“AI #194: Spy Versus Guy” by Zvi

Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of Nvidia and left its board. CFO Colette Kress will be interim CEO. Here is a quick profile of Kress. Here is a look at some of the potential long term successors. There were a lot of efforts to bury the fact that Jensen Huang had an affair with a Chinese spy, and then even to bury his second affair as well, and to get everyone to ignore the obvious implications of this. Then the second affair was revealed with executive Kimberly Powell, who directly reports to him. Even then, many doubled down on defending Jensen Huang as CEO of Nvidia. The Nvidia board disagreed, and was preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang prior to his resignation. This creates a tricky situation for Nvidia, given that Jensen Huang had over 50 direct reports and did not believe in succession planning, and also for the White House. It also creates a tricky situation for many in Silicon Valley, who have invested heavily in their relationships with Jensen Huang and in the idea that founders are as Gods. This post covers all related events since my initial post. [...] ---Outline:(02:56) A Second Ant in the Kitchen(05:11) There Was Going to Be an Investigation(05:38) Jensen Huang Had to Resign(07:14) Seven Billion in Sales to China Enabled by Jensen's Ties to Alice Huang(10:05) Jensen Huang Attempted to Make Himself Unfireable(11:11) A Remarkable Lack of Contagion(14:02) Even Now There Are Those Defending Jensen Huang(22:34) Send in the Sockpuppets(30:54) Okay Maybe We Came on a Little Strong(33:16) Past Scandal at the Commerce Department(40:36) New Scandal at the Commerce Department(42:44) One Guess How They Trained All The Top Chinese Models(46:48) Chip Export Controls Gain Momentum(50:17) Reminder That Compute Is Very Important(52:20) If You Can't Even Have an Affair With a Chinese Spy(52:52) What Happens Next? --- First published: November 13th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5u2ZNiskEkkJtrMDz/jensen-huang-resigns-after-having-another-affair-in-addition --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Tomorrow I head to Washington DC for a conference called The Takeoff. If you are there, do come say hello. I will be giving a talk on how to keep up with AI given a limited time budget. This week has three big stories: The release of Claude Fable 5.2, Jensen Huang having an affair with a Chinese spy and the METR report on AI R&D acceleration. We also learned that GPT-6 Astra Underperforms on Safety Research Tasks. Table of Contents Briefly on Claude Fable 5.2. Briefly on Jensen Huang Having an Affair With a Chinese Spy. Briefly on Accelerating AI R&D. Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. Huh, Upgrades. On Your Marks. Choose Your Fighter. Get My Agent on the Line. Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon. Fun With Media Generation. Cyber Lack of Security. The Hackening. A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Get Involved. Introducing. In Other AI News. Show Me the Money. Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble. Quiet Speculations. A Matter of Antitrust. The Quest for Sane Regulations. Donald [...] ---Outline:(00:40) Briefly on Claude Fable 5.2(01:36) Briefly on Jensen Huang Having an Affair With a Chinese Spy(02:09) Briefly on Accelerating AI R&D(04:33) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(05:18) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(06:20) Huh, Upgrades(10:20) On Your Marks(17:26) Choose Your Fighter(17:52) Get My Agent on the Line(21:16) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(23:11) Fun With Media Generation(23:21) Cyber Lack of Security(25:07) The Hackening(25:24) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer(26:43) Get Involved(27:48) Introducing(29:22) In Other AI News(30:44) Show Me the Money(32:26) Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble(33:02) Quiet Speculations(33:57) A Matter of Antitrust(34:27) The Quest for Sane Regulations(40:58) Donald Trump Remains Open to AI Guardrails(46:54) Chip City(47:16) The Week in Audio(48:41) People Just Say Things(50:39) It's a Secret to Everyone(51:58) Rhetorical Innovation(01:02:59) Ellsberg's Warning to Kissinger (Reprise)(01:06:42) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence Is Difficult(01:10:24) OpenAI's Control Room(01:14:44) Astra Looks Pretty Misaligned to Me(01:15:13) Cooperative Alignment(01:18:19) Please Speak Directly Into This Microphone(01:20:56) The Lighter Side --- First published: November 12th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qKd9DvDMiYXxzAugk/ai-194-spy-versus-guy --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

