LessWrong posts by zvi

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LessWrong posts by zvi episodes:

August 08, 2025 “OpenAI’s GPT-OSS Is Already Old News” by Zvi
That's on OpenAI. I don’t schedule their product releases.
Since it takes several days to gather my reports on new models, we are doing our coverage of the OpenAI open weights models, GPT-OSS-20b and GPT-OSS-120b, today, after the release of GPT-5.
The bottom line is that they seem like clearly good models in their targeted reasoning domains. There are many reports of them struggling in other domains, including with tool use, and they have very little inherent world knowledge, and the safety mechanisms appear obtrusive enough that many are complaining. It's not clear what they will be used for other than distillation into Chinese models.

It is hard to tell, because open weight models need to be configured properly, and there are reports that many are doing this wrong, which could lead to clouded impressions. We will want to check back in a bit.
In the Substack version of this [...]
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Outline:
(01:15) Moderately Sized Models
(01:48) Introducing GPT-OSS
(03:56) The Model Card
(07:32) Our Price Cheap
(12:44) On Your Marks
(13:51) Mundane Safety Evaluations
(15:39) Preparedness Framework Evaluations
(21:03) Good Habits
(22:48) Distillation
(27:22) Safety First
(30:21) Other Reactions
(39:35) Hit Me Up I'm Open
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First published:
August 8th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AJ94X73M6KgAZFJH2/openai-s-gpt-oss-is-already-old-news

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42min
August 07, 2025“AI #128: Four Hours Until Probably Not The Apocalypse” by Zvi
Brace for impact. We are presumably (checks watch) four hours from GPT-5.
That's the time you need to catch up on all the other AI news.
In another week, I might have done an entire post on Gemini 2.5 Deep Thinking, or Genie 3, or a few other things. This week? Quickly, there's no time.
OpenAI has already released an open model. I’m aiming to cover that tomorrow.
Table of Contents
Also: Claude 4.1 is an incremental improvement, On Altman's Interview With Theo Von.
Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. The only help you need?
Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. Can’t use Claude to train GPT-5.
Huh, Upgrades. ChatGPT for government, Gemini for students, Claude security.
On Your Marks. More analysis of Psyho's victory over OpenAI at AWTF.
Thinking Deeply With Gemini 2.5. The power of parallel [...]

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Outline:
(00:42) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(03:04) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(06:04) Huh, Upgrades
(07:31) On Your Marks
(11:24) Thinking Deeply With Gemini 2.5
(16:33) Choose Your Fighter
(16:47) Fun With Media Generation
(18:24) Optimal Optimization
(21:38) Get My Agent On The Line
(29:15) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(33:19) You Drive Me Crazy
(34:42) They Took Our Jobs
(37:53) Get Involved
(41:24) Introducing
(42:27) City In A Bottle
(48:15) Unprompted Suggestions
(48:54) In Other AI News
(51:10) Papers, Please
(51:18) The Mask Comes Off
(52:55) Show Me the Money
(01:01:11) Quiet Speculations
(01:09:20) Mark Zuckerberg Spreads Confusion
(01:15:05) The Quest for Sane Regulations
(01:19:11) David Sacks Once Again Amplifies Obvious Nonsense
(01:23:28) Chip City
(01:27:50) No Chip City
(01:30:00) Energy Crisis
(01:33:13) To The Moon
(01:34:58) Dario's Dismissal Deeply Disappoints, Depending on Details
(01:46:05) The Week in Audio
(01:50:48) Tyler Cowen Watch
(01:54:50) Rhetorical Innovation
(02:00:35) Shame Be Upon Them
(02:01:21) Correlation Causes Causation
(02:04:17) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(02:06:29) The Lighter Side
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First published:
August 7th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DSxnqyok2g4NaMp8u/ai-128-four-hours-until-probably-not-the-apocalypse

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2h 9min
August 06, 2025 “Opus 4.1 Is An Incremental Improvement” by Zvi
Claude Opus 4 has been updated to Claude Opus 4.1.
This is a correctly named incremental update, with the bigger news being ‘we plan to release substantially larger improvements to our models in the coming weeks.’
It is still worth noting if you code, as there are many indications this is a larger practical jump in performance than one might think.
We also got a change to the Claude.ai system prompt that helps with sycophancy and a few other issues, such as coming out and Saying The Thing more readily. It's going to be tricky to disentangle these changes, but that means Claude effectively got better for everyone, not only those doing agentic coding.
Tomorrow we get an OpenAI livestream that is presumably GPT-5, so I’m getting this out of the way now. Current plan is to cover GPT-OSS on Friday, and GPT-5 on Monday.
[...]
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Outline:
(01:01) Introducing Claude Opus 4.1
(05:25) The System Card
(09:56) Reactions
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First published:
August 6th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hicuZJQwRYCiFCZbq/opus-4-1-is-an-incremental-improvement

