Understand why AI is a doom-risk in 39 captivating minutes May 02, 2026

I’ve really wanted more good short accounts of why AI poses an existential risk. Working on one myself has been one of those incredibly high priorities I keep putting off.

Meanwhile award-winning journalist Ben Bradford of NPR has made a podcast version of my case for AI x-risk that I am thrilled with!

(Bonus within the 39 minutes: what Hamza Chaudhry of FLI thinks we should do about it—who I was delighted to later meet as a consequence!)

If you or anyone you know could do with a quick and gripping rundown of why this is a problem, try this one.

Get it on any podcasting app here: https://pod.link/1893359212

Games that change your mind May 01, 2026

Some things you might learn from games are pretty blatant: Trivial Pursuit might teach you trivia, MasterType might teach you about typing, Grand Theft Auto might teach you about driving or crime.

But sometimes games teach people less obvious things—things that are more experiential or ineffable, things that you didn’t know you didn’t know, concepts that stick in your mind, deep things. Here’s my list of games and their interesting real-world updates, as experienced by me or my friends:

Dominion: Don’t invest for eternity. When casually improving or protecting or investing in things, it’s easy for me to treat life (and perhaps even the present period) as basically eternal. In fact I shouldn’t, but it can take many years of living to really feel how likely it is that you’ll leave your perfectly wonderful house within two years, or just keep on aging. Dominion lets me feel that in a matter of hours, by tempting me to invest in a beautiful and effective deck that will do amazingly for the rest of eternity, then making the other player win by haphazardly buying a handful of provinces before I’m done. Which is very annoying, and I do hold against it.

11 ways to be less deferential Apr 30, 2026

often worry that people are being too deferential about their beliefs. I also hear others worrying about this, and nobody seemingly worrying about the reverse, except perhaps my friends and therapists (and I guess honestly people who know cranks, so that’s a bit troubling).

Which leads me to wonder, supposing it’s true that many people are too deferential, what might people do to change it? And can I offer them useful advice, as a person who might be not deferential enough?

Tonight I talked to Joe Carlsmith about this; here are some ideas mostly from the conversation:

Self driving interview Apr 29, 2026

In honor of yesterday’s nonspecific point in the gradual arrival of self-driving cars, an interview with myself.

San Francisco: self driving Apr 28, 2026

I’m on a plane heading back to San Francisco. I’ve lived in the Bay Area for most of the years since 2009, and a large fraction of that time the place has felt near the brink of self-driving cars. (Well, everywhere has, but San Francisco feels like the first testing ground for the most interesting experiments in technology.) And that has felt like a big deal. So I kind of expected them to arrive with a good amount of ceremony.

AI unemployment and AI extinction are often the same Apr 27, 2026

My sense is that people think of AI existential risk and AI unemployment as distinct issues.

Some people are extremely concerned about extinction and perhaps even indifferent to total unemployment. Some people think of moderate AI unemployment as a realistic and concerning issue, and AI extinction as science fiction.

I think of AI unemployment and AI extinction risk as basically the same issue, and in likely scenarios, happening together.

Manhattan: distance and movement Apr 26, 2026

Last Tuesday I went to a Broadway show, Ragtime. I was in the front row, but surprised by how much the action did not feel real and a few feet away from me. Perhaps the performers were so skilled they didn’t seem like real people, or the sound so loud and sharp that it didn’t feel like people legit singing just over there. We seemed to have a proper chance of getting spit on us, yet I felt as if I was in a separate world. The biggest break in the feeling of vague unreality was when one of the actors on my side of the stage made piercing eye contact with me for a second or so. Which felt very close and warm and human, and I was kind of thrown by that too, though I liked it.

AI: cognitive labor glut + new guys Apr 25, 2026

Why is the advent of AI a big deal, and more worrying than previous advents?

I think there are actually two interesting things going on, that make AI importantly different to previous technologies.

Cambridge: the kettle Apr 24, 2026

I arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, today with my boyfriend. We have a modest Airbnb apartment, up enough stairs that if you decided to count the flights you would probably have forgotten about the project by the top. It’s pleasant and unassuming, and we were moving slowly toward beginning writing our mandatory blog posts rather too late in the evening when a new presence got our attention.

Sleep puzzle system Apr 23, 2026

Here’s an obscure life hack.

If (like me) you:

• Don’t like going to bed, due to it conflicting with keeping on doing things

• When in bed, wish you had something more engaging and enjoyable to do instead of just lying there waiting—for instance, playing a very compelling computer game until you get tired

• Do not in fact reliably get tired from playing a very compelling computer game

• Like puzzles

..then a solution that has worked surprisingly well for me before (and I wrote about previously) is having hard math puzzles handy to think about as I go to sleep. Somehow thinking about math at the bounds of my limited ability to imagine does make me sleepy. And is also quite compelling.