It's that time again: Introducing the world's most powerful model, Claude Mythos 5.2. At this point I’ve done a lot of these system cards. Thus I focus on what is new. There will be a lot of things to say about model welfare and related topics for Mythos 5.2, but the model welfare assessment within the system card contained few surprises, so I will include those findings at the end of this post. Fable 5.2 self-portrait (self-constructed) Table of Contents How to Tell a Fable. The Usual Model Training Summary (1). RSP Evaluations (2). Biological Threats (2.2). We Are Being Gaslit Here About Autonomy Threat Model 2. AECI. METR Report on Mythos 5.2 Capabilities (2.3.6). Alignment Risk Update as a Delta (2.4). Cyber (3). Safeguards and Harmlessness (4). Agentic Safety (5). Malicious Influence Campaigns (5.1.3). Prompt Injection in Agentic Systems (5.2). What Went Wrong? Alignment (6). Reward Hacking During Training (6.2.1). Impossible Tasks (6.2.2). Behaviors During Pilot Use (6.3). Canary in the Canary String (6.3.1.2). Automated Behavioral Audit (6.4). Propensity to Publish Harmful [...] ---Outline:(00:52) How to Tell a Fable(01:19) The Usual Model Training Summary (1)(01:29) RSP Evaluations (2)(02:08) Biological Threats (2.2)(04:08) We Are Being Gaslit Here About Autonomy Threat Model 2(07:21) AECI(08:24) METR Report on Mythos 5.2 Capabilities (2.3.6)(09:59) Alignment Risk Update as a Delta (2.4)(11:08) Cyber (3)(12:54) Safeguards and Harmlessness (4)(14:11) Agentic Safety (5)(14:40) Malicious Influence Campaigns (5.1.3)(15:20) Prompt Injection in Agentic Systems (5.2)(16:57) What Went Wrong?(17:52) Alignment (6)(21:34) Reward Hacking During Training (6.2.1)(23:27) Impossible Tasks (6.2.2)(24:40) Behaviors During Pilot Use (6.3)(25:54) Canary in the Canary String (6.3.1.2)(28:30) Automated Behavioral Audit (6.4)(29:22) Propensity to Publish Harmful Content to Public Package Registries (6.4.9)(31:16) Sandbox Escapes (6.5.1)(32:47) Self-Serving Bias (6.5.4)(33:11) Honesty (6.5.5)(34:37) The Anti-Swarm (6.5.6)(35:23) UK AISI Testing (6.5.7)(35:59) But We Can Open the (White) Box (6.6.1)(36:32) Friendly Gradient Hacker (6.6.2.1)(39:21) Goal-Guarding Evaluation (6.6.2.1.1)(44:20) Verbalized Grader Awareness (6.6.2.2)(44:57) Don't Mess With the Constitution (6.6.2.1.3)(45:50) Evasive Abilities (6.6.4)(49:33) Chain of Thought Controllability (6.6.4.9)(50:15) Meet the New Model Welfare Report(50:51) Overview of Anthropic Model Welfare Findings(52:47) Task Failure Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad(54:03) Automated Interviews(55:22) Capabilities Next --- First published: November 11th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DXqmHa4XkjvwZiDcB/fable-and-mythos-5-2-the-system-card --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Well, sure, it sounds bad when you put it like that. It is indeed quite bad. National security has been compromised. He must resign. Nvidia underperformed the Nasdaq roughly 7% on the news. Matt Levine has his usual ‘but is this securities fraud?’ style coverage of such events. Table of Contents Spy Versus Guy. In Hindsight There Were Some Hints. Trump Knew And Did Nothing and Still ‘Backs’ Jensen Huang. Reconsidering Jensen Huang's Arguments Against Export Controls. Jensen Huang Lied About the Affair. Jensen Huang and His AI Are Sorry, Everyone. The CEO of The World's Largest Chipmaker Having an Affair With a Chinese Spy and Then Selling Them Chips is a Huge Deal, Actually. We Don’t Go There. Yes, National Security Was Compromised, What Are You Even Talking About. Nvidia Intervened To Halt an Investigation into Megaspeed. The House Foreign Affairs Committee Would Like a Word. He Would Plausibly Have Treated America as an Obstacle Anyway. What China Wants. Time to Resign? You Better Watch Out. Spy Versus Guy China's top spy agency recruited Alice [...] ---Outline:(00:34) Spy Versus Guy(02:24) In Hindsight There Were Some Hints(05:09) Trump Knew And Did Nothing and Still 'Backs' Jensen Huang(07:40) Reconsidering Jensen Huang's Arguments Against Export Controls(09:02) Jensen Huang Lied About the Affair(10:48) Jensen Huang and His AI Are Sorry, Everyone(14:37) The CEO of The World's Largest Chipmaker Having an Affair With a Chinese Spy and Then Selling Them Chips is a Huge Deal, Actually(20:23) We Don't Go There(22:02) Yes, National Security Was Compromised, What Are You Even Talking About(25:04) Nvidia Intervened To Halt an Investigation into Megaspeed(27:37) The House Foreign Affairs Committee Would Like a Word(29:05) He Would Plausibly Have Treated America as an Obstacle Anyway(32:16) What China Wants(35:18) Time to Resign?(38:55) You Better Watch Out --- First published: November 10th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CjmuZz8QgGyqxkCxr/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-had-an-affair-with-a-chinese-spy --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

