Alex Yra

Hi. Find me on Bluesky

[Sonia Joseph @soniajoseph_]

To the journalists contacting me about the AGI consensual non-consensual (cnc) sex parties—

During my twenties in Silicon Valley, I ran among elite tech/AI circles through the community house scene. I have seen some troubling things around social circles of early OpenAI employees, their friends, and adjacent entrepreneurs, which I have not previously spoken about publicly.

It is not my place to speak as to why Jan Leike and the superalignment team resigned. I have no idea why and cannot make any claims. However, I do believe my cultural observations of the SF AI scene are more broadly relevant to the AI industry.

I don't think events like the consensual non-consensual (cnc) sex parties and heavy LSD use of some elite AI researchers have been good for women. They create a climate that can be very bad for female AI researchers, with broader implications relevant to X-risk and AGI safety. I believe they are somewhat emblematic of broader problems: a coercive climate that normalizes recklessness and crossing boundaries, which we are seeing playing out more broadly in the industry today. Move fast and break things, applied to people.

There is nothing wrong imo with sex parties and heavy LSD use in theory, but combined with the shadow of 100B+ interest groups, leads to some of the most coercive and fucked up social dynamics that I have ever seen. The climate was like a fratty LSD version of 2008 Wall Street bankers, which bodes ill for AI safety.

Women are like canaries in the coal mine. They are often the first to realize that something has gone horribly wrong, and to smell the cultural carbon monoxide in the air. For many women, Silicon Valley can be like Westworld, where violence is pay-to-pay.

I have seen people repeatedly get shut down for pointing out these problems. Once, when trying to point out these problems, I had three OpenAI and Anthropic researchers debate whether I was mentally ill on a Google document. I have no history of mental illness; and this incident stuck with me as an example of blindspots/groupthink.

I am not writing this on the behalf of any interest group. Historically, much of OpenAI-adjacent shenanigans has been blamed on groups with weaker PR teams, like Effective Altruism and rationalists. I actually feel bad for the latter two groups for taking so many undeserved hits. There are good and bad apples in every faction. There are so many brilliant, kind, amazing people at OpenAI, and there are so many brilliant, kind, and amazing people in Anthropic/EA/Google/[insert whatever group]. I’m agnostic. My one loyalty is to the respect and dignity of human life.

I'm not under an NDA. I never worked for OpenAI. I just observed the surrounding AI culture through the community house scene in SF, as a fly-on-the-wall, hearing insider information and backroom deals, befriending dozens of women and allies and well-meaning parties, and watching many them get burned. It’s likely these problems are not really on OpenAI but symptomatic of a much deeper rot in the Valley. I wish I could say more, but probably shouldn’t.

I will not pretend that my time among these circles didn’t do damage. I wish that 55% of my brain was not devoted to strategizing about the survival of me and of my friends. I would like to devote my brain completely and totally to AI research— finding the first principles of visual circuits, and collecting maximally activating images of CLIP SAEs to send to my collaborators for publication.

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

I feel that there's a misunderstanding of the Met Gala and its purpose. 🧵

[arune singh @arune]

There’s a story I like to tell about my time at Marvel when @JimViscardi and I placed the world premiere reveal of MILES MORALES at USA Today with @briantruitt.

It’s a story about bad faith actors and racism, which seems especially relevant in comics.

Thread time.

[Extra Brolific @MichaelTimex]

Always a favorite, still brings a smile to my face to this day. The dopest thing to me later I noticed was that the classic dance move @ 1:53 became a Bay Area signature dance in so many videos many years later.

[Chuck D @MrChuckD]

Rest In Beats #MarkThe45King

[SZA @sza]

Y’all realizing snooze is a love song is the most magical thing ever to me lmao . I told y’all 😂 I be in love sometimes not jus mad

[Kaniela Ing @KanielaIng]

#MauiFires When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping” -Fred Rodgers

[Emily Atkin @emorwee]

Kudos to @Reuters' breaking news team for including not just the role of climate change, but of fossil fuels, in the Maui wildfires.

It is so meaningful and easy to include a graf like this in breaking news coverage of climate disasters. Yet so few do it.

[Kaniela Ing @KanielaIng]

To reporters covering the #MauiFire: Please stop characterizing Front Street and Lahaina Town as a “tourist spot”

It was the original Capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

King Kamehameha’s palace is here.

Kānaka Maoli still live here, on their ancestral land from the 1800s.

[Alex Yra @alexyra]

The potential sea change for "little tech" is exciting. @braverayco is ready to provide design to help startups run as fast as possible!

[Garry Tan @garrytan]

There is a crazy amount of talented folks locked up in corporate big tech jobs that don’t let them build the way they should.

I’m hoping a lot of them actually come over to startups, and they realize, oh, this is what it’s like to run fast again.

https://t.co/EdACew4KlR

[Sebastiaan de With @sdw]

I’ve said this when Dynamic Island shipped: the next “skeuomorphism” in UI isn’t silly retro shadows & gradients but fluid, dynamic—almost liquid—and responsive animations and interactions.

An excellent evolution. Visual design truly coupled with how UI elements feel and work.

[Alex Yra @alexyra]

Are you an early-stage or mid-stage company that needs designs for your app or website? Get unlimited designs from me, an experienced product designer (ex-eBay, Intuit) through my subscription plans at my company, Brave Ray https://t.co/CDJuWpr6vR

[Dantley Davis @dantley]

Every designer, product manager, and engineer building products on the Internet should read this book. It provides a holistic view into how Internet products can be used for harm.

[Alex Yra @alexyra]

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[Erica Dias @EricaClickup]

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[Alex Yra @alexyra]

@dantley @dantley here's a playlist of some of my favorite country songs (2010s centric). https://t.co/F7M3WLBBx1

[Alex Yra @alexyra]

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