is adversarially interpreting SCOTUS order to “facilitate” return of Garcia (who, by their admission, they sent without cause to El Salvadorian prison), to mean they must merely “remove any domestic obstacles”, rather than actually work to secure his return.
April 14, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Appears Trump admin is adversarially interpreting SCOTUS order to “facilitate” return of Garcia (who, by their admission, they sent without cause to El Salvadorian prison), to mean they must merely “remove any domestic obstacles”, rather than actually work to secure his return.
I haven’t checked these numbers myself, but it appears that the “Tariffs Charged to the US” column in the White House’s new tariff legend is actually just the ratio of the US trade deficit with that country divided by US imports from that country, with a floor at 10%. Pretty incredible really.
April 2, 2025 at 11:52 PM
I haven’t checked these numbers myself, but it appears that the “Tariffs Charged to the US” column in the White House’s new tariff legend is actually just the ratio of the US trade deficit with that country divided by US imports from that country, with a floor at 10%. Pretty incredible really.
Probably the most blatant autobiographical confabulation I’ve seen from Claude.
March 17, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Probably the most blatant autobiographical confabulation I’ve seen from Claude.
There's truth to this but it's a matter of degree. There are structural changes such as reducing the impeachment conviction threshold, removing the pardon power, limiting the wealth of hundred-billionaires, etc.
one thing i keep thinking about is how there is simply no way to design a constitutional system that can resist authoritarian incursion if participants in that system do not actually care that much
March 12, 2025 at 8:21 PM
There's truth to this but it's a matter of degree. There are structural changes such as reducing the impeachment conviction threshold, removing the pardon power, limiting the wealth of hundred-billionaires, etc.
Did you all know that Hawaii was this long
March 5, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Did you all know that Hawaii was this long
14.8k output tokens/H800 node/second = 6.7M/GPU hour, close to the 10M/GPU hour I estimated. This puts their cost at 30¢ per million output tokens at $2/GPU hour.
x.com/deepseek_ai/...
x.com/deepseek_ai/...
March 1, 2025 at 5:57 AM
14.8k output tokens/H800 node/second = 6.7M/GPU hour, close to the 10M/GPU hour I estimated. This puts their cost at 30¢ per million output tokens at $2/GPU hour.
x.com/deepseek_ai/...
x.com/deepseek_ai/...
I don’t fully understand the reaction to this result. If language models weren’t capable of some generalization, they wouldn’t work at all. Even alignment-specific generalization has been shown since at least InstructGPT. What about this generalization in particular is a big surprise?
This is a crazy paper. Fine-tuning a big GPT-4o on a small amount of insecure code or even "bad numbers" (like 666) makes them misaligned in almost everything else. They are more likely to start offering misinformation, spouting anti-human values, and talk about admiring dictators. Why is unclear.
February 26, 2025 at 3:23 AM
I don’t fully understand the reaction to this result. If language models weren’t capable of some generalization, they wouldn’t work at all. Even alignment-specific generalization has been shown since at least InstructGPT. What about this generalization in particular is a big surprise?
And now actually ruled out. NASA: 0.0039%, ESA 0.0016%.
Impact close to ruled out now. NASA says 0.28%, ESA says 0.16%.
This is now up to 2.3%.
February 24, 2025 at 4:39 PM
And now actually ruled out. NASA: 0.0039%, ESA 0.0016%.
The estimation of orbital parameters is one of the oldest, best studied, and most well understood topics in science. NASA and ESA know what they're doing.
February 21, 2025 at 10:09 PM
The estimation of orbital parameters is one of the oldest, best studied, and most well understood topics in science. NASA and ESA know what they're doing.
Impact close to ruled out now. NASA says 0.28%, ESA says 0.16%.
This is now up to 2.3%.
40–100 meter asteroid (enough to destroy a metropolitan area) named YR4 with 1.5% chance of Earth impact on Dec 22, 2032. Observation opportunities through April, and if an impact can't be ruled out by then, we need a deflection mission to avoid risks to cities in South Am., Africa, and Asia.
February 21, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Impact close to ruled out now. NASA says 0.28%, ESA says 0.16%.
The Vulnerable World Hypothesis definitionally excludes the technological black ball that devastates civilization “unless it has” NOT “exited the ‘semi-anarchic default condition’”.
Currently seems to me that one of the greatest existential risks from AI is authoritarian lock-in by actors in either China or the US, and many AI governance efforts are unintentionally increasing this less visible risk in order to reduce more visible but IMO less likely risks.
February 14, 2025 at 8:56 PM
The Vulnerable World Hypothesis definitionally excludes the technological black ball that devastates civilization “unless it has” NOT “exited the ‘semi-anarchic default condition’”.
Currently seems to me that one of the greatest existential risks from AI is authoritarian lock-in by actors in either China or the US, and many AI governance efforts are unintentionally increasing this less visible risk in order to reduce more visible but IMO less likely risks.
February 14, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Currently seems to me that one of the greatest existential risks from AI is authoritarian lock-in by actors in either China or the US, and many AI governance efforts are unintentionally increasing this less visible risk in order to reduce more visible but IMO less likely risks.
"[T]he law actually makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government even made such a demand.
… 'The person deemed it shocking that the UK government was demanding Apple's help to spy on non-British users without their governments' knowledge.'"
www.macrumors.com/2025/02/07/u...
… 'The person deemed it shocking that the UK government was demanding Apple's help to spy on non-British users without their governments' knowledge.'"
www.macrumors.com/2025/02/07/u...
Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor
The British government has secretly demanded that Apple give it blanket access to all encrypted user content uploaded to the cloud, reports The...
www.macrumors.com
February 8, 2025 at 3:50 AM
"[T]he law actually makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government even made such a demand.
… 'The person deemed it shocking that the UK government was demanding Apple's help to spy on non-British users without their governments' knowledge.'"
www.macrumors.com/2025/02/07/u...
… 'The person deemed it shocking that the UK government was demanding Apple's help to spy on non-British users without their governments' knowledge.'"
www.macrumors.com/2025/02/07/u...
This is now up to 2.3%.
40–100 meter asteroid (enough to destroy a metropolitan area) named YR4 with 1.5% chance of Earth impact on Dec 22, 2032. Observation opportunities through April, and if an impact can't be ruled out by then, we need a deflection mission to avoid risks to cities in South Am., Africa, and Asia.
YR4 was discovered on 27 December. Its impact risk was raised in July to level 3 on the Torino scale, one of the highest ever.
For an asteroid this size, 40-100m wide (the length of a football field), the highest it can reach is level 8 – 100% chance of impact. (2/x)
For an asteroid this size, 40-100m wide (the length of a football field), the highest it can reach is level 8 – 100% chance of impact. (2/x)
February 7, 2025 at 3:06 AM
This is now up to 2.3%.