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14min
August 05, 2025“Childhood and Education #13: College” by Zvi
There's a time and a place for everything. It used to be called college.
Table of Contents
The Big Test.
Testing, Testing.
Legalized Cheating On the Big Test.
What Happens When You Don’t Test For Academics.
What Happens Without Academic Standards.
Another Academic Standard Perhaps.
RIP Columbia Core Curriculum and Also Social Theory.
College Tuition and Costs.
Negotiation.
Skipping College.
Respect Their Authoritah.
Men Skipping College.
Stanford Still Hates Fun.
Value of College.
Employment Prospects After College.
Fixing College.
Do Not Donate To A College.
Not Doing The Math.
The Big Test
I am continuing to come around to the high-stakes-in-person-exam (or series of such exams) as the only practical solution to AI, also it was probably mostly the right answer already.
Sean T: It's [...]

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Outline:
(00:16) The Big Test
(01:31) Testing, Testing
(03:44) Legalized Cheating On the Big Test
(06:12) What Happens When You Don't Test For Academics
(07:21) What Happens Without Academic Standards
(09:05) Another Academic Standard Perhaps
(11:07) RIP Columbia Core Curriculum and Also Social Theory
(14:15) College Tuition and Costs
(19:37) Negotiation
(20:45) Skipping College
(23:19) Respect Their Authoritah
(24:25) Men Skipping College
(28:05) Stanford Still Hates Fun
(30:35) Value of College
(31:10) Employment Prospects After College
(35:05) Fixing College
(36:17) Do Not Donate To A College
(38:43) Not Doing The Math
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First published:
August 5th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WzN3PFpyBaMeXqeRz/childhood-and-education-13-college

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45min
August 04, 2025 “On Altman’s Interview With Theo Von” by Zvi
Sam Altman talked recently to Theo Von.
Double click to interact with video
Theo is genuinely engaging and curious throughout. This made me want to consider listening to his podcast more. I’d love to hang. He seems like a great dude.
The problem is that his curiosity has been redirected away from the places it would matter most – the Altman strategy of acting as if the biggest concerns, risks and problems flat out don’t exist successfully tricks Theo into not noticing them at all, and there are plenty of other things for him to focus on, so he does exactly that.
Meanwhile, Altman gets away with more of this ‘gentle singularity’ lie without using that term, letting it graduate to a background assumption. Dwarkesh would never.
Highlights, Quotes And Comments
Quotes are all from Altman.
Sam Altman: But also [kids born a [...]

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Outline:
(00:56) Highlights, Quotes And Comments
(15:11) My Next Guest Needs No Introduction
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First published:
August 4th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XXfi7rHgjki8RxxyL/on-altman-s-interview-with-theo-von

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17min
August 01, 2025 “The Week in AI Governance” by Zvi
There was enough governance related news this week to spin it out.
The EU AI Code of Practice
Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Mistral, Aleph Alpha, Cohere and others commit to signing the EU AI Code of Practice. Google has now signed. Microsoft says it is likely to sign.
xAI signed the AI safety chapter of the code, but is refusing to sign the others, citing them as overreach especially as pertains to copyright.
The only company that said it would not sign at all is Meta.
This was the underreported story. All the important AI companies other than Meta have gotten behind the safety section of the EU AI Code of Practice. This represents a considerable strengthening of their commitments, and introduces an enforcement mechanism. Even Anthropic will be forced to step up parts of their game.
That leaves Meta as the rogue state [...]

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Outline:
(00:13) The EU AI Code of Practice
(01:50) The Quest Against Regulations
(05:37) China Also Has An AI Action Plan
(15:07) Pick Up The Phone
(19:10) The AI Action Plan Has Good Marginal Proposals But Terrible Rhetoric
(29:44) Kratsios Explains The AI Action Plan
(39:22) Chip City
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First published:
August 1st, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9rqMPLdpctxig2iAg/the-week-in-ai-governance

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47min
July 31, 2025 “AI #127: Continued Claude Code Complications” by Zvi
Due to Continued Claude Code Complications, we can report Unlimited Usage Ultimately Unsustainable. May I suggest using the API, where Anthropic's yearly revenue is now projected to rise to $9 billion?
The biggest news items this week were in the policy realm, with the EU AI Code of Practice and the release of America's AI Action Plan and a Chinese response.
I am spinning off the policy realm into what is planned to be tomorrow's post (I’ve also spun off or pushed forward coverage of Altman's latest podcast, this time with Theo Von), so I’ll hit the highlights up here along with reviewing the week.
It turns out that when you focus on its concrete proposals, America's AI Action Plan Is Pretty Good. The people who wrote this knew what they were doing, and executed well given their world model and priorities. Most of the concrete [...]

