AI Article Readings

Demis Hassabis argues that AGI may be only a few years away—and that the decisions made now could shape the next era of civilisation. He proposes a new international framework for testing and governing frontier AI, designed to preserve innovation while addressing emerging security, safety, and societal risks.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 01:28 - The Challenges of the Frontier

* 03:32 - A Framework for a Frontier AI Standards Body

* 07:47 - The Future Is Not Yet Written

https://x.com/demishassabis/status/2076957440109625718

This has been an Askwho Casts audio conversion. If you would like your own private feed of audio conversions of any blog posts you would like to listen to, You can sign up For Askwho Casts Pro at https://app.askwhocasts.com/, Where you can give any post the multi-voiced podcast treatment, into your own podcast feed. Thanks for listening.

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Would regulating advanced AI chips really create an Orwellian surveillance state—or would it mostly mean inspections, paperwork, security standards, and higher costs for a small number of powerful companies?

Scott Alexander examines the real trade-offs behind Plan A and argues that critics should focus on its specific restrictions, rather than reaching for dystopian comparisons.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 06:33 - Would I Need A License To Get A Cell Phone Or A Laptop?

* 10:13 - Would Plan A Ban Open-Weight Models?

* 15:09 - A Is For Autonomy

* 18:41 - Unrelatedly, You Already Live In A Global Panopticon Orwellian Surveillance Dystopia

https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/ai-chip-regulation-is-not-a-dystopian?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

This has been an Askwho Casts audio conversion. If you would like your own private feed of audio conversions of any blog posts you would like to listen to, You can sign up For Askwho Casts Pro at https://app.askwhocasts.com/, Where you can give any post the multi-voiced podcast treatment, into your own podcast feed. Thanks for listening.

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In this post, Benjamin Todd draws together 15 years of research into the most reliable ways to become more successful at work. From building sustainable habits and protecting your health to learning faster, using AI effectively, making better decisions, and focusing on what matters most, it offers a practical alternative to vague self-help clichés.

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:04:39 - Zero. Learn how to build habits

* 00:06:44 - One. Don’t forget to take care of yourself

* 00:12:42 - Two. If helpful, make mental health your top priority

* 00:23:12 - Three. Deal with your physical health (not forgetting your back!)

* 00:29:41 - Four. Set goals

* 00:30:05 - Longer-term goals

* 00:31:58 - Goals for the quarter

* 00:33:15 - Learn to prioritise

* 00:35:04 - Five. Try out this list of ways to become more productive

* 00:36:35 - How to become more motivated

* 00:38:15 - Productivity processes

* 00:43:12 - Further reading on productivity

* 00:44:10 - Six. Get better at using the latest AI tools

* 00:47:42 - Seven. Improve your basic social skills

* 00:49:37 - Eight. Surround yourself with great people

* 00:54:42 - Best further reading on networking

* 00:55:28 - Nine. Apply scientific research into happiness

* 01:06:05 - Ten. Use these tips to save more money

* 01:10:25 - Eleven. Use research into decision-making to think better

* 01:19:07 - Twelve. Learn how to learn

* 01:25:04 - Thirteen. Be strategic about how you use your time at work

* 01:28:12 - Fourteen. Become an expert

* 01:30:28 - Fifteen. Become a better person

* 01:37:50 - The compounding benefits of investing in yourself

https://open.substack.com/pub/80000hours/p/all-the-evidence-based-advice-we?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

This has been an Askwho Casts audio conversion. If you would like your own private feed of audio conversions of any blog posts you would like to listen to, You can sign up For Askwho Casts Pro at app.askwhocasts.com, Where you can give any post the multi-voiced podcast treatment, into your own podcast feed. Thanks for listening.

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How close are terrorist groups to making practical use of frontier AI? This new field study from researchers at the University of Cambridge is the first to draw on extensive interviews with former Boko Haram members, arguing that AI has already become embedded in planning, logistics, weapons troubleshooting, and other operational activities.

https://casp.ac/reports/ai-enabled-terrorism

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:00:23 - Abstract

* 00:01:54 - Executive Summary

* 00:11:54 - Introduction

* 00:21:19 - The Risk of AI Misuse by Terrorist Groups

* 00:28:54 - Evidence and Gaps in Understanding Terrorist AI Adoption

* 00:42:07 - Research Design and Methods

* 00:55:10 - The Case

* 00:59:11 - The Findings

* 00:59:13 - AI Adoption

* 01:13:49 - Organizing AI Access and Expertise

* 01:32:16 - AI Use Cases

* 01:50:55 - Attitudes Toward Weapons of Mass Destruction

* 02:01:45 - Uplift and Optimism

* 02:13:32 - Observations and Implications

* 02:28:20 - Acknowledgements

This has been an Askwho Casts audio conversion. If you would like your own private feed of audio conversions of any blog posts you would like to listen to, You can sign up For Askwho Casts Pro at app.askwhocasts.com, Where you can give any post the multi-voiced podcast treatment, into your own podcast feed. Thanks for listening.

