Neel Nanda
Everything, newest first — across every channel. Their profile →
Hiding
27 December 2025
19 August 2025
From one piece MATS Applications Open (Due Aug 29) 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
My model is that research requires a mix of skills. The day-to-day coding and execution is crucial. But there's also a set of harder-to-learn conceptual skills, collectively called research taste. These skills take a long time to gain because they have poor feedback loops, but they take very little time to use.
-
Their words
I'm more agnostic about the best techniques, things like sparse autoencoders are a useful tool, but easy to waste effort using when a simpler method is sufficient or better - start by doing the obvious thing!
-
Their words
I'm now fairly pessimistic about ambitious interpretability (i.e. complete reverse-engineering), and I'm excited about model biology (studying qualitative high-level properties of models) and applied interpretability (rigorously doing useful things with interp).
26 May 2025
From one piece Post 51: Socratic Persuasion: Giving Opinionated Yet Truth-Seeking Advice 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
Their words
It's a lot easier for someone to engage with an argument if they generated the key steps themselves by answering my questions - if imposed by me, it sparks contrarianism and defensiveness
-
korrents.com
The person receiving advice usually knows more about their own situation than the person giving it does.Their words
No matter how much I know about a domain, the other person will always know far more about their own situation, context, beliefs, skills, preferences, etc than I do.
22 March 2025
From one piece Post 50: Good Research Takes are Not Sufficient for Good Strategic Takes 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
People's opinions are shaped more by who they talk to most than by what is actually true.Their words
Though note that people's opinions are often substantially reflections of the people they speak to most, rather than what's actually true.
-
korrents.com
A strong track record in a technical field is only weak evidence that someone has good strategic judgment about AGI.Their words
Having a good research track record is some evidence of good big-picture takes about AGI, but it's weak evidence.
18 August 2022
17 June 2022
From one piece Post 49: Things That Make Me Enjoy Giving Career Advice 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
In any mentoring conversation, only a small fraction of what's discussed turns out to be highly valuable.Their words
in general, I expect 90% of a mentoring chat to be kinda useless, and 10% to be particularly high value.
-
Their words
In particular, most EA careers and most careers to do with AI are competitive as fuck.
-
Their words
often the best way to maximise your impact is by pursuing high-risk, high-reward strategies
15 June 2022
From one piece Post 48: Prioritise Tasks by Rating not Sorting 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
Having any ordering to follow, even an arbitrary one, helps overcome indecision about where to start workTheir words
There's a surprising amount of value in having any order at all (even an arbitrary one like first-come-first-served!) to break past indecisiveness about where to start.
-
korrents.com
In prioritizing a list of tasks, the closest calls matter least while getting the very top item right matters mostTheir words
In hindsight, the hardest comparisons are in fact the least useful - if I do the fourth most important task before the third most important, that's no big deal, but doing the tenth before the first is a screw-up!
27 February 2022
From one piece Post 47: How I Formed My Own Views About AI Safety 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
Mathematics gives practitioners corrective feedback on being wrong that moral philosophy lacks.Their words
Mathematicians get feedback re whether there proofs work in a way that, as far as I can tell, moral philosophy doesn't
-
Their words
Someone being smart and competent just means they're right more often, not that they're always right
22 February 2022
From one piece Post 46: Reward Good Bets That Had Bad Outcomes 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
-
korrents.com
Pursuing a very low success-rate strategy can still be rational if a rare win is valuable enough.Their words
It's obviously worth it to go on 99 unsuccessful dates if the hundredth results in marriage.
-
Their words
many of the smartest people I know are super insecure and risk averse.
-
korrents.com
Thinking harder about a decision has diminishing returns because reality is inherently unknowable.Their words
Reality is not fully knowable. And thinking harder has costs.
11 February 2022
19 October 2021
27 June 2021
22 February 2021
15 January 2021
4 January 2021
27 December 2020
14 December 2020
13 November 2020
10 October 2020
3 October 2020
Nothing matches.
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.