Best LessWrong Podcasts (2025)

1
“The Memetics of AI Successionism” by Jan_Kulveit 21:27

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1d ago21:27

21:27

TL;DR: AI progress and the recognition of associated risks are painful to think about. This cognitive dissonance acts as fertile ground in the memetic landscape, a high-energy state that will be exploited by novel ideologies. We can anticipate cultural evolution will find viable successionist ideologies: memeplexes that resolve this tension by fram…

1
Bits and bricks: Oliver Habryka on LessWrong, LightHaven, and community infrastructure 1:14:44

24d ago1:14:44

1:14:44

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Oliver Habryka, who runs Lightcone Infrastructure—the organization behind both the LessWrong forum and the Lighthaven conference venue in Berkeley. They explore how LessWrong became one of the most intellectually consequential forums on the internet, the surprising challenges of running a hotel with fractal g…

1
“How Well Does RL Scale?” by Toby_Ord 16:11

2d ago16:11

16:11

This is the latest in a series of essays on AI Scaling. You can find the others on my site. Summary: RL-training for LLMs scales surprisingly poorly. Most of its gains are from allowing LLMs to productively use longer chains of thought, allowing them to think longer about a problem. There is some improvement for a fixed length of answer, but not en…

1
“An Opinionated Guide to Privacy Despite Authoritarianism” by TurnTrout 7:59

2d ago7:59

7:59

I've created a highly specific and actionable privacy guide, sorted by importance and venturing several layers deep into the privacy iceberg. I start with the basics (password manager) but also cover the obscure (dodging the millions of Bluetooth tracking beacons which extend from stores to traffic lights; anti-stingray settings; flashing GrapheneO…

1
Home improvement lending with fewer bankers and more computers 28:48

3d ago28:48

28:48

In this episode, Patrick McKenzie reads his essay about the financial infrastructure that makes buying windows painless. When a window installer can originate, underwrite, and fund a $25,000 loan in 15 minutes before leaving your house, it's because four parties—window companies, facilitating platforms, specialized banks, and capital providers—have…

1
“Cancer has a surprising amount of detail” by Abhishaike Mahajan 23:54

3d ago23:54

23:54

There is a very famous essay titled ‘Reality has a surprising amount of detail’. The thesis of the article is that reality is filled, just filled, with an incomprehensible amount of materially important information, far more than most people would naively expect. Some of this detail is inherent in the physical structure of the universe, and the res…

1
249 – Red Heart and IABIED with Max Harms 2:08:06

3d ago2:08:06

2:08:06

We talk with Max Harms on the air for the first time since 2017! He’s got a new book coming out (pre-order your copy here or at Amazon) and we spend about the first half talking about If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. LINKS Max’s first book, Crystal Society Eneasz’s audiobook of about the first two thirds of the first book And the official audiob…

1
“AIs should also refuse to work on capabilities research” by Davidmanheim 6:34

4d ago6:34

6:34

There's a strong argument that humans should stop trying to build more capable AI systems, or at least slow down progress. The risks are plausibly large but unclear, and we’d prefer not to die. But the roadmaps of the companies pursuing these systems envision increasingly agentic AI systems taking over the key tasks of researching and building supe…

1
“On Fleshling Safety: A Debate by Klurl and Trapaucius.” by Eliezer Yudkowsky 2:22:21

5d ago2:22:21

2:22:21

(23K words; best considered as nonfiction with a fictional-dialogue frame, not a proper short story.) Prologue: Klurl and Trapaucius were members of the machine race. And no ordinary citizens they, but Constructors: licensed, bonded, and insured; proven, experienced, and reputed. Together Klurl and Trapaucius had collaborated on such famed artifice…

1
“EU explained in 10 minutes” by Martin Sustrik 16:47

8d ago16:47

16:47

If you want to understand a country, you should pick a similar country that you are already familiar with, research the differences between the two and there you go, you are now an expert. But this approach doesn’t quite work for the European Union. You might start, for instance, by comparing it to the United States, assuming that EU member countri…

1
“Cheap Labour Everywhere” by Morpheus 3:38

8d ago3:38

3:38

I recently visited my girlfriend's parents in India. Here is what that experience taught me: Yudkowsky has this facebook post where he makes some inferences about the economy after noticing two taxis stayed in the same place while he got his groceries. I had a few similar experiences while I was in India, though sadly I don't remember them in enoug…

1
[Linkpost] “Consider donating to AI safety champion Scott Wiener” by Eric Neyman 2:35

