Recent content on Amitav Krishna
This is a science-fiction novel about a society in which human producers in the economy are mostly unnecessary. As for content warnings, it’s a little bit sad and makes reference to drugs and sex once or twice I believe but should be family-friendly overall. You can buy a copy here (not an affiliate link) or find the free version the author published online here . Spoilers ahead . Click here…
Summary of Gwern’s take in my own words: “We should create LLMs that are personalized to each person to the extent that they can act as a stand-in for that person.” The rest of the essay is mostly discussing the mechanisms that would enable that and/or the things that would enable. Gwern refers to this hypothetical LLM as a “guardian angel.” For the rest of this blog…
One action item for myself from this is to read this post by Neel Nanda on asking good questions. Summary Keep in touch with people, Organize things, Be sincere, Be lenient. Zotero item: G8DA5FQT
I’m not failing enough. Today I went to the gym, and I was doing my bench press, when a fellow walked over and corrected my grip; my grip was narrow, but to workout one’s chest one must use a moderate grip. I was thinking on the bicycle ride that that’s the first time in a few weeks I’ve really failed at something. I don’t think that’s a good thing. The times in…
Meta: This was written a few years ago when I was in grade 7, which is why much of the writing is terrible, many of the facts misleading and wrong, and why there are so many parentheticals (like this (and sometimes nested parentheticals too)). I may return to this one day and make it better, but don’t hold your breath. You can also see some discussion from when I posted this, on Reddit .
One thing I have pondered of late is what I wish to deliberately practice. These thoughts have been stoked by many pieces of writing, but one that has been especially great is Tyler Cowen’s piece on this topic. One great quote Cowen mentions is the following: What is it you do to train that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales? Sadly, I don’t have a great response to this! The…
This was googled in relation to this post: https://amitav.net/posts/on-animals.html . As you can see in the second photo, the penis of the dog is relatively prominent. I considered censoring it, but I don’t think it matters that much. Zotero item: LLKP3D3K
Meta: This is a blog-ified version of this X article Hey! Alongside my good friend Krishiv Thakuria , I will be doing a long(ish) tweet everyday for the next 21 days. One random thought I had today is that animals are really weird. Above, I have photographed a goose. A goose is a bird, and it’s alive[, definitely, but it’s also definitely not human. It’s quite small. It’s…
Hello! This was an interesting piece. I found it via https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1v4zjfj/chinese_6yearold_girl_dies_after_receiving/ Zotero item: D2NU36AK
I’m listening to “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles. I feel chill. In the morning I did some work for my religion work. {{REDACTED}} After that I ate dinner, biked to the gym, photographed some geese, and then wrote my geese post + this daily update while intermittently scrolling X.
Meta: This is a lightly-edited, blog-ified version of this X thread . 1/8 This is a terrible goose picture because the geese are confined to the bottom right corner, but it’s an okay photo in sum. Too busy though, it will be much better with some cropping. 2/8 I like the symmetry in this photo. The two geese in the front are facing the same way and look almost the same, which gives it a nice…
Today I did some [[school_hrt3mss]] work. I finished a few assignments. It’s crunch time because the course ends on Friday. {{REDACTED}} I also did a bunch of blog stuff. I want to sleep now. The blog stuff + x kept me up till 1 again :^(. Top up DeepSeek API key Figure out how to x-post these posts to substack automagically.
*Meta: This is a dynamic post, which means that it will be updated often. You can navigate through previous versions of all posts here . If you are non-technical, ask your favourite LLM for help. This is a non-exhaustive list of tools I use: Python, JAX, PyTorch, Quantum Espresso, Cirq, Jupyter Notebook, Marimo Notebook, OpenAI Codex, Ubuntu, i3, GitHub, Zotero (you can see my library here ). In…
This is a blog-ified version of this X thread: https://x.com/amitavkrshna/status/2079752248872050770 , with some minor edits. Also, these photos were actually taken yesterday, 2026-07-20, but I chose to exercise my free will and post them today instead. 1/7 I don’t like this one because the camera isn’t straight and the geese are far away. It will be okay after some cropping + rotation…
This is a test!
