DOOM LEVEL
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P(doom) is a Dumb Meme
via LessWrong AI [10] — Look, I'm as much of a Rationalist with a special interest in AI x-risk as anyone. But oh my god do I hate talking about "P(doom)". When it first started showing up in the wake of ChatGPT, I assumed that it was floating around variously adjacent circles…
WSJ Article Claiming China Has Matched Anthropic Is Obvious Nonsense
via Substack Zvi [999] — The Wall Street Journal printed an outright false headline and heavily misleading story claiming this, which of course was uncritically amplified by the usual suspects.
A reading list for generalists
via LessWrong AI [5] — I, along with many others in AI safety, believe there is a shortage of generalists in the community and that there exist many projects and efforts that by default will not happen unless they are owned by a strong generalist[1][2][3]. As someone who is a…
China’s Z.ai claims it can match Mythos on cybersecurity
via The Verge AI [4] — China's Zhipu AI (Z.ai) released its open-weight GLM-5.2, and some researchers have claimed that it matches Mythos in certain bug-finding and cybersecurity scenarios. While GLM lags behind models from Anthropic and OpenAI in other, more general tasks, it…
GPT-5.6: The System Card
via Substack Zvi [999] — While we wait for a general release, the system card is the best hint as to what is going on with the new candidate for America’s Next Top Model, GPT-5.6.
Austin & Oli on funding and incubating projects
via LessWrong AI [5] — @habryka and I recently spoke about his plans to improve the AI safety funding ecosystem with a better S-Process platform, and my new incubator for EA/AIS software projects, Surplus (since launched; apply now!)We also cover: hot takes on different funders;…
Why are adversaries assumed to be incapable of responding to AI risk?
via LessWrong AI [4] — When I talk to people about what might be done about AI threatening approximately everything that everyone cares about, I notice a common oddity in their resistance to a variety of ideas. They seem to take for granted that certain entities—especially Trump…
What did "scheming" and "mech interp" mean pre-2023?
via LessWrong AI [5] — This was too long to be a short-form, but it should really be a short-form.This notice is useful for people who've recently got into AI safety, who want to engage with the ancient texts (i.e. pre-2024). If you were around before 2023, then you probably…
Deployment Awareness Matters More Than Evaluation Awareness
via Alignment Forum [999] — TL;DREvaluation awareness — an AI recognizing it's being evaluated — is a widely discussed concept in AI safety. But there is a closely related concept that we claim is more important: deployment awareness, the AI's ability to recognize when it is not…
Don't ignore the car crashes, and remember your freshman CS
via LessWrong AI [4] — Car crashes kill over 35,000 people in the US every year. Plane crashes, on the other hand, kill ~350. Despite this, we have shows like Mayday/Air Disasters for entertainment on TV, and events such as the tragic death of 67 people on a commercial airline…
Existential AI safety needs an effective social movement. PauseAI is building it
via LessWrong AI [10] — The existential AI safety community needs to take building a civic and social movement seriously as a core intervention. We believe this is a high-value, badly neglected approach to reducing catastrophic/x-risks from AI because it may significantly…
The Case for Model Forensics
via Alignment Forum [999] — If we had a misalignment warning shot, would we be able to tell?Suppose an AI company catches their model taking an egregious action, like deleting oversight code that monitors its actions. Should they sound the alarm? A key piece of evidence to…
White House Will Ad Hoc Decide Who Can Individually Access GPT-5.6
via Substack Zvi [999] — We have a new standard policy for releasing frontier AI models. It is not good.
Surprising facts about the slave trade
via LessWrong AI [4] — 1. The obstacle to abolition was not the economic system, but an industry lobby.I had always imagined the British abolitionist movement to be a broad battle between an unstoppable moral imperative and an immovable economic incentive. But in practice it…
Governing Actions, Not Agents: Institutional Attestation as a Governance Model for Autonomous AI Systems
via ArXiv cs.AI [3] — Autonomous AI agents may begin to perform consequential, irreversible actions such as clinical prescribing and production software deployment. This paper observes that human institutions have governed powerful autonomous actors not by monitoring their…
Detecting and Controlling Sycophancy with Cascading Linear Features
via ArXiv cs.AI [3] — Interpreting and controlling model behaviors through activation steering methods requires many pairs of contrastive samples that clearly exhibit desired or undesired behavior. These data pairs determine the degree to which interpretability frameworks can…
The shouting equilibrium
via LessWrong AI [4] — Imagine eleven people each have a message that they think should get 10% of a group’s attention. They aren’t being crazy selfish and attention-seeking - just on average a little over-emphasizing the importance of their own information. So adding up all the…
AI #174: You're It
via Substack Zvi [999] — Fable remains in limbo, with renewed hope that we will get it back soon (45% by tomorrow, 69% by July 1, nice.) The full capabilities post is now available.
Facebook’s Creator Studio has been revived as an AI companion app
via The Verge AI [4] — Meta is bringing back the Facebook Creator Studio page manager, now "reimagined" as a standalone AI companion app. The new app aims to make it easier for creators to connect with their audiences and show them "exactly how to grow on Facebook," according to…
The Clinician's Veto: Navigating Trust, Liability, and Uncertainty in Autonomous AI Prescribing
via ArXiv cs.AI [3] — Autonomous AI systems are transitioning from advisory to autonomous roles for medication prescriptions. Recent United States bill H.R. 238 and Utah's prescription-renewal pilot both authorize AI to prescribe medications in an agentic capacity. While some…
Live Doom Meter
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0% — We're fine
100% — GG
The Doom Meter is a composite score derived from prediction markets and feed sentiment, updated daily.
70%
Prediction Markets
Weighted average of Manifold Markets questions on AI catastrophe, AGI timelines, expert surveys, and key figures. Direct doom indicators weighted higher than indirect capability markers.
30%
Feed Sentiment
Percentage of recent headlines containing high-alarm keywords (existential risk, catastrophe, extinction). Higher alarm density = higher score.
This is not a scientific estimate of existential risk. It is an opinionated, transparent signal — a vibes-based thermometer for AI doom discourse.
P(Doom) Scoreboard
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Recent Voices
We are creating something that will be more powerful than us. I don't know a good precedent for a less intelligent thing managing a more intelligent thing.
— Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Prize Lecture, Dec 2024
If you're not worried about AI safety, you're not paying attention.
— Sen. Blumenthal, Senate AI Hearing, 2024
The probability of doom is high enough that we should be working very hard to reduce it.
— Yoshua Bengio, MILA Talk, 2024