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In this post, Scott Alexander looks at Plan A: the AI Futures Project’s attempt to imagine what it would actually mean for the AI transition to go well. It’s part policy roadmap, part optimistic sci-fi scenario, and part challenge to anyone proposing AI governance: if you don’t like this plan, what’s yours?

https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/introducing-plan-a?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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In this post, Andy Masley argues that alcohol should be treated less like junk food and more like tobacco: enjoyable for many, but so socially destructive that normalising it does real harm. Drawing on alcohol’s links to death, violence, addiction, and huge economic costs, he makes the case that even people who drink safely have reason to stop supporting and normalising the alcohol industry.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 02:55 - Alcohol is a much bigger problem than you may think

* 09:09 - Why you should stop drinking even if alcohol will not harm you personally

* 18:03 - Conclusion

https://open.substack.com/pub/andymasley/p/alcohol-is-so-bad-for-society-that?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

This has been an Askwho Casts audio conversion. If you would like your own private feed of audio conversions of any blog posts you would like to listen to, You can sign up For Askwho Casts Pro at app.askwhocasts.com, Where you can give any post the multi-voiced podcast treatment, into your own podcast feed. Thanks for listening.

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In this post, an ACX book review finalist uses The Book of Abraham to explore Mormon history, Joseph Smith’s translation claims, Egyptian papyri, faith as a coordination technology, and the uneasy comedy of apologetics under pressure. It’s funny, sharp, and surprisingly sympathetic: part historical investigation, part epistemic stress test, part meditation on why demanding religions can be so powerful even when their factual foundations look fragile.

* 00:00:00 - Introduction

* 00:00:28 - Part 1

* 00:06:12 - Interlude 1

* 00:16:48 - Part 2

* 00:36:27 - Interlude 2

* 00:44:08 - Part 3

* 00:55:09 - Interlude 3

* 00:58:51 - Part 4

* 01:09:46 - Interlude 4

* 01:17:40 - Part 5

* 01:35:37 - Interlude 5

* 01:42:35 - Part 6

https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/your-book-review-the-book-of-abraham?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

This has been an Askwho Casts audio conversion. If you would like your own private feed of audio conversions of any blog posts you would like to listen to, You can sign up For Askwho Casts Pro at app.askwhocasts.com, Where you can give any post the multi-voiced podcast treatment, into your own podcast feed. Thanks for listening.

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You might have guessed this but I really like to listen to my reading. This whole Substack started as a result of me wanting to be able to listen to the stuff I wanted to read (originally Planecrash) and I have been sharing that with the world in order to help make that a reality.

Now, there are various text-to-speech processes and programmes out there that are very good. However to my shock none of them have provided the kind of format that I would really prefer. That is good content parsing, Intelligent Description of Images, separating out quote passages by speaking them in a different voice. (And having an algorithmic go about determining who is speaking and assigning multiple voices if possible).

Bob: I agree with this Askwho guy. He’s speaking a lot of sense.

Alice: What would you know, Bob? You’re a hypothetical person conjured up to prove a point.

(If I have missed some tool that does exactly this, let me know. It would make my day.)

So, assuming I am not entirely unique, I have set up a service that does exactly what I want someone else to do. If no one else will do it, I will be the someone else.

Introducing Askwho Casts Pro.

Found at

https://app.askwhocasts.com/

Now, what this is, especially in this initial launch:

* A simplified blog post to podcast process. No audiobooks here (yet).

* Signing up to a tier gives you a number of credits based on the tier you choose. A credit is roughly a minute of audio.

* Current levels are:

* Listener at $9 for 200 credits.

* Regular, $19 for 450 credits.

* Marathon. $39 for 1,000 credits.

* Credits roll over for three months.

* When you sign up, you get a personalised podcast feed that is yours and yours alone.

* You paste a link to a blog post you would like to listen to.

* It’s been tested across a wide variety of different blog and news sites but please do let me know if you find something that doesn’t work very well.

* You get a calculation of how many credits that will use.

* You can choose whether you want the images described by an LLM for some additional credit use.

* Random voices are assigned from the collection for all of the narration, image descriptions, and quotes. Where different speakers can be determined programmatically, it will assign different voices to the different speakers.

* This launch is leaning very hard on the simplicity. I vacillated on whether I wanted to do voice drop downs and we may go that way but right now it’s just paste and go.

* It will “record” the episode and then, when ready, publish it to your podcast feed.

* This will not be instant. It’s designed to be slightly asynchronous.

* You will also have a record of all the episodes you’ve created on the Studio page itself.

Now this is at heart a very simple tool. It is, as I said, a thing I just wanted to exist. If you too like to listen to your reading and like to listen to your reading in this very specific way, I hope this tool might be helpful to you.

Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

In this post, wesg explains new evidence that Claude has developed something like a “global workspace”: a small internal J-space where reportable, controllable, reasoning-relevant thoughts appear before they are spoken. The work suggests that some LLM cognition is split between automatic processing and a more deliberate, verbally accessible workspace, with implications for interpretability, AI safety, and the harder question of what kinds of “conscious access” language models may possess.

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 07:28 - How we found the J-space

* 10:21 - Claude reports what’s in its J-space

* 12:24 - Claude can control its J-space on request

* 14:37 - Claude thinks in its J-space

* 18:45 - Claude’s automatic processing skips the J-space

* 21:40 - Monitoring Claude’s thoughts for misbehavior

* 27:01 - Other results

* 30:16 - What about consciousness?

* 37:12 - External commentary

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3PaLrzxagpbnNtPLT/a-global-workspace-in-language-models

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In this post, Scott Alexander argues that AI superforecasters have arrived: not as a distant sci-fi milestone, but as systems already competing with elite human forecasters, making money in prediction markets, and producing cheap, fast probabilistic analysis on real-world questions. He explores what happens when forecasting becomes something anyone can query on demand, why this may reshape finance, policy, and prediction markets, and whether AI forecasting could become the “opinion layer” that lets future chatbots give useful, testable judgments without simply mirroring human bias.

https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/the-ai-superforecasters-are-here?r=67y1h&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

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