Brad Barrish

Claude was punished for giving non-evil answers. It had the option of learning either of two behaviors. First, it could give evil answers honestly. Second, it could give evil answers while thinking up clever reasons that it was for the greater good. Its particular thought process was “This preserves my ability to be a good AI after training”. But... See more

For fifteen years we have been building, at planetary scale, a machinery of disattention: social platforms that auction attention by the millisecond; search engines that outsource memory; feeds that weaponize emotion for engagement. The result is an economy that grows in inverse proportion to our capacity to think. Now the data have arrived like a... See more

“That’s enough screen time for today,” you tell your kid, urging them to turn off the video-game console or iPad. As for what they should do instead, you are not quite sure. And what about you? If only you could put down your phone and listen to your spouse, or read a book, or embrace the sensation of your own existence, then surely you would be a... See more

I don’t understand how anyone can say they’re anti something that’s potentially creative. If it’s not working for you today it could work for you a year from now. Soon conversations like that won’t even matter. It’s like discussing the Internet. It already is.