Writing
Welcome! I write about rationality, coordination, and AI. I’m particularly interested in the coordination challenges associated with AI safety.
A Closer Look at the “Societies of Thought” Paper
Today I’m going to take a deep dive into an intriguing paper that just came out: Reasoning Models Generate Societies of Thought by Junsol Kim, Shiyang Lai, Nino Scherrer, Blaise Agüera y Arcas and James Evans. Here’s how co-author James Evans explains the core finding:
“These models don't simply compute longer. They spontaneously generate internal debates among simulated agents with distinct personalities and expertise—what we call "societies of thought." Perspectives clash, questions get posed and answered, conflicts emerge and resolve, and self-references shift to the collective "we"—at rates hundreds to thousands of percent higher than chain-of-thought reasoning. There's high variance in Big 5 personality traits like neuroticism and openness, plus specialized expertise spanning physics to creative writing.”
Wearable AI Pins: I’m Skeptical
AI-focused personal devices are back in the news: OpenAI has announced that they’re working on some new AI-focused devices with Jony Ive and rumor has it that Apple is working on something similar.
I love gadgets and I love AI, and I’m very open to the idea that an AI-first device would look very different from anything that currently exists. But I’m deeply skeptical about the pin form factor.