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The Compounding Loophole

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Release Date: 09/17/2024

Book Review: Deep Utopia show art Book Review: Deep Utopia

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

What problem do we get after we've solved all other problems? I. Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom got famous for asking “What if technology is really really bad?” He helped define ‘existential risk’, popularize fears of malevolent superintelligence, and argue that we were living in a ‘vulnerable world’ prone to physical or biological catastrophe. His latest book breaks from his usual oeuvre. In , he asks: “What if technology is really really good?” Most previous utopian literature (he notes) has been about ‘shallow’ utopias. There are still problems; we just handle them...

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AI Art Turing Test show art AI Art Turing Test

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Okay, let’s do this! Link is , should take about twenty minutes. I’ll close the form on Monday 10/21 and post results the following week. I’ll put an answer key in the comments here, and have a better one including attributions in the results post. DON’T READ THE COMMENTS UNTIL YOU’RE DONE.  

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Book Review Contest 2024 Winners show art Book Review Contest 2024 Winners

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Thanks to everyone who entered or voted in the book review contest. The winners are: 1st: , reviewed by AmandaFromBethlehem. Amanda is active in the Philadelphia ACX community. This is her first year entering the Book Review Contest, and she is currently working on a silly novel about an alien who likes thermodynamics. When she's not writing existential horror, she practices Tengwar calligraphy and does home improvement projects. 2nd: , reviewed by David Matolcsi. David is an AI safety researcher from Hungary, currently living in Berkeley. He doesn't have much publicly available writing...

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SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story show art SB 1047: Our Side Of The Story

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

I. My ex-girlfriend has a weird relationship to reality. Her actions ripple out into the world more heavily than other people's. She finds herself at the center of events more often than makes sense. One time someone asked her to explain the whole “AI risk” thing to a State Senator. She hadn’t realized states had senators, but it sounded important, so she gave it a try, figuring out her exact pitch on the car ride to his office. A few months later, she was informed that the Senator had really taken her words to heart, and he'd been thinking hard about how he could help. This is part of...

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Triple Tragedy And Thankful Theory show art Triple Tragedy And Thankful Theory

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

I accept guest posts from certain people, especially past Book Review Contest winners. Earlier this year, I published Daniel Böttger’s essay . While we were working on editing it, Daniel had some dramatic experiences and revelations, culminating in him developing a theory which he says “will contribute to saving the world”, which he asked me to publish. Although I can’t speak for its world-historical importance, and although he admits his mental state is fragile, after some discussion I decided to publish because - if nothing else - he’s a great writer with a fascinating story and...

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Against The Cultural Christianity Argument show art Against The Cultural Christianity Argument

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

The "cultural Christianity" argument says that atheists might not like Christianity, but they like a culture which depends on Christianity. They like open, free, thoughtful, liberal, beautiful, virtuous societies. Unmoored from a connection to Christanity, a society will gradually have less of those goods, until even atheists are unhappy. Therefore (continues the argument), atheists should be cultural Christians. While they can continue to privately disbelieve, they should support an overall Christian society, which they can dwell contentedly on the fringes of. I think this is sort of where...

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Preliminary Milei Report Card show art Preliminary Milei Report Card

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

How is Javier Milei, the new-ish libertarian president of Argentina doing? According to , he’s doing amazing, , and Argentina is on the road to First World status. According to , he’s devastating the country, , and Argentina is mired in . I was confused enough to investigate further. Going through various topics in more depth:    

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How Often Do Men Think About Rome? show art How Often Do Men Think About Rome?

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Exegi monumentum aere perennius There’s a Twitter meme on how men constantly think about the Roman Empire. Some feminist friends objected that women think about Rome a lot too. To the matter, I included a question about this on , “Have you thought about the Roman Empire in the past 24 hours?” (the Byzantine Empire also counted). Here are responses from 607 cis women and 4,925 cis men:  

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Your Book Review: The Ballad of the White Horse show art Your Book Review: The Ballad of the White Horse

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Finalist #14 in the Book Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2024 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I’ll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you’ve read them all, I’ll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked] Introduction is a 2,684 line poem about conservatism, and it is brilliant. It has been called the last great epic poem written in English. I have not read the three dozen or so English epic poems that Wikipedia claims have been written...

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Sakana, Strawberry, and Scary AI show art Sakana, Strawberry, and Scary AI

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Sakana (, ) is supposed to be “an AI scientist”. Since it can’t access the physical world, it can only do computer science. Its human handlers give it a computer program. It prompts itself to generate hypotheses about the program (“if I change this number, the program will run faster”). Then it uses an AI coding submodule to test its hypotheses. Finally, it uses a language model to write them up in typical scientific paper format. Is it good? Not really. Experts who read its papers say they’re trivial, poorly reasoned, and occasionally make things up (the creators defend...

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More Episodes

Now that we’ve gone over the pharmacology of the GLP-1 agonists, let’s get back to the economics.

Last time, we asked - how will the economy handle a $12,000/year drug that everyone wants?

Now we have an answer: the compounding loophole.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-compounding-loophole