9d ago2:35

2:35

This is a link post. Written in my personal capacity. Thanks to many people for conversations and comments. Written in less than 24 hours; sorry for any sloppiness. It's an uncanny, weird coincidence that the two biggest legislative champions for AI safety in the entire country announced their bids for Congress just two days apart. But here we are.…

1
“Which side of the AI safety community are you in?” by Max Tegmark 4:18

9d ago4:18

4:18

In recent years, I’ve found that people who self-identify as members of the AI safety community have increasingly split into two camps: Camp A) "Race to superintelligence safely”: People in this group typically argue that "superintelligence is inevitable because of X”, and it's therefore better that their in-group (their company or country) build i…

1
“Doomers were right” by Algon 4:35

9d ago4:35

4:35

There's an argument I sometimes hear against existential risks, or any other putative change that some are worried about, that goes something like this: 'We've seen time after time that some people will be afraid of any change. They'll say things like "TV will destroy people's ability to read", "coffee shops will destroy the social order","machines…

1
Talking to the Bank of England about systemic risk and systems engineering 1:31:37

10d ago1:31:37

1:31:37

Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) shares his remarks to the Bank of England on critical vulnerabilities in financial infrastructure. Drawing from the July 2024 CrowdStrike outage which brought down teller systems at major US banks, Patrick discusses how regulatory guidance inadvertently created dangerous software monocultures. He also examines the stable…

1
“Do One New Thing A Day To Solve Your Problems” by Algon 3:21

10d ago3:21

3:21

People don't explore enough. They rely on cached thoughts and actions to get through their day. Unfortunately, this doesn't lead to them making progress on their problems. The solution is simple. Just do one new thing a day to solve one of your problems. Intellectually, I've always known that annoying, persistent problems often require just 5 secon…

1
“Humanity Learned Almost Nothing From COVID-19” by niplav 8:45

12d ago8:45

8:45

Summary: Looking over humanity's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, almostsix years later, reveals that we've forgotten to fulfill our intent atpreparing for the next pandemic. I rant. content warning: A single carefully placed slur. If we want to create a world free of pandemics and other biologicalcatastrophes, the time to act is now. —US White H…

1
“Consider donating to Alex Bores, author of the RAISE Act” by Eric Neyman 50:28

12d ago50:28

50:28

Written by Eric Neyman, in my personal capacity. The views expressed here are my own. Thanks to Zach Stein-Perlman, Jesse Richardson, and many others for comments. Over the last several years, I’ve written a bunch of posts about politics and political donations. In this post, I’ll tell you about one of the best donation opportunities that I’ve ever…

1
“Meditation is dangerous” by Algon 7:26

12d ago7:26

7:26

Here's a story I've heard a couple of times. A youngish person is looking for some solutions to their depression, chronic pain, ennui or some other cognitive flaw. They're open to new experiences and see a meditator gushing about how amazing meditation is for joy, removing suffering, clearing one's mind, improving focus etc. They invite the young p…

1
“That Mad Olympiad” by Tomás B. 26:41

13d ago26:41

26:41

"I heard Chen started distilling the day after he was born. He's only four years old, if you can believe it. He's written 18 novels. His first words were, "I'm so here for it!" Adrian said. He's my little brother. Mom was busy in her world model. She says her character is like a "villainess" or something - I kinda worry it's a sex thing. It's for s…

1
“The ‘Length’ of ‘Horizons’” by Adam Scholl 14:15

16d ago14:15

14:15

Current AI models are strange. They can speak—often coherently, sometimes even eloquently—which is wild. They can predict the structure of proteins, beat the best humans at many games, recall more facts in most domains than human experts; yet they also struggle to perform simple tasks, like using computer cursors, maintaining basic logical consiste…

1
Narrative, mastery, and character bleed in games, with Ricki Heicklen 1:31:19

17d ago1:31:19

1:31:19

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined again by Ricki Heicklen to discuss Metagame 2025, a conference where 250 attendees were divided into Purple and Orange teams competing for territories across campus. Patrick built a complete roguelike RPG in 25 days using LLMs, discovering that providing minimal world-building context transformed generic fantasy…

1
248 – Seeking Alpha, with Jay 1:43:12

17d ago1:43:12

1:43:12

Jay talks with us about finding Alpha – returns above the base rate – in every day life (and what this means). LINKS Optimize Everything, Jay’s substack Jay on Twitter Arbor Trading Bootcamp Kelsey’s argument that We Need To Be Able To Sue AI Companies 00:00:05 – Alpha with Jay 01:28:53 – Guild of the Rose 01:31:00 – Miscellanea 01:40:58 – Thank th…