Today Tyler Cowen announced the 56th cohort of Emergent Ventures winners , one of whom was me!! I have money now! In addition, I received an email from {{REDACTED}} about being mentored, which seems cool! They’re a linguistics professor who dabbles in AI evaluation. One thing I noticed about their papers is that they have a much more prominently “academic” register. Reading…
Hello! Inspired by the neolab , I decided to read “The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect” by Roger WIlliams. Two things to start: there are SPOILERS AHEAD , and I would also like to repeat the author’s disclaimer from the book: This online novel contains strong language and extreme depictions of acts of sex and violence. Readers who are sensitive to such things should exercise…
This is a test of details sections I’m testing this because I read a book I want to discuss while giving people a good spoiler warning and this seems like the best method
It’s been quite a while since I’ve done an daily update. It’s been 8 days. Since 8 days ago I’ve done a little bit of work for the [[Org Material and Process Simulation Centre]] at Caltech. I defined a system-of-interest, BiVO_{4}, then today I started running some proof-of-concept experiments for converging the width of the slab, and tomorrow I want to run some for getting…
Seems quite crudely derogatory towards the U.S. and contradicts many of my priors. They argue that the reason for the revolution was primarily economic freedom from Britain’s meddling and not for democracy, backing this up with examples of many seemingly undemocratic parts of the government (supreme court, electoral college, etc.). They also argue that it was primarily a war waged by the…
Today I woke up quite late, around 11.00 EDT, because yesterday I slept relatively late (~03.00 EDT). I scrolled (x, email, whatsapp, reddit, etc.) for a few hours, until ~18.00 EDT, until I joined a coworking call with {{REDACTED}} and {{REDACTED}}. I created a plan with claude on how I’m going to review Ch121a-DFT , and then did some review. I learned that: the energy of a substance can be…
{{REDACTED}} Today I woke up, I took shower and whatnot, ate breakfast, scrolled X, left the house around 09.40, arrived at the gym, worked out, left around 11.20, biked down to a tim hortons. Yesterday I posted an unredacted version of my daily update by accident, so I had to scrape the github history clean and then “I”(claude) implemented a system so that all of my posts are screened…
This is a blog-ified version of this X thread: https://x.com/amitavkrshna/status/2074987857446318454 1/9 This was a bad photo, the geese are restricted to the upper left corner 2/9 Another mediocre photograph, though now there’s a single brave goose venturing into the top centre box 3/9 I like this one a little bit more, but the geese aren’t looking anywhere in particular which makes…
Preface Relatively unremarkable, the only notable thing is that he seemed quite pessimistic about the expected impact of his work, though I suppose pessimism is what I would expect. The preceding sentence was not intended to be derogatory. Introduction Ibid means that the same source cited. He refutes the idea that this conclusion that it is good to not exist is absurd. That conclusion is absurd,…
Hello! I’ve implemented a pre-screening on all of my posts by DeepSeek to screen for any information that’s private or personal or would otherwise be regrettable to put out to the public.
Today was a 5/10 day. I woke up and didn’t do a lot. I started scrolling X at 07.50 EDT. I tried to fix my backpack, got frustrated, scrolled X for a few hours, joined a call with {{REDACTED}}, fixed my mouse, scrolled more X, joined call with {{REDACTED}}, did some religion assignments and did {{REDACTED}} then scrolled more X + {{REDACTED}}, {{REDACTED}} came home, I had dinner + watched…
{{REDACTED}} Meta: It’s late as I’m writing this and there’s a lot of personal stuff interspersed throughout my journal, so I’ve decided to redact it all.
I am tired! I have not been posting for the last week, as I had procrastinated on many assignments and the end of the semester had been coming up. I had my math exam on Monday, and I believe I performed well. I have a history exam tomorrow, and I stayed up late tonight to study. I have had a problem with excessive amounts of X and {{REDACTED FOR CAREERIST REASONS}} and whatnot for the past few…
I’m sort of screwed when it comes to school right now. I procrastinated on my photography and french CCAs, both of which were due a few days ago and both of which I am not yet finished. I must finish those soon. Today in the morning I learned about Haskell, rewrote my math test (I think I did better than last time), then in computer science I goofed off and played games with my friends…
Today was an okay day. I finished my ICS3U CCA, did some of my photography CCA, and did some math review. Tomorrow I have a math rewrite for exponentials. I feel like I’m sort of being crushed by work because I had a french and photography CCA both due yesterday that I did not do, so I’m sort of screwed, there are three days left before exams “start” (my first exam is next…
L’égalité est-elle nécessairement juste ? (Translated to English) Is equality necessarily just? Taken from this nice list of 1996-2025 Philo Bac prompts To begin, we will consider equality to be that two identical inputs receive two identical outputs. Now, whether this equality is just , depends heavily on your definition of just: does justice mean that punishment is allocated mostly in proportion…
{{REDACTED FOR CAREERIST REASONS}} I did a little bit of work on my ICS3U culminating interpreter and on my IEEE qCCL poster, but not a whole lot. I wrote my MCR3U sequences and series test today. I was tired because yesterday I slept at 23.00 PDT, and had to wake up at 04.00 PDT for school, it’s technically 21.29 PDT right now but I probably won’t get up until 06.00 - 07.00 PDT…
I didn’t do a lot for most of the day, then in an hour I did a lot. Tomorrow I must work more.
