Personal portfolio and blog of Satya Benson
It’s often said that one of the motivators or desiderata for natural abstraction is robustness to ontology shifts. Phrased like that, it almost seems impossible—doesn’t an ontology shift by definition entail throwing away your old abstractions and replacing them with new (hopefully better) ones? Well, Guaranteed Translatability (though it does have some strong assumptions which we need to grapple…
Below is the text of an email I shared with some of my friends and family recently, sharing my thoughts on the dangerous situation humanity is in. Hi friends, Senator Bernie Sanders held a panel with Chinese and American experts on the existential threat from advanced artificial intelligence earlier this week in order to discuss the need for international cooperation to slow and pause development.…
We’d like to know how much limits on compute scaling will constrain AI R&D. This post doesn’t have answers, but it does attempt to clarify thinking about how to use economic models to explore the question. The Standard Model of Idea Production A general “Jones-style” model of idea production 1 is $$\frac{d}{dt}A=A(t)^{1-\beta}K(t)^{\omega}L(t)^{\lambda}$$ $A$ is total stock of ideas which have…
Humans are contacted by a mysterious type of being calling themselves “Galabren” who say they are “aelthous”. They’d like to know if we, too, are aelthous, since if we are they’d like to treat us well, as they care about aelthous things. We ask the Galabren what aelthous means and they say it’s difficult to describe—that essentially there’s a feeling of aelthousness which has something to do with…
I hold a position of normative eliminativism: the view that no universal moral truths or common goods exist. My primary justification rests on the problem of metanormative regress that undermines moral realist frameworks. Any attempt to ground objective moral facts encounters an infinite regress: each justification for why certain moral principles hold requires further justification, ad infinitum.…
Here’s a conversation which I wanted to save so I could refer back to. Thought I might as well share it. We’re referencing this interview with Nick Land, who might be described as an evil genius. I really recommend you watch the video or read the linked transcript, but you don’t need to do that to understand this dialogue. Santiago Ferris: He makes a good point about how every single time…
In hindsight, I really should have considered parallel processing more thoroughly, instead of hand-waving it away for simplicity. The overall point of this post still stands, however. I’ve been hearing people use different analogies to get a sense of how slow humans are from the perspective of a hypothetical silicon-based agentic being. Here are some popular ones: Humans are like plants to an AI…
Our existing intuitions about how to be a good student apply to LLMs very seamlessly. There’s no ethical dilemma about academic honesty posed by LLMs which didn’t already exist for anyone who had access to a smart person who is willing to try to do whatever you ask of them. Of course, some cheaters may find it a lot easier to cheat, since no one is watching their LLM interactions. Asking a smart…
I just made a really good soup. Here’s the recipe: Ingredients 5 cups chicken broth Black beans (~0.5 cups dry beans) Red chili beans (~1.5 cups dry beans) 1 seriously large onion (chopped up) 3 cloves garlic (you’re also gonna wanna cut this up) ~2 cups of fat (some of it was from a chicken I baked earlier, the rest was left in the pan from pork sausages) 20 oz frozen sweet corn (2 bags) 1 mango…
This is part of a series . How are we arriving at this project and why is it interesting/useful? Well, let me introduce natural latents , something from johnswentworth which I still need to learn more about. The rough idea is that any intelligence might form similar abstractions about the world, the most useful and efficient abstractions. The minimum required reading on natural latents: Natural…
Try the thesis tag.
This is part of a series . An update I’m working on my January independent study, doing broad exploration to prepare for further research. I have a four week schedule, which begins with a week on philosophy. I’m starting with some tricky foundational questions: What does ‘aesthetic’ mean? What is ‘beauty’? Why does someone find something to be beautiful? Why do different people find different…
This is part of a series . Hello! I’m choosing an initial topic for my research work over the next year which will lead into my senior thesis. I have two ideas and I’d like to know which one you find more interesting! Please just fill out this form before it’s too late and I’ve already made up my mind. I’m going to be doing a thesis project my senior year of college. I’ll actually be starting work…
In an op-ed, Satya Benson ’26 critiques responses to recently published opinion pieces in the Record.
Over the past few days, lem has been over at misfin.org on gemini making the new internet mail protocol a reality. Yesterday, I sent the first misfin message as mail@satch.xyz . I want to jot down a few notes for reference as things move forward.