1
“Don’t Mock Yourself” by Algon 4:10

18d ago4:10

4:10

About half a year ago, I decided to try stop insulting myself for two weeks. No more self-deprecating humour, calling myself a fool, or thinking I'm pathetic. Why? Because it felt vaguely corrosive. Let me tell you how it went. Spoiler: it went well. The first thing I noticed was how often I caught myself about to insult myself. It happened like mu…

1
“If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies, a semi-outsider review” by dvd 26:01

18d ago26:01

26:01

About me and this review: I don’t identify as a member of the rationalist community, and I haven’t thought much about AI risk. I read AstralCodexTen and used to read Zvi Mowshowitz before he switched his blog to covering AI. Thus, I’ve long had a peripheral familiarity with LessWrong. I picked up IABIED in response to Scott Alexander's review, and …

1
“The Most Common Bad Argument In These Parts” by J Bostock 8:11

20d ago8:11

8:11

I've noticed an antipattern. It's definitely on the dark pareto-frontier of "bad argument" and "I see it all the time amongst smart people". I'm confident it's the worst, common argument I see amongst rationalists and EAs. I don't normally crosspost to the EA forum, but I'm doing it now. I call it Exhaustive Free Association. Exhaustive Free Associ…

1
“Towards a Typology of Strange LLM Chains-of-Thought” by 1a3orn 17:34

22d ago17:34

17:34

Intro LLMs being trained with RLVR (Reinforcement Learning from Verifiable Rewards) start off with a 'chain-of-thought' (CoT) in whatever language the LLM was originally trained on. But after a long period of training, the CoT sometimes starts to look very weird; to resemble no human language; or even to grow completely unintelligible. Why might th…

1
“I take antidepressants. You’re welcome” by Elizabeth 6:09

22d ago6:09

6:09

It's amazing how much smarter everyone else gets when I take antidepressants. It makes sense that the drugs work on other people, because there's nothing in me to fix. I am a perfect and wise arbiter of not only my own behavior but everyone else's, which is a heavy burden because some of ya’ll are terrible at life. You date the wrong people. You ta…

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LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

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The Bayesian Conspiracy

The Bayesian Conspiracy

1
Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

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Heart of the Matter

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1
“The Memetics of AI Successionism” by Jan_Kulveit 21:27

1
Bits and bricks: Oliver Habryka on LessWrong, LightHaven, and community infrastructure 1:14:44

1
“How Well Does RL Scale?” by Toby_Ord 16:11

1
“An Opinionated Guide to Privacy Despite Authoritarianism” by TurnTrout 7:59

1
Home improvement lending with fewer bankers and more computers 28:48

1
“Cancer has a surprising amount of detail” by Abhishaike Mahajan 23:54

1
249 – Red Heart and IABIED with Max Harms 2:08:06

1
“AIs should also refuse to work on capabilities research” by Davidmanheim 6:34

1
“On Fleshling Safety: A Debate by Klurl and Trapaucius.” by Eliezer Yudkowsky 2:22:21

1
“EU explained in 10 minutes” by Martin Sustrik 16:47

1
“Cheap Labour Everywhere” by Morpheus 3:38

1
[Linkpost] “Consider donating to AI safety champion Scott Wiener” by Eric Neyman 2:35

1
“Which side of the AI safety community are you in?” by Max Tegmark 4:18

1
“Doomers were right” by Algon 4:35

1
Talking to the Bank of England about systemic risk and systems engineering 1:31:37

1
“Do One New Thing A Day To Solve Your Problems” by Algon 3:21

1
“Humanity Learned Almost Nothing From COVID-19” by niplav 8:45

1
“Consider donating to Alex Bores, author of the RAISE Act” by Eric Neyman 50:28

1
“Meditation is dangerous” by Algon 7:26

1
“That Mad Olympiad” by Tomás B. 26:41

1
“The ‘Length’ of ‘Horizons’” by Adam Scholl 14:15

1
Narrative, mastery, and character bleed in games, with Ricki Heicklen 1:31:19

1
248 – Seeking Alpha, with Jay 1:43:12

1
“Don’t Mock Yourself” by Algon 4:10

1
“If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies, a semi-outsider review” by dvd 26:01

1
“The Most Common Bad Argument In These Parts” by J Bostock 8:11

1
“Towards a Typology of Strange LLM Chains-of-Thought” by 1a3orn 17:34

1
“I take antidepressants. You’re welcome” by Elizabeth 6:09