Sygmoid

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@becauseberkeley Thank goodness they aren’t trying to replace the BMW dealership or the Costco

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@hanlonbt @jasoncrawford They are still quite common in Oakland. Nearly every block. Tho I did see guys cut one off recently while stealing a car. The real move is one of those boots on the tire. Or two!

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@k_pendergrast @mcmansionhell Taste pilled tech guys are the ones who remodeled the lodge

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

Very cool and great news but wow this is some vampire coded setting for a video

[Mgoes (bio/acc 🤖💉) @m_goes_distance]

holy mother of biological acceleration

the first human data on partial epigenetic reprogramming is out

life biosciences just reported interim results for ER-100: one injection into the eye, then 56 days of doxycycline to switch on 3 genes meant to restore youthful gene expression

glaucoma patients, early readout:

- 3 treated, all 3 tolerated it through day 56
- no serious adverse events
- 2 showed preliminary improvement on visual-field tests
- the safety board cleared a 3x higher dose

of course not proof of anything yet

but a therapy built to restore youthful gene expression is in human eyes, and the safety board just cleared a higher dose

bio/acc

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

https://t.co/RuEUxey8U6

[Neel Nanda @NeelNanda5]

> Our internal investigation uncovered a significant breach of trust beyond what’s outlined in the letter they published

This doesn't add up. Possibilities I see:
1 OpenAI are lying/being highly misleading, and had no legitimate reason
2 OpenAI fired 3 employees, had a legitimate reason for doing so, but didn't tell them and instead gave 3 different pretexts for doing so about minor infractions (pretty unprofessional IMO - say nothing or say the truth)
3 OpenAI had a good reason and did tell them, but instead the three have all agreed to loudly and publicly lie about it / omit the real reason they were told (seems super unlikely to me)
4 OpenAI screwed up by firing them, and weren't being very strategic, but also weren't being malicious, eg the people who decided whether to fire them were not well coordinated with the rest of OpenAI leadership, but OpenAI is now doubling down
5 The reasons the three claim they were told were true, but way worse than they sound. But I can't see how the three stories all refer to the same event, so this would imply 2-3 simultaneous but unrelated major breaches of trust from three closely associated safety researchers, with stories that seem plausible, which seems unlikely

Am I missing any?

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@EganPeltan I don't know what Iso does, but many of these subsidiaries don't use Alphabet stock, they have "shadow" equity they can sell back for cash. Valuing that equity is quite hard objectively and leads to lots of weird incentives by both the company and employees.

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@Altimor @deedydas At least some of it is the sheer magnitude of their profitability over the years. You can make a lot of mistakes and have too many people with that much cash being generated every quarter. Companies with less margin for error don’t develop such a culture.

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@Romy_Holland Berkeley is encased in amber. It can never be fully in the 21st century because the vast majority of its residents refused to leave the 20th. Everything must stay the same. Everyone must do as they say. It's for our own good. Has nothing to do with surrounding cities.

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

Here is is. Lex. https://t.co/eaZKeVcgyT

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

The agent restaurant reservation discourse reminds me of a prominent Zuckerberg podcast appearance right after the Meta rebrand, where his headline value proposition for the metaverse was “I can buy a green shirt and wear it in multiple apps and games”.

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

How is it a real thing that people are studying [literally everything that has led to any progress in life sciences over the last 100 years]?

[Maxwell Ramstead (e/acc) @mjdramstead]

How is it a real thing that people are studying the pneumonic plague? How is this allowed?

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@redford I was very excited to read this but it kind of barely mentions Oakland? Then just a rehash of "billionaires are trying to ruin everything". Loren Taylor didn't get elected because he wasn't a compelling candidate, not because the conspiracy failed. Well written though cheers!

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@johnofa do you think that the best way to solve California's problems is to have one time tax revenue boost? aren't there many alternatives? for example the entire projected revenue from this tax is about the same as the cost overrun on high speed rail (so far)

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@typesfast

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@tenobrus New employees at oai get added to 200+ slack channels on day one. Chaosmaxxing.

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

Uber was this way even at like 15k people with @travisk. Coming from [big company] it was wonderful culture shock. I reached out to the Brand team once to get help with a video, and they responded apologizing that they couldn't do it *tomorrow*, but they could do it the next day.

[Nan Yu @thenanyu]

It’s interesting to contrast, what different companies take for granted in their internal cultures

I’ve only been at OpenAI for about a week, and the thing that stands out is absurdly high bias towards action

This shows up in ways big and small…

Sometimes you have a casual discussion about a possible feature, and the PR is sitting in front of you by the time you get back to your desk

Or you meet someone on Slack and say: “let’s grab lunch next week” and the meeting invites on your calendar within the next five minutes

This has its downsides. because it often feels like everything’s behind a hair trigger, and things just change out from under you— but you can’t really teach this energy, and if you ever lose it, it’s unbelievably hard to get it back

Open AI is not a tiny company anymore. It’s got several massive buildings in San Francisco, it’s impressive that this energy still persists

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

Also, most of their schools are now on a four day week

[Shawn Regan @Shawn_Regan]

In recent years, Idaho has achieved one of the most dramatic state-level reductions in regulation ever.

Instead of assuming old regulations should remain on the books, it made agencies justify the ones they wanted to keep. Since 2019, the state has eliminated roughly half of its regulatory code.

New report by @ManhattanInst
https://t.co/219rfNxmN9

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

if a rogue model ever hacks Docusign, the only thing I care about it releasing publicly is what is the median time between opening a doc and completing signing it, across all customers over all time. I predict it is less than 60 seconds.

[Sygmoid @euler_leon1783]

@kevinroose