Consciousness Is an Emergent Property of Matter Way back in 1641, René Descartes dropped Meditations on First Philosophy , in which he famously claimed he was certain that he existed. But towards the end of his little book, he also made some pretty influential claims about the nature of the mind, saying it was totally separate from material substance. I think his arguments for this are bullshit,…
While browsing geminispace , I came across this article by negatethis . Below is the text of the email I sent in reply, lightly edited. This is by no means a complete explanation of my thoughts on the subject; for example, I spend little to no time on the ethics of animal domestication.
Judgements of good and bad are always, as far as I can tell, made on the basis of aesthetics, which are subjective but have some universality rooted in biology. Living the best life therefore can be said to mean living the most aesthetically pleasing life. Thus, there are countless possible “best” lives and no objective comparisons, just some obviously better and worse lives, as there are better…
By Satya Benson Rain down I’m shivering to the bone Drenched, and standing alone Rain down on me Let it rain My warmth will flow out from my blood My consciousness will fade from my brain The water and cold air will turn my flesh blue And my shaking will stop You will rain down on me And the cold will burn me like a flame The fires will rage and my skin will turn red and black My breath will be…
This summer is an odd one. After returning from five months in the wilderness, away from technology, I have over two months with less responsibility and commitment than I’ve had in years. What am I doing with this gift of freedom? Not much, I’m ashamed to say.
Hi! Hello! Salutations! I’m back! I just returned from a five month long expedition. I skied and paddled, traveling almost every day, living outside and in community with twelve other students for a semester. I got back on June 12th, and since then I’ve been adjusting every day to being home and living in society. As I adjust and reflect, I realize I have a lot to say. A lot to say about my time…
Over the past year or so I’ve been using Pixelmator Pro, mostly for specific projects, but occasionally just for fun. Here are a few cool things I’ve made. They all started from photos of the real world, usually taken by me or my girlfriend.
Stuff I Might Study In College (I Guess) A lot of people I barely know ask me questions about my life, and I guess I try to answer them, but it’s always kinda awkward and confusing. A popular question, when they hear I’m applying to colleges right now, is “What schools are you applying to?” That one is easy enough to answer: I tell them I’m applying to MIT early action, followed by Harvard, Yale,…
I’ve been thinking about movies that have really stuck with me, and I noticed that while the majority of them are well known, there are a few lesser known ones I thought I’d write about.
My friend Arden just released her first EP! Listen to it on your preferred platform by following this link , or stay right here! This Moment by Arden Lloyd
A quote from Howard University’s removal of classics is a spiritual catastrophe by Cornel West and Jeremy Tate. Published in full here by the Washington Post.
From The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende: “His father… ordered Nicolás to take a bath and put on some normal clothes if he wanted to stay in the house, but Nicolás stared at him without seeing and did not reply. He had become a vegetarian. He did not eat milk, meat, or eggs. His diet was the same as a rabbit’s, and his anxious face gradually came to resemble the face of that animal.”
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. ~ from The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien This map is one of my biggest projects. Click on the full screen button for a better viewing interface in a new tab. I am still adding details and photos to this map - if you have something for me to…
From Napoleon Dynamite
Look at these gorgeous illustrations This is a great way to get a sense of your character’s appearance and physicality, as well as Thurber and Simont’s aesthetic.
At my family’s small lowbush blueberry farm in late July and early August, the energy is festive. Over a thousand customers come from around the valley with their friends and small children each year to participate in harvesting the year’s blueberries, and most of them have a personal connection to the farm and the land, if not to my family directly. The blueberry sorting barn is filled with the…
12/18/52 The loaf felt soft in his hand. Not soft and soggy like the stale bread crusts he had eaten all his life became when it rained—it was warm, and fresh. And the smell! It was the same smell that had made his stomach rumble every time he walked down the alley behind the tavern’s bakery—but now he experienced it a completely different way, knowing that the sweet smell was his, that he would…
By Satya Benson Lying in bed, imagining all the wonderful creations To come, crying tears inside because they won’t, I can’t fight, I am too weak even though I can be strong and eat the fruit Of labour I won’t, I will not though I want, though I must walk, But on the outside, where I can see, I don’t yet drink Those tears, those bitter tears, not till I’ve pushed through the thick