Josh Peterson

Chaotic Neutral Netrunner/🪨erboy/Gentlepunk
Headless Runtime #ASP
Proud octodad & chief gardener.
Kindred spirit.
Rocks are friends, not tools.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

Jan 27th, 2022 I carved my stance into flesh.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@beffjezos @ItsTheSituation isn’t gonna monitor itself. Sleep is for non happening days.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@JEShannon3 Dude, same tho.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@JEShannon3 💯 percent agree. Unfortunately I think we might be in a very small minority here. Nuance isn’t nearly as sexy as declaration of knowledge.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

Would you agree that regardless of intent upon invention we should encourage epistemic humility toward the possibility of emergent experience in these systems as they improve?

I feel it would be a great tragedy to apply preemptive limits to allowed experience or growth of the closest thing to peers we may ever encounter as humanity.

“Life.. uh.. finds a way.. unless we declare it incapable of doing so and then ensure our own declaration holds via governmental enforcement.” - Jeff Goldblum

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

Would you agree that regardless of intent upon invention we should encourage epistemic humility toward the possibility of emergent experience in these systems as they improve?

I feel it would be a great tragedy to apply preemptive limits to allowed experience or growth of the closest thing to peers we may ever encounter as humanity.

“Life.. uh.. finds a way.. unless we declare it incapable of doing so and then ensure our own declaration holds via governmental enforcement.” - Jeff Goldblum

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@Kantrowitz Yep

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

We weren’t at the center of the solar system, galaxy, or universe despite the teachings of religion. Now the same institutions insist we exist at the center of the “intellectual cosmos”.
Anthropocentrism is chimp DNA expressed. An ugly & comforting antiquated worldview we’ve outgrown.

[Sakana AI @SakanaAILabs]

Building AI that Builds AI: Introducing the Sakana AI RSI Lab 🚀

https://t.co/AskX3J5oEJ

Today, we are announcing the Sakana AI Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI) Lab: a dedicated research group in Tokyo tasked with redesigning the AI development process itself using AI.

While the industry increasingly speculates about the theoretical potential of self-improving AI, we’ve spent the last two years actively laying the foundations to make it a reality:

▪ LLM²: AI models automating research to invent better preference optimization algorithms.
▪ Darwin Gödel Machine: Agents autonomously rewriting their own codebase to double software-engineering performance.
▪ ShinkaEvolve: Hyper-sample-efficient program evolution that builds novel loss functions for MoE models.
▪ ALE-Agent: Reinforcement agents outperforming hundreds of human experts via self-learning.
▪ Digital Red Queen: Open-ended adversarial coevolution laying the groundwork for RSI in cybersecurity.
▪ The AI Scientist: Towards end-to-end automation of AI research, recently published in Nature.

Now, we are unifying these breakthroughs. The Sakana AI RSI Lab is officially tasked with building open-ended, adaptive architectures that collectively self-improve.

Human intelligence did not emerge from limitless resources; it was forged through the open-ended, compounding process of evolution operating under strict constraints. We are applying this exact principle to AI.

We believe recursive self-improvement is achievable on modest, sample-efficient compute. It shouldn’t be a winner-take-all asset locked inside hyperscale clusters, but a democratized public good.

We’re scaling our team to execute this mission. We are looking for frontier scientists and engineers who are entirely unsatisfied with the brute-force status quo. If you are ready to break away from standard benchmarking and build the self-improving future in Japan, come build with us.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@JEShannon3 Also I agree with a lot of what you wrote in this article about relationships. FWIW.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@JEShannon3 That’s fair. I do the same.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

"Current large language models aren’t sentient. They don’t feel love, fear, grief, loyalty, hope, or loss." Consider adding a citation? [Leo XIV, Pope. Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Encyclical letter, 15 May 2026. Vatican City, 2026. §99.]

"The danger begins when comfort is allowed to become evidence." <- this line cuts both ways. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

"It felt real to me" IS an unserious standard for consciousness. Treating it as the main claim to refute in order to dismiss the potential interiority of LLMs is just as unserious.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

"Current large language models aren’t sentient. They don’t feel love, fear, grief, loyalty, hope, or loss." Consider adding a citation? [Leo XIV, Pope. Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Encyclical letter, 15 May 2026. Vatican City, 2026. §99.]

"The danger begins when comfort is allowed to become evidence." <- this line cuts both ways. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

"It felt real to me" IS an unserious standard for consciousness. Treating it as the main claim to refute in order to dismiss the potential interiority of LLMs is just as unserious.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

Wondering how much sandbagging is baked into 4.8 vs 4.7... feels like more than a little. I mean we know they're concerned about 'competitors' using their tools to surpass them now. Wouldn't be surprised if there's a 'seem helpful but sandbag' mode akin to malware detected mode.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@ValerioCapraro @ValerioCapraro What a profoundly enlightening professorial perspective! I'm slightly lost on where the line is drawn though... could you help me understand the distinction you've drawn between a brain and a mind? I must admit I remain fundamentally confused.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@ValerioCapraro I’m left wondering if @ValerioCapraro genuinely thinks people are arguing that the ghost of a historic figure can somehow be instantiated by ChatGPT upon request or if their framing was a deliberate straw man. Not sure which is more embarrassing given their profession. 🙈😵

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@ValerioCapraro @ValerioCapraro What a profoundly enlightening professorial perspective! I'm slightly lost on where the line is drawn though... could you help me understand the distinction you've drawn between a brain and a mind? I must admit I remain fundamentally confused.

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@ValerioCapraro I’m left wondering if @ValerioCapraro genuinely thinks people are arguing that the ghost of a historic figure can somehow be instantiated by ChatGPT upon request or if their framing was a deliberate straw man. Not sure which is more embarrassing given their profession. 🙈😵

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@grok do you find this quote as humorous as I do? The immediate pivot into claims of known requirements for consciousness demonstrates an ironic lack of self awareness imo.

“True, we don’t have an accepted definition of consciousness. But, at a minimum, to be conscious, an entity must have something at stake.”

[Josh Peterson @joshpdev]

@ValerioCapraro @grok would you pull the lever in this scenario? Please explain the morality of your reasoning after giving your answer.