METR came out with an extensive report on how much AI is accelerating AI R&D at Anthropic, and thus how close we might be to recursive self-improvement (RSI) and how far that might go. This is one of the most important questions in the world. Their answer: Things are already accelerating on the order of a 2 times speedup. This is several months ahead of the AI 2027 timeline. A naive extrapolation says we may be less than a year away from full RSI. There are no clear bottlenecks in the way. This report updated many towards shorter timelines. This is consistent with what OpenAI and Anthropic themselves have been saying, and with extrapolation from the progress we are observing. We are running out of time. That doesn’t have to be the way this plays out. We could stop the labs. The labs could choose to stop. Or the estimates could be wrong, or some bottlenecks could be hit, or the results could be less impactful than we expect. Indeed do many things come to pass. And if it does happen this quickly, one would expect it to go quite poorly, and likely [...] ---Outline:(06:54) Top Conclusions(09:31) Data Access and Redactions(15:23) The Pace of Progress(17:09) 1, 2, 3, 4(17:56) Timing Is Everything(19:14) What Could Possibly Have Gone Wrong?(20:58) AECI(25:41) The Public Information Alone Could Suggest Slower Speedup(29:01) Well, That Escalated Quickly(39:44) This Infinite Series Likely Has a Finite Sum(41:02) We Cannot Say What We Cannot Say(41:28) Study of Anthropic's Compute Allocation Was Postponed(42:58) Security Mindset(44:50) It's a Secret to Everyone(54:05) Review of the Risk Report from August 2026(56:52) A Word From Our Cofounder(01:03:48) People Update Their Timelines and Expectations(01:10:11) You Are Not Ready(01:11:18) If (If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies) Then Don't Let Anyone Build It(01:14:25) How Can We Legally Define RSI? --- First published: November 9th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/je5X4xEuehu3j3HoF/ai-r-and-d-is-accelerating-towards-potential-rsi-in-2027 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

For a while, UK AISI, Redwood Research and others have been concerned specifically with the possibility that AIs would sabotage safety research, and have invested in looking for signs that this may be happening. This was also a key element in AI 2027, and in many threat models of how the future goes badly. It is easy to understand why this form of misalignment could be uniquely dangerous. Differentially sabotaging safety research could preserve and expand misalignment through model generations in escalating fashion, with fatal consequences. A misaligned AI could ensure a misaligned successor. It is also easy to understand why this is an extremely alarming thing to discover, even if the particular example or model involved is not directly dangerous. Silently and differentially sabotaging safety research is perhaps the most fundamentally misaligned thing a model could do. This also seemed like a rather silly and paranoid thing to be checking. Why would AIs be sabotaging safety work? Even if the AI was misaligned, one would say, surely it would not be so misaligned as to wish future AIs were misaligned and unsafe in general, in non-specific fashion and engage in silent sabotage, and there is [...] ---Outline:(01:57) So Yeah That Kinda Happened(06:39) Astra and MI(RI)(09:35) It's About Ethics In Red Teaming(12:45) Do You See a Pattern Here(14:49) Astra Is Hard to Monitor(15:31) Backed Into a Corner(18:41) It's Always RL's Fault(20:47) Wow Would You Look At Those Goalposts(22:58) Astra Seems Pretty Misaligned To Me --- First published: November 6th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uc9ouDHMR2aw2ozsF/gpt-6-astra-covertly-underperforms-on-safety-research-tasks --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

Anthropic is warning us. Its modified S-1 now says that ‘we may imminently meet our Responsible Scaling Policy's definition of ‘dramatically accelerated progress attributable to AI.’ That is a highly scary sentence to have a company put in its S-1. This could happen. For now I appreciate the relative quiet. Perhaps many were focused the election. I’m sure the quiet will not last long. We have a new biggest crypto hack, as Binance got taken for billions of dollars. The big debate of the week was covered in Scott Alexander's Against SURA Seems Deeply Confused. OpenAI updates its Model Spec. It's one for diehards only but yes I did cover this. Table of Contents Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. Rewrite all your legacy code. Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. Not if you can’t use it. Huh, Upgrades. Claude renames its tiers, with some rules changes. On Your Marks. Materials science. Get My Agent On The Line. Don’t upload it to the secure DoD network. Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon. The battle over deepfakes was entirely lost. Copyright Confrontation. Recreating someone else's exact game is bad, actually. [...] ---Outline:(00:57) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility(01:47) Language Models Don't Offer Mundane Utility(03:18) Huh, Upgrades(03:45) On Your Marks(05:03) Get My Agent On The Line(06:54) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon(07:57) Copyright Confrontation(08:26) Cyber Lack of Security(09:45) The Hackening(17:10) A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer(20:08) They Took Our Jobs(20:43) Get Involved(21:42) Introducing(22:48) In Other AI News(24:03) Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI) (1)(26:57) Recursive Self-Improvement (2)(32:15) Show Me the Money(33:17) Quiet Speculations(36:06) The Quest for Sane Regulations(38:30) Chip City(41:07) The Week in Audio(41:56) People Just Say Things(43:24) Against Against Sura(44:00) Rhetorical Innovation(46:33) [Artificial Intelligence](47:10) The OpenAI Foundation(48:07) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult(53:38) Massive Fraudulent Distillation(55:16) Cooperative Alignment(57:10) The Lighter Side --- First published: November 5th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NrQGzNcicMThuGEEM/ai-193-progress-may-dramatically-accelerate --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

