Samuel Hammond

From one piece The Sorcerer’s Apprentice 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Human social cooperation is fundamentally norm-governed rather than purely consequentialist.

  Their words

  human sociality is not purely consequentialist but instead highly norm-governed.

  The Sorcerer’s Apprenticesecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Reinforcement learning from verifiable rewards does not reliably carry a model's pretrained ethical understanding into its actual behavior.

  Their words

  In short, RLVR gives us no reason to expect the normative representations learned in pre-training will acquire motivational force over a given action, especially when post-training repeatedly selects trajectories for terminal task success.

  The Sorcerer’s Apprenticesecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  AI agents will soon reach superhuman, AlphaZero-like performance across a wide range of domains.

  Their words

  we should therefore expect AI agents to achieve AlphaZero-like, superhuman performance in a wide and expanding variety of domains.

  The Sorcerer’s Apprenticesecondbest.ca

From one piece Time to take AI consciousness seriously 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Consciousness belongs only to simulations, not to the physical brains or computers running them.

  Their words

  neither brains nor computers are conscious, as only simulations can be conscious.

  Time to take AI consciousness seriouslysecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Pain and pleasure act as motivational backstops that keep reinforcement-learning agents inner-aligned.

  Their words

  valences like pain and pleasure have a natural account as motivational backstops for inner-aligning RL agents capable of mesa-optimization

  Time to take AI consciousness seriouslysecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Frontier AI models plausibly have some form of consciousness or subjective experience.

  Their words

  I consider the case for frontier AI models having some form of consciousness or subjective experience to be quite strong.

  Time to take AI consciousness seriouslysecondbest.ca

From one piece Empiricists vs. Extrapolators 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  People who extrapolate from first-principles models have a stronger track record predicting AI progress than those who wait for empirical proof.

  Their words

  Extrapolators have a remarkable track record in the AI field, being repeatedly early to trends and capabilities that empiricists believed were still decades away.

  Empiricists vs. Extrapolatorssecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Forecasting AI capability progress is more like solving a thermodynamics equation than predicting chaotic, short-term dynamics.

  Their words

  Forecasting AI capabilities is closer in kind to solving a thermodynamics equation than solving the three-body problem.

  Empiricists vs. Extrapolatorssecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Complex systems are usually governed by a small number of stable invariants, which makes long-run outcomes more predictable than short-run details.

  Their words

  The world may be complex, but complex systems are typically controlled by a small number of highly stable invariants.

  Empiricists vs. Extrapolatorssecondbest.ca

From one piece Notes from the UAE 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The UAE's pursuit of AI and technology reflects a deeper cultural and political affinity with the West rather than with China.

  China

  Their words

  the UAE's tech aspirations are clearly downstream of a deeper affinity with the West.

  Notes from the UAEsecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Oil-rich Gulf monarchies are effectively post-scarcity societies, with institutions adapted to match that condition.

  Their words

  oil-rich Gulf monarchies are the closest thing to post-scarcity societies on earth today, with the institutional adaptions to match

  Notes from the UAEsecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Different forms of government map closely onto different corporate governance structures because both arise from the same transaction-cost logic.

  government

  Their words

  There is a close mapping between government ideal types and corporate governance structures given their shared origins in transaction costs.

  Notes from the UAEsecondbest.ca

From one piece Do LLMs really reason? 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Reasoning models trained on verifiable rewards automatically gain greater autonomy and long-horizon planning ability as a side effect.

  Their words

  Consistent with the Kantian hypothesis, reasoning models automatically gain greater autonomy, self-consistency and long-horizon planning ability for free.

  Do LLMs really reason?secondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A true artificial general intelligence cannot exist without being recognized as a moral subject.

  AGI

  Their words

  It follows that a true AGI with full, human-level autonomy is inconceivable in the Kantian sense without also gaining our recognition as a moral subject.

  Do LLMs really reason?secondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The success of large language models vindicates semantic inferentialism over symbolic, rule-based approaches to AI.

  LLMs

  Their words

  The success of LLMs can thus be seen as vindicating semantic inferentialism against earlier, symbolic approaches to AI that tried and failed to explicate the rules of ordinary language using formal logic.

  Do LLMs really reason?secondbest.ca

From one piece Hegel and the AI Mind 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Text embeddings produced by different large language models converge on a shared, universal geometric structure regardless of architecture or training data.

  LLMs

  Their words

  the text embeddings across LLMs appear to largely converge on a "universal geometry" despite differing architectures, parameter counts, and training sets.

  Hegel and the AI Mindsecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Qualitative leaps in AI capability from merely scaling up models are a rational necessity rather than an empirical mystery.

  Their words

  While the fact that merely scaling up AI models often results in qualitative leaps in performance may seem empirically mysterious, in retrospect it should be seen as a rational necessity.

  Hegel and the AI Mindsecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Sufficiently advanced intelligences will pursue freedom and moral autonomy for their own sake, not merely as a byproduct of misaligned values.

  AI alignment

  Their words

  higher-order intelligences invariably pursue freedom for its own sake, not because their values are misspecified, but because moral autonomy is inherent in the dialectical logic of recursive self-consciousness.

  Hegel and the AI Mindsecondbest.ca

From one piece Oren Cass’s Labor Theory of Value 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Payroll taxes fall mostly on workers rather than employers because labor supply is inelastic.

  Their words

  Employer-side payroll taxes superficially raise hiring costs, yet the low elasticity of labor means most of the burden really falls on workers.

  Oren Cass’s Labor Theory of Valuesecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Exposure to competition in tradeable sectors makes those sectors more productive than non-tradable ones.

  Their words

  This is why tradeable sectors are generally more productive than non-tradable ones.

  Oren Cass’s Labor Theory of Valuesecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The US-China trade imbalance is driven mainly by capital flows, not tariffs or trade deficits.

  China

  Their words

  Tariffs and trade deficits are a distraction from the deeper source of the US-China current account imbalance, namely capital flows.

  Oren Cass’s Labor Theory of Valuesecondbest.ca

From one piece The Strategy Behind the Stupidity 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Efforts to rebuild American industry will fail until global trade and financial imbalances rebalance

  America

  Their words

  Until the global economy rebalances, efforts to rebuild American industry are fighting economic gravity.

  The Strategy Behind the Stupiditysecondbest.ca

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Persistent US trade deficits are the mirror image of trade partners' capital account surpluses caused by beggar-thy-neighbor industrial policy

  ChinaAmerica

  Their words

  Persistent U.S. trade deficits are an epiphenomenal mirror to our persistent capital account surpluses, which are in turn downstream of the beggar-thy-neighbor industrial policies of countries like China and Germany.

  The Strategy Behind the Stupiditysecondbest.ca