I slept in today, spent a while in the bathtub, missed the bus, my dad drove me to school and I missed announcements. I took some photos for my photography CCA in the rain, got really wet, finished most of last night’s math homework, went to math class, then went to computer science, goofed off and did no work, went to French, goofed off some more, came home, {{REDACTED FOR LEGAL REASONS}},…
Chercher à être heureux, est-ce une quête égoïste ? (Translated to English) Is searching for happiness a self-centred quest? Taken from the happiness section of the 1996-2025 Philo Bac Prompts The self-centeredness of happiness depends on its specific form. Namely, there are two main types of happiness: pleasure and fulfilment. Pleasure is happiness in its most primitive form, while fulfilment is…
Hello guys! I worked out today (Upper B) for the first time since last week, had two meetings, and then goofed off for pretty much the rest of the night. Today I also started my computer science culminating assignmetn. Here’s Claude’s summary of my night from my browser history (all times in EDT): ~19:30–19:45 — Podcast / Reddit wind-down Started on Reddit reading about indie podcasts…
Hello! I have not posted for the past couple of days. To be completely honest, I forget a lot of what I have done for the past four days, yesterday I had a graduation party for my friend, Krishiv Thakuria , at which I was MC. I have not been keeping up with the Philo Bac prompts. {{REDACTED FOR CAREERIST REASONS}} I also figured out the logistics for how I will print my conference poster, my next…
Retrospective Today I did some work for 8090. I wrote an introduction as a response to one of the philo bac prompts as I had intended. I did some work for my computer science assignment. I did quite a bit of bicycling, and I also worked out today. Today was leg day, and around half way through I had seated leg curls, and I couldn’t find a leg curl machine, and I asked somebody and he pointed…
A-t-on besoin d’artistes ? (Translated to English) Do we need artists? Taken from the art notion section of the 1996-2025 Philo Bac prompts One might say that they are not necessary, because they don’t directly contribute to creating more food and water and all of the other bare essentials for life. Ask a starving man if he needs artists and he would say no, he needs more farmers. This…
Hey guys! I saw a post a few days ago on X about how the French write these big philosophy essays when they graduate, and I was like “Wow, that must be scary”, and then I thought “Hey, there’s no way the French are all smarter than me, why can’t I do that”, and so, I have decided that I will practice writing French-style dissertations. A big thing about these…
The year is over halfway over! That is sad. To the best of my knowledge, I have not accomplished much yet, mainly just finishing my paper and grant application to emergent ventures. I have also done some school work I believe. Hopefully after another 6 months, there will be less guessing because I will have these entries!
Hello! My name is Amitav! Today I did little work. This is bad. I read a lot of random things. I practiced competitive programming, completing question 2 from the 2011 CCC Senior division and getting stuck on question 4 before spending some time learning about max flow graphs, though tomorrow I must continue learning about them further. I finished listening to David Senra’s podcast on Claude…
I recently applied to Emergent Ventures for funding to continue my research on using neural networks to fix broken quantum measurements. Below is my full application. Describe your proposal in a tweet I’m using neural networks to fix broken quantum measurements. My work scaled prior results from 5 to 8 qubits, but I want to attack a bottleneck when scaling up the size of the models…
Hello! Quick throwaway post here. I was reading Normative Uncertainty by William MacAskill (Effective Altruism man) when I was flashbanged by the math. After some chatting with claude, apparently this is what makes analytic philosophy notable, as opposed to continental philosophy which is focused on society, culture, etc. What they don’t learn about apparently is analysis , which unlike…
(This is a now page , and if you have your own site, you should make one too.) (Last updated: 2026-05-20) Right now I’m an intern member of technical staff at 8090 Solutions , I’ve been accepted to present a poster at IEEE qCCL 2026 , so I’m currently revising my final paper and creating my poster, On the side I’m trying to become a more skilled researcher, whatever that…
Hello! My name is Amitav! A good summary of today is that I did some work that then was invalidated, so I’m feeling a bit deflated. I did quite a bit of work for 8090, but wasted quite a bit of time on setting up some infrastructure that was then nullified when my boss and I decided that it would make more sense for the system I’m working with to work with lighter-weight tools that…
Via slashdot . The news of the layoffs themselves aren’t that interesting, but the most interesting part was the news about them recording their employees to train their models. There’s more about this here , overall I think while I wouldn’t like to work somewhere where I’d be recorded for the entire day, for the purposes of replacing me no less, it is in interesting…
Hello, I am Amitav! This is actually my daily update to be first posted on my personal website, amitav.net, before being syndicated to substack (see this ). The biggest reason for this is that I have an admin portal now on my website, which gives me a snazzy interface with which to write my posts. You can see this for yourself here , though I will warn you that this is password restricted so that…
Hello! This is my first admin portal post, my previous posts have been uploaded manually using scp . The admin portal was created by my openclaw and allows me to write posts in a nice interface and is password protected.
The disconnect between Canada’s intellectual strength and its lack of private innovation fascinates and concerns me. Canada has produced pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, the Godfathers of AI, and innovations like the Canadarm and CANDU reactor. Yet few of these breakthroughs translate to jobs and prosperity here at home. Research is essential, but you can’t build an…