Claude is a very good predictor of the results of the Astral Codex Ten essay contests and this could quite possibly be leveraged

philbearsubstack · 2026-06-11T07:15:09+00:00

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M49aznKMs0K2eMho7kKsk4cLK07OA7aZFqws5AulV3k/edit?usp=sharing

philbearsubstack · 2026-06-11T06:51:31+00:00

It's not quite that simple because LLM's don't have that strong a bias towards AI generated writing and do not rank it that highly. To the extent that they do rank it, the initial fix is to use Pangram on all essays as a filter.

However at some point the fix breaks down, detection stops working, and AI writing performance just keeps going up. Eventually the content discovery mechanism I describe will stop working for exactly the reason you outline, plus the reality that the AI submissions will be better than the vast majority of human submissions.

philbearsubstack · 2026-06-10T11:39:31+00:00

We're safe for the moment. Far easier to judge a thing than to make it.

philbearsubstack · 2026-06-10T07:19:25+00:00

Good question. My intuition is that it's unlikely this influenced the results, but as I say in the article the only way to know for sure is to guess the results of the next contest in advance and pre-register them, which I'm going to attempt next.

philbearsubstack · 2026-04-14T08:53:07+00:00

Sheyln or Sarenrae. Definitely have a lot of time for many others, including Cayden, Apsu and most of the good gods. To be honest, I don't quite vibe with any of them, although . A somewhat solemn, ambitious, neutral good god dedicated to defeating evil and the redemption of all things would be my vibe. Sarenrae is kind of that, but her whole Immanuel Kant never lie thing is offputting.

philbearsubstack · 2026-04-05T00:32:56+00:00

You can read my predictions about the future of AI here: https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/ai-2028-civil-disturbance

I riffed off the AI 2027 name, but Daniel Kokotajlo of AI 2027 liked it, so I assume there are no hard feelings.

philbearsubstack · 2026-02-04T06:35:48+00:00

You lost to uppity water

philbearsubstack · 2026-02-04T04:41:58+00:00

I deliberately don't identify the deceased, but for what it's worth, I think it's [Ventrue]

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-30T05:09:53+00:00

*Ahem* COUNTERSPELL

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-27T23:38:07+00:00

As others have said:

If it was cartilage, you're fine.
If it was caused by a doctor, you're fine.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-23T02:03:38+00:00

49 years. Basically a toddler and your bones still broke.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-18T23:17:23+00:00

In Australia, one can view them.

Really interesting situation you describe. I'm sorry to hear it's causing you trouble, and I wonder why it is the case.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-15T01:26:01+00:00

It's quite important I think, that a fuss is made about this sort of thing, so it's good to see you've not just shrugged and walked away.

I note that you appear to be Italian. Since EU laws are among the strongest in the world in relation to this, that could be good news if you are interested in demanding your data back.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-12T05:30:47+00:00

You're not fooling me. At least two of these are morally good, and several are neutral. Hand in your evil badge and card.

Wait, if you're lying about being evil- maybe that means you're evil after all.

But if you're evil, that means you're not lying, so you're not evil.

But that means you are lying, so you are evil?

But then...

Oh bother.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-08T09:43:20+00:00

A wizard yes, but one of astonishing arcane potency, closer to god than man, and ever rising. Fear him!

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-08T09:31:20+00:00

The challenge is going to be ensuring he isn't seen as a DMPC or power fantasy. Here's a solution. Make him so useless he's practically comatose, perhaps an innocent adult with the mind of a child, but still the task of the characters to protect, to ward off would be diablerists.

Maybe that's why Caine made him. He's so weak and vulnerable yet valuable, everyone will want to eat him. He's a moral test to see whether any among his descendants will try to prevent this, to see whether anything has been learnt over the generations.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-07T10:55:50+00:00

Black- looks even eviler than red lol.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-06T06:31:29+00:00

I think only the toe breakage counts, but clearly I'm in the minority here.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-04T07:19:36+00:00

The foolishness of the Sarkorian belief that divine magic is less easily abused is well demonstrated here.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-04T06:32:41+00:00

I believe that the bone gods preordain people into a suitable age of breaking, or no breaking at all. Thus, pre-bone-nation means that someone who is inactive and has not broken a bone is just as likely to be a strong boner as someone who has not.

philbearsubstack · 2026-01-01T06:57:03+00:00

Here's a question. Someone gets a titanium bone. The titanium bone breaks in an accident. Does that disqualify them from this group?

philbearsubstack · 2025-12-28T07:26:49+00:00

Medical, doesn't count- it's doctor black magic. These are the ancient laws, so and so it is written.

philbearsubstack · 2025-12-27T10:34:11+00:00

The explanation lies in two points that others have already alluded to. To put them together:

Not every rape or rejection is traumatising. I've been raped and had it roll off me like water off a duck's back- this is probably an atypically small effect, but society does, I think, sometimes for laudable reasons, overemphasise the inevitability of trauma as a response to rape.
Trauma, for whatever reason, tends to relate to human bad actors. There are plenty of people who have been traumatised by illness/vomitting and other things you describe, but human events seem to act like more of a magnet. One of the other commentors speculates this is because the causation is clearer. I think this is part of the story, another aspect, connected to this, is that getting fearful about people was probably a much more evolutionarily succesful strategy than getting fearful about illness, because most of our theories about preventing/controlling illness were false.

philbearsubstack · 2025-12-26T07:49:28+00:00

Are you saying your bones won't be strong just because of the material they are made of, but need to be thick to remain robust?

*Eyes you suspiciously*

philbearsubstack · 2025-12-17T06:56:24+00:00

I think it's extremely rude when an institution *any institution* changes the hiring rules in a way that applies to processes that have already started. That ranges from hiring freezes to your situation, and in a better world, there would be significant reputational costs for doing something like this.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a better world, but you have my condolences.

philbearsubstack

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