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Outline:
(02:17) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility
(06:36) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility
(09:52) Huh, Upgrades
(10:57) Unlimited Usage Ultimately Unsustainable
(12:38) On Your Marks
(12:56) Are We Robot Or Are We Dancer
(13:41) Get My Agent On The Line
(14:54) Choose Your Fighter
(16:13) Code With Claude
(20:54) You Drive Me Crazy
(22:54) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
(23:50) They Took Our Jobs
(29:52) Meta Promises Superglasses Or Something
(38:12) I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars
(39:38) The Art of the Jailbreak
(40:05) Get Involved
(41:05) Introducing
(41:29) In Other AI News
(42:36) Show Me the Money
(47:53) Selling Out
(53:43) On Writing
(56:09) Quiet Speculations
(58:36) The Week in Audio
(59:42) Rhetorical Innovation
(01:07:57) Not Intentionally About AI
(01:08:55) Misaligned!
(01:10:27) Aligning A Dumber Than Human Intelligence Is Still Difficult
(01:11:06) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult
(01:13:27) Subliminal Learning To Like The Owls
(01:19:38) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone
(01:20:59) The Lighter Side
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First published:
July 31st, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GeTssgFDCvHDGAvhT/ai-127-continued-claude-code-complications

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1h 24min
July 30, 2025“Childhood and Education: College Admissions” by Zvi
Table of Contents
College Applications.
The College Application Essay (Is) From Hell.
Don’t Guess The Teacher's Password, Ask For It Explicitly.
A Dime a Dozen.
Treat Admissions Essays Like Games of Balderdash.
It's About To Get Worse.
Alternative Systems Need Good Design.
The SAT Scale Is Broken On Purpose.
College Applications
In case you missed it, yes, of course Harvard admissions are way up and Harvard did this on purpose. The new finding is that Harvard was recruiting African American applicants in particular, partly in order to balance conditional acceptance rates. One could of course also argue that the goal was ‘to find more worthy students,’ with the counterevidence being that the test scores of such applicants declined as more applications came in (as they obviously would for any group) but the scores of those who got [...]

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Outline:
(00:11) College Applications
(00:57) The College Application Essay (Is) From Hell
(04:35) Don't Guess The Teacher's Password, Ask For It Explicitly
(09:11) A Dime a Dozen
(10:18) Treat Admissions Essays Like Games of Balderdash
(14:54) It's About To Get Worse
(23:20) Alternative Systems Need Good Design
(29:07) The SAT Scale Is Broken On Purpose
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First published:
July 30th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yjXtoq86sz5LaRxDZ/childhood-and-education-college-admissions

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34min
July 29, 2025 “Spilling the Tea” by Zvi
The Tea app is or at least was on fire, rapidly gaining lots of users. This opens up two discussions, one on the game theory and dynamics of Tea, one on its abysmal security.
It's a little too on the nose that a hot new app that purports to exist so that women can anonymously seek out and spill the tea on men, which then puts user information into an unprotected dropbox thus spilling the tea on the identities of many of its users.
In the circles I follow this predictably led to discussions about how badly the app was coded and incorrect speculation that this was linked to vibe coding, whereas the dumb mistakes involved were in this case fully human.
There was also some discussion of the game theory of Tea, which I found considerably more interesting and fun, and which will take up [...]

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Outline:
(00:54) Pouring Some Tea
(03:12) Zero Tolerance Policy
(04:26) Solve For The Equilibrium
(06:15) A Fun Tale
(07:05) Is That Bad?
(15:57) Levels of Friction
(16:48) Can Hack It
(21:19) Should You Spill The Tea?
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First published:
July 29th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HNtXhv9yvqBYaSbgt/spilling-the-tea

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23min
July 28, 2025“AI Companion Piece” by Zvi
AI companions, other forms of personalized AI content and persuasion and related issues continue to be a hot topic. What do people use companions for? Are we headed for a goonpocalypse? Mostly no, companions are used mostly not used for romantic relationships or erotica, although perhaps that could change. How worried should we be about personalization maximized for persuasion or engagement?
Table of Contents
Persuasion Should Be In Your Preparedness Framework.
Personalization By Default Gets Used To Maximize Engagement.
Companion.
Goonpocalypse Now.
Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon.
Persuasion Should Be In Your Preparedness Framework
Kobi Hackenburg leads on the latest paper on AI persuasion.
Kobi Hackenberg: RESULTS (pp = percentage points):

1⃣Scale increases persuasion, +1.6pp per OOM
2⃣Post-training more so, +3.5pp
3⃣Personalization less so, <1pp
4⃣Information density drives persuasion gains
5⃣Increasing persuasion decreased factual accuracy
6⃣Convo > static, +40%
Zero is on [...]
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Outline:
(00:35) Persuasion Should Be In Your Preparedness Framework
(04:33) Personalization By Default Gets Used To Maximize Engagement
(13:04) Companion
(16:50) Goonpocalypse Now
(24:09) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon
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First published:
July 28th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Rm3FD6646NDSCGxqM/ai-companion-piece

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29min

FAQs about LessWrong posts by zvi:

How many episodes does LessWrong posts by zvi have?

The podcast currently has 380 episodes available.