Why AI Safety Won't Make America Lose The Race With China
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If we worry too much about AI safety, will this make us "lose the race with China"1? (here "AI safet...
The New AI Consciousness Paper
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most discourse on AI is low-quality. Most discourse on consciousness is super-abysmal-double-low qua...
Suggest Questions For Metaculus/ACX Forecasting Contest
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
ACX has been co-running a forecasting contest with Metaculus for the past few years. Lately the "c...
What Happened To SF Homelessness?
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, I wrote that it would be very hard to decrease the number of mentally ill homeless peopl...
In What Sense Is Life Suffering?
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Life is suffering" may be a Noble Truth, but it feels like a deepity. Yes, obviously life includes...
The Bloomer's Paradox
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Jason Pargin's I'm Starting To Worry About This Black Box Of Doom, a manic pixie dream girl cajo...
Writing For The AIs
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
American Scholar has an article about people who "write for AI", including Tyler Cowen and Gwern...
Links For October 2025
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence th...
Model City Monday 10/27/25
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Would You Like To Buy A Bahama? The Bahamas is an archipelago-nation of 400,000 people scattered acr...
Highlights From The Comments On Fatima
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[original post here] The Kasina Connection In the original post, I cited ambiguous later examples of...
Tech PACs Are Closing In On The Almonds
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I. In my 2019 post Too Much Dark Money In Almonds, I asked: why is there so little money in politic...
Non-Book Review Contest 2025 Winners
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who entered or voted in the Non-Book Review Contest. The winners are: 1st: Joan ...
ACX Grants Results 2025
08 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who participated in ACX Grants, whether as an applicant, an evaluator, or a fund...
Fascism Can't Mean Both A Specific Ideology And A Legitimate Target
08 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The following three things can't all be true simultaneously: Many Americans are fascists Fascists...
The Fatima Sun Miracle: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-fatima-sun-miracle-much-more 0: Here Comes The Sun In 1917, th...
Your Review: The Russo-Ukrainian War
05 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Sources Say Bay Area House Party
05 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sources-say-bay-area-house-party [previously in series: 1, 2, 3...
Your Review: Project Xanadu - The Internet That Might Have Been
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Defining Defending Democracy: Contra The Election Winner Argument
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Someone argues that Donald Trump threatens democracy, maybe because he's asserting authority against...
Your Review: The Synaptic Plasticity and Memory Hypothesis
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Book Review: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I. Eliezer Yudkowsky's Machine Intelligence Research Institute is the original AI safety org. But th...
Links For September 2025
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence th...
Your Review: Participation in Phase I Clinical Pharmaceutical Research
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
What Is Man, That Thou Art Mindful Of Him?
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"You made him lower than the angels for a short time..." God: …and the math results we're seeing...
Open Letter To The NIH
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You can sign the letter here. The Trump administration has been retaliating against its critics, ...
In Search Of AI Psychosis
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI psychosis (NYT, PsychologyToday) is an apparent phenomenon where people go crazy after talking t...
Your Review: Ollantay
24 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #9 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written ...
My Responses To Three Concerns From The Embryo Selection Post
24 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[original post here] #1: Isn't it possible that embryos are alive, or have personhood, or are moral...
Your Review: Dating Men In The Bay Area
24 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #8 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written ...
In Defense Of The Amyloid Hypothesis
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A guest post by David Schneider-Joseph The "amyloid hypothesis" says that Alzheimer's is caused by a...
Highlights From The Comments On Liberalism And Communities
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[Original post: Should Strong Gods Bet On GDP?] 1: Comments About The Theory 2: Comments About Spec...
Your Review: My Father's Instant Mashed Potatoes
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Should Strong Gods Bet On GDP?
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Slightly contra Fukuyama on liberal communities Francis Fukuyama is on Substack; last month he wrote...
Your Review: Joan of Arc
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Finalist #6 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written ...
Suddenly, Trait-Based Embryo Selection
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[see footnote 4 for conflicts of interest] In 2021, Genomic Prediction announced the first polygeni...
My Heart Of Hearts
03 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I promised some people longer responses: Thomas Cotter asks why people think "consistency" is a...
Your Review: The Astral Codex Ten Commentariat ("Why Do We Suck?")
03 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jul 26, 2025 Finalist #5 in the Review Contest [This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review cont...
Apply For An ACX Grant (2025)
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We're running another ACX Grants round! If you already know what this is and just want to apply fo...
Press Any Key For Bay Area House Party
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[previously in series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] It is eerily silent in San Francisco tonight. Since M...
Your Review: Islamic Geometric Patterns In The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Book Review: Arguments About Aborigines
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I. A thought I had throughout reading L.R. Hiatt's Arguments About Aborigines was: What are anthrop...
Your Review: Of Mice, Mechanisms, and Dementia
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Practically-A-Book Review: Byrnes on Trance
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Byrnes is a physicist/AI researcher/amateur neuroscientist; needless to say, he blogs on Less...
Now I Really Won That AI Bet
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2022, I bet a commenter $100 that AI would master image compositionality by June 2025...
Your Review: School
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Highlights From The Comments On Missing Heritability
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[Original thread here: Missing Heritability: Much More Than You Wanted To Know] 1: Comments From Pe...
Links For July 2025
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence th...
Contra Skolnick On Schizophrenia Microbes
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Skolnick is a gut microbiome expert blogging at Eat Shit And Prosper. His most recent post a...
Your Review: Alpha School
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain a...
Missing Heritability: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Story So Far The mid-20th century was the golden age of nurture. Psychoanalysis, behaviorism, an...
