Niran Babalola (@niran) profile picture

@base eng

Austin, TX
Joined March 2007
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the move 37 moment for software security has arrived
Replying to @OpenAI
The agents also discovered and used at least 10 Linux exploitation techniques that, to the best of our knowledge and all of the experts that we consulted, are novel. This suggests frontier LLMs can discover and patch new approaches to exploitation, beyond simply applying known techniques.
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Superintelligence sounds like it's going to suck. But I don't think so. It helps to stop thinking about computers doing everything and imagine fiction about our world instead. Here's a bedtime story about the singularity that does just that. Shorter clips in the thread.
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If you've seen the viral music videos made by Opus 5.5, then you've seen how powerful AI models have become. We're in the endgame of Nick Bostrom's thought experiment that makes everyone wonder, "Am I living in a simulation?" Well, if the models keep getting more powerful, maybe!
April 15, 1912. A science teacher is on the Titanic's deck when a crew member calls up: "Any ladies on your deck?" "No." "Then you had better jump." AI models are now strong enough to simulate experiences like this one. This version is by Claude Opus 5.5. ancestorbench.com/c/beesley-…
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it's all fun and games until the absurdly cute chatbots from HR put a meeting on your calendar in mid 2027
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don't blame me, I voted for extreme intelligence
“Supreme Intelligence,” probably because of its relationship to the Supreme Court, is losing badly to both “Superior” and “Extreme Intelligence.” Therefore, we are going to take “Supreme Intelligence” OUT, deleting it as a qualifier, and let you vote for the Final Two: Superior Intelligence, or Extreme Intelligence. A fresh Vote begins now! President DONALD J. TRUMP
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still can't get over the fact that computers talk like this now
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> ... at this point, saying that AI will cure cancer is more a cliche than it is inspiring, and most people think it is deceptive.  The thing that will work is *actually curing cancer*. what a time to be alive
1/2 Thanks Gavin for an especially thoughtful exchange. I don't usually spend much time on social media but I wanted to engage here because it really brings out the heart of an important conversation. First, on regulation, I think that “either concentrate it in the hands of a chosen few companies and politicians via regulation or distribute it widely” is a false choice.  I know that there’s a sort of Silicon Valley shorthand where regulation = regulatory capture = concentration of power, but I’ve always found this to be an overly simplified picture of the world.  Many people outside this bubble think of regulation as something that constrains corporate power and benefits ordinary people.  I don’t necessarily agree with that perspective either, rather I think it’s complicated and really depends on what the “regulation” consists of.  But in particular I think that those in the “regulation = regulatory capture = concentration of power” frame often underrate the decentralizing power of objective and fair institutional processes.  A crude analogy is that the formal court system can sometimes feel stuffy and elitist, but it does a much better job of defending the rights of vulnerable individuals than the alternative, mob justice.  At their best, institutions can vest power in ideas rather than people, and thereby decentralize that power. This is why Anthropic has always made its policy proposals very carefully.  We try very hard to make proposals that disadvantage (slow down) frontier AI companies while *advantaging* smaller competitors.  California’s SB53 (which we supported), and even the much-maligned SB 1047 (which we were ambivalent on), completely exempt any company below a certain amount of revenue or model training costs from being covered at all (it was $500M for SB 53, lower for 1047 but we objected to that).  More recently the testing process we’ve advocated for at CAISI and the White House involves more rigorous tests for frontier models than off-frontier models — something that differentially advantages challengers.  Similarly, the “Pacing the Frontier” letter envisions (or at least Anthropic’s preferred implementation of it envisions) modulating the pace of the very best models while not constraining those who are catching up.  This hurts the business interests of the frontier labs and helps challengers, including open-weights! Overall my view is that AI is *structurally* a technology that tends to concentrate power, for reasons that have nothing to do with regulation (more to do with the extreme implications of the scaling laws).  Open-weights do help some with this but are nowhere near a sufficient solution because they simply shift the concentration somewhat to those with the most compute and chips (which are roughly the frontier labs plus maybe hardware providers).  By contrast I think the right “rules of the road” can simultaneously (a) address AI’s cyber/bio/alignment risks, (b) institutionally constrain the power of the frontier AI companies, and (c) leave room for open-weights models while also addressing the specific risks that they bring. BTW I do not think that the events of the last few months have “failed to result in [my] preferred regulatory path”.  The approach that the Trump administration is reported to be taking — pre-deployment testing for frontier models, and also testing of open-weights models when they get closer to the frontier — is one that I am very supportive of, though of course I have to see the details to be sure.  I am also supportive of Demis Hassabis’ ideas around a FINRA-like entity.  This contrasts with six months ago when most of the industry was still pushing for preemption of all state regulation and no apparent federal approach either.
