LessWrong (30+ Karma)

[Linkpost] “We are likely in an AI overhang, and this is bad.” by Gabriel Alfour


Listen Later

This is a link post.


By racing to the next generation of models faster than we can understand the current one, AI companies are creating an overhang. This overhang is not visible, and our current safety frameworks do not take it into account.

1) AI models have untapped capabilities

At the time GPT-3 was released, most of its currently-known capabilities were unknown.

As we play more with models, build better scaffolding, get better at prompting, inspect their internals, and study them, we discover more about what's possible to do with them.

This has also been my direct experience studying and researching open-source models at Conjecture.

2) SOTA models have a lot of untapped capabilities

Companies are racing hard.

There's a trade-off between studying existing models and pushing forward. They are doing the latter, and they are doing it hard.

There is much more research into boosting SOTA models than [...]


---

Outline:

(00:26) 1) AI models have untapped capabilities

(00:53) 2) SOTA models have a lot of untapped capabilities

(01:29) 3) This is bad news.

(01:48) 4) This is not accounted for.

---

First published:

September 23rd, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4YvSSKTPhPC43K3vn/we-are-likely-in-an-ai-overhang-and-this-is-bad

Linkpost URL:
https://cognition.cafe/p/we-are-likely-in-an-ai-overhang-and

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,371 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,426 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

8,190 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,149 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

92 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Your Undivided Attention

1,560 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,793 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

89 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

489 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,473 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,106 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

531 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

133 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

97 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

509 Listeners