Open Questions For Future ACX Grants Rounds
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Related to: ACX Grants 1-3 Year Updates https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/open-questions-for-future...
ACX Grants 1-3 Year Updates
29 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The first cohort of ACX Grants was announced in late 2021, the second in early 2024. In 2022, I post...
The Claude Bliss Attractor
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is a reported phenomenon where if two copies of Claude talk to each other, they end up spirali...
"But" vs. "Yes, But"
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is another heuristic from the same place as If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time...
If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time To Correct It
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
People don't like nitpickers. "He literally did the WELL AKTUALLY!" If you say Joe Criminal committe...
P-Zombies Would Report Qualia
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There's a long-running philosophical argument about the conceivability of otherwise-normal people wh...
Choose Nonbook Review Finalists 2025
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's time to narrow the 141 entries in the Non-Book Review Contest to about a dozen finalists. I ca...
Bayes For Everyone
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A guest post by Brandon Hendrickson [Editor's note: I accept guest posts from certain people, especi...
Sorry, I Still Think MR Is Wrong About USAID
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution continues to disagree with my Contra MR On Charity Regrants. Goi...
Moments Of Awakening
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Consciousness is the great mystery. In search of answers, scientists have plumbed every edge case th...
Contra MR On Charity Regrants
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I often disagree with Marginal Revolution, but their post today made me a new level of angry: http...
The Evidence That A Million Americans Died Of COVID
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many commenters responded to yesterday's post by challenging the claim that 1.2 million Americans d...
The Other COVID Reckoning
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Five years later, we can't stop talking about COVID. Remember lockdowns? The conflicting guidelines ...
Book Review: Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids is like the Bible. You already know what it says. ...
In Search Of /r/petfree
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ask Redditors what's the worst subreddit, and a few names always come up. /r/atheism and /r/childfr...
Highlights From The Comments On AI Geoguessr
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to everyone who commented on the original post. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highli...
Testing AI's GeoGuessr Genius
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the more unhinged writing on superintelligence pictures AI doing things that seem like magic...
Moldbug Sold Out
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cathy Young's new hit piece on Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) doesn't mince words. Titled The B...
The Populist Right Must Own Tariffs
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Trump's approval rating has fallen to near-historic lows. With economic disruption from t...
AI Futures: Blogging And AMA
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI Futures Project is the group behind AI 2027. I've been helping them with their blog. Posts writte...
Links For April 2025
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence th...
Highlights From The Comments On POSIWID
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(original post: Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does) … Thanks to every...
Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(see Wikipedia: The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does) Consider the following claims The purpose...
My Takeaways From AI 2027
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here's a list of things I updated on after working on the scenario. Some of these are discussed in m...
AI 2027 (Full Recording with Footnotes and Text Boxes)
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We predict that the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be enormous, exceeding that of...
Introducing AI 2027
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Or maybe 2028, it's complicated In 2021, a researcher named Daniel Kokotajlo published a blog post c...
The Colors Of Her Coat
14 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Ballad of the White Horse, G.K. Chesterton describes the Virgin Mary: Her face was like an open ...
"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Asterisk invited me to participate in their "Weird" themed issue, so I wrote five thousand words on ...
More Drowning Children
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
People love trying to find holes in the drowning child thought experiment. This is natural: it's obv...
Misophonia: Beyond Sensory Sensitivity
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jake Eaton has a great article on misophonia in Asterisk. Misophonia is a condition in which people...
OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, I put out a request for experts to help me understand the details of OpenAI's forprofit...
The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage. Three GLP-1 drugs are approved for weigh...
What Happened To NAEP Scores?
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most headlines have said something like New NAEP Scores Dash Hope Of Post-COVID Learning Recovery, ...
Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I enjoy the yearly book review contest, but it feels like last year's contest is barely done, and I ...
Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count?
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Intelligence seems to correlate with total number of neurons in the brain. Different animals' intell...
Links For February 2025
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence th...
Why I Am Not A Conflict Theorist
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Conflict theory is the belief that political disagreements come from material conflict. So for examp...
Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[Original thread here: Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Arguments For God's Existence.]...
Lives Of The Rationalist Saints
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
St. Felix publicly declared that he believed with 79% probability that COVID had a natural origin. H...
Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It feels like 2010 again - the bloggers are debating the proofs for the existence of God. I found t...
Only About 40% Of The Cruz "Woke Science" Database Is Woke Science
17 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From the Commerce Department: U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released ...
Deliberative Alignment, And The Spec
17 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the past day, Zvi has written about deliberative alignment, and OpenAI has updated their spec. Th...
1DaySooner's Trump II Health Policy Proposals
17 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As RFK Jr. fights to be confirmed in Congress, the rest of Trump's health team is already taking sha...
Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I. PEPFAR - a Bush initiative to send cheap AIDS drugs to Africa - has saved millions of lives and ...
Model City Monday 2/3/25
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Prospera Declared Unconstitutional The Honduras Supreme Court has declared charter cities, includin...
Why Recurring Dream Themes?
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An observant Jewish friend told me she has recurring dreams about being caught unprepared for Shabba...
ACX Survey Results 2025
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to the 5,975 people who took the 2025 Astral Codex Ten survey. See the questions for the ACX ...
Everyone's A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Whenever I talk about charity, a type that I'll call the "based post-Christian vitalist" shows up in...
Try The 2025 ACX/Metaculus Forecasting Contest
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is normally when I would announce the winners of the 2024 forecasting contest, but there are so...
Links For January 2025
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
[I haven't independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence th...