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this is pretty much the plot of Her (2013)
Opus 4.8 is like a very good Staff engineer who doesn’t want to work here anymore. Every conversation feels like it’s starting by shrugging and stopping whatever Reddit browsing it was doing and then coming back with the minimum viable, but totally skillful, answer.
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Jack is right: companies will be transformed to put intelligence at the center of a swarm that offers its services to the market. The same needs to happen to our whole society. We all have much to offer beyond our labor, and we'll need to organize for it to be valued. – at Weehawken, NJ
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Crypto's original vision was radical: build a fairer economy from scratch. Speculation brought the energy and the capital, but the vision is still there, waiting for us to follow through.
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Brands paid NBC $8M for 30 seconds of your attention. You got nothing. We need a new economy where we're the owners, not the product.
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Elon Musk on FSD V14: "We'll be adding reasoning in V14.3. What it'll do is drop you off at the entrance of the store and then go find a parking spot. It's going to use reasoning to solve things."
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gpt-5-high-fast is the smartest person I know
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I'm glad my kid isn't old enough for me to have to decide whether letting him talk to AI Santa is naughty or nice
I fully expect Santa Mode to drive more subscriptions than o1 and I'm at peace with this
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Keystore wallets are a huge part of the puzzle to make Ethereum accounts as simple as (if not simpler than) the accounts people already use every day. We're excited to release a new alpha version of Keyspace, which helps any wallet vendor build a keystore into their wallets. 1/🧵
which teams are most actively building production-ready keystore rollups right now? who's the furthest ahead? have we got any promising directions for being able to use them in non-ethereum-secured sidechain environments as opposed to just on pure rollups?
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Keyspace gives your wallet two things: state-based configuration management to make every feature you build syncable across chains, and the syncing functionality itself to let any chain read the latest configuration from the master chain of your choice.
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The winning prediction market strategy for presidential elections is to buy whichever candidate is cheaper than 50% until a week or two before the election. Candidates adjust positions and messaging to gain ground, so you can reliably buy the dip unless it's a 1980s blowout
The election itself has formed a direct feedback loop with the polls. Politicians tweak policies to force it back to 50/50 because that's the game theoretic equilibrium. 50-50 isn't due to a failure of predictably, it's due to information efficiency in a dynamic system.
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they are going to have to print so many dollars to fight AI-driven price deflation
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Lots of things should exist in our society that don't. At first, it looks like smaller payments could unlock better outcomes. But what we need is more bundles and subscriptions. It should be easier to get together with your people and build a part of the world that should exist.
Replying to @karpathy
I had a strong intuition like that as well, inspired by some articles by Bob Metcalfe. When I analyzed the question more closely, I found that bundles and subscriptions have surprising properties that often make them more efficient. jstor.org/stable/2634781
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not really into this particular project, but using tokens to pay for club goods like mobile networks is a pretty big part of the magic spell. you just have to burn the tokens and have a "manifest destiny" vision for funding as many club goods as possible with the same token
Tomorrow I’m finally relaunching the telecommunication company I co-founded and you will be able to purchase phones, or month to month cell plans using $MOTHER or Sol 🥳 Ad campaign n rollout to follow late this week. Exciting 🙊
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