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Introduction for and Reactions to Plan A — LessWrong
6+ hour, 16+ min ago (1493+ words) INTRODUCING PLAN A • The folks who brought you AI 2027, a so far remarkably accurate set of predictions despite those predictions having seemed freak…...
An Introduction to Exemplar Partitioning for Mechanistic Interpretability — LessWrong
1+ mon, 3+ week ago (833+ words) Voronoi partitions on activations reveal interpretable structure with orders of magnitude less compute than SAEs....
Semantic Phonons: Lattice Vibrations in AI Internals — LessWrong
2+ mon, 22+ hour ago (846+ words) Phonons refer to collective vibrational modes in crystals, propagating through the lattice as a wave. …...
Emergent misalignment evident in activations at low poisoning doses - long before behavioral checks flag it — LessWrong
2+ mon, 2+ week ago (1005+ words) Status: Exploration with adapters for Llama 3.2-3B + 3.1-8B at various poisoning dose levels using medical advice examples from Turner et al 2025 wit…...
Why the alchemists couldn't build rockets — LessWrong
6+ mon, 3+ week ago (498+ words) People sometimes ask why theory is so important, and recently I've been reading John D. Clark's wonderful book Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, and I've started thinking rocketry and chemistry provide a good example. Chemistry turned manufacturing new…...
Deep Learning and Precipitation Reactions: A Tale of Universality — LessWrong
6+ mon, 3+ week ago (822+ words) Author Note: I doubt I am the first person to have these ideas, as I think they're somewhat of a natural perspective. Also, there's a fair bit of handwaving and oversimplification here to keep the post digestible. I suggest for…...
Every house has a chemistry lab — LessWrong
7+ mon, 2+ day ago (759+ words) Published on December 9, 2025 2:17 PM GMTGrandma’s Kitchen by Jacek Yerka. Source.It is equipped with heat sources of various kinds, heat-resistant containers, a hob to evacuate toxic gas, instruments to manipulate reactive material adapted to different textures, measuring equipment, and, importantly,…...
[Linkpost] "Higher glass transition temperatures reduce thermal stress cracking in aqueous solutions relevant to cryopreservation" — LessWrong
7+ mon, 2+ week ago (359+ words) Published on November 26, 2025 9:52 AM GMTI found this on Reddit; it's an open access journal article relevant to cryopreservation of organs (including brains).Abstract:Cryopreservation by vitrification could transform fields ranging from organ transplantation to wildlife conservation, but critical physical challenges…...
Optical rectennas are not a promising clean energy technology — LessWrong
10+ mon, 3+ hour ago (852+ words) (For some relevant background context, check out my write-ups on the fundamental efficiency limit of single-junction solar cells, and on the thermodynamic efficiency limit of any solar energy conversion technology whatsoever.) Rectenna is short for “rectifying antenna”, i.e. a…...
Detecting High-Stakes Interactions with Activation Probes — LessWrong
11+ mon, 3+ week ago (337+ words) This research was completed for LASR Labs 2025 by Alex McKenzie, Urja Pawar, Phil Blandfort and William Bankes. The team was supervised by Dmitrii Krasheninnikov, with additional guidance from Ekdeep Singh Lubana and support from David Krueger. The full paper can…...