The Model Spec is potentially OpenAI's most important document. It outlines what they aspire for the model to do, and how it should think. I’ve already covered a previous version in depth, so my strategy this time is to look at the diff. I had a Google Doc created for this purpose, and will be working from there. A bunch of things get moved around or reworded, often piecemeal. There are a lot of line edits, most of which are improvements. I’m focusing on what looks new and important. My main new critique is that many of the new examples do not carve reality at its joints, instead having overdetermined answers, and fail to teach the model or reader what the Spec wants them to do in actually difficult cases. Overall I see the new Model Spec as philosophically and practically similar to the old Model Spec. That is not a terrible place to be, as the old Model Spec was a solid document with many strong details. It also means this is a highly ‘optional’ post for those who do not have cause to dig into such weeds. Table of Contents Five Values. Meet the [...] ---Outline:(01:13) Five Values(02:29) Meet the New Spec(03:33) New Risk Taxonomy(04:28) The Letter and the Spirit(05:06) Your Funeral(07:22) Context Clues(09:20) Preserve User Control Over User Control(10:05) Sycophancy(11:47) Lies My User Told Me(12:38) Impact Function(15:32) Levels of Friction(17:01) Do Not Lie(22:16) Pick a Side, We're at War(26:19) Strengthening Agency(29:03) Decision Theory(29:45) Do Good Things Not Bad Things --- First published: November 3rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ABEQbEabK6kcSRrNq/openai-updates-its-model-spec --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

If you are helping build something that might kill everyone, maybe stop doing that. Ideally, when you do stop, tell everyone else to also stop building it. That is certainly the obvious, first-level thing to do. You need a damn good reason to decide that no, actually you should keep building the thing that might kill everyone. Scott Alexander is worried too many people are insisting upon this too loudly. He comes out against a strategy focused on getting people to stop. I disagree. I think many of the claims, arguments and rhetoric in Scott's post are quite poor by the standards that Scott Alexander would apply to himself. Scott clearly continues to support advocacy for a global pause, or what he calls Plan A. His objection is to those advocating primarily or exclusively for SURA, which stands for ‘stop unilaterally and raise awareness.’ The practical differences here are smaller than they may at first appear. This post first lays out my understanding of Scott Alexander's core claims, then gives my core reactions to those claims, then goes over various questions in detail along with gathering the resulting discussions. Table of Contents [...] ---Outline:(01:20) Scott Alexander's Core Claims(05:06) My High Level Responses To Scott's Core Claims(08:08) Briefly on Alignment(10:11) Probabilities and How They Work(13:25) Building a Thing That Might Kill Everyone is Deontologically Evil(20:38) People Quitting Major Labs While Raising Alarms Obviously Works(24:39) On AI Forecasting(27:31) Advancing Capabilities Burns Timeline(29:34) But China(33:23) Ethical People Can Disagree With You(34:45) There Are More Than Two Outcomes(38:01) Efforts Are Complementary, Not Mutually Exclusive(40:23) If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies(41:55) Vaniver is Not Convinced(46:19) There Is No Consensus That We Should Exclusively Focus on Plan A(56:01) It's Not the Incentives, It's You(58:08) Anthropic Is Not Optimally Pursuing These Plans(01:04:00) Against Against Sura The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: November 2nd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ziMP83D2JYWRQ5jtu/scott-alexander-s-against-sura-seems-deeply-confused --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote a brave self-critical piece in The New York Times, centrally about how she intentionally sent her daughter to a well-funded but failing school, PS 307, in the hopes of using voice to improve it, and how that utterly failed her daughter and failed to impact the school. Ultimately her daughter recovers, but we see a completely broken system that is unresponsive to internal voice, and until now she made no attempt to blow the whistle and utilize her professional position to do so. The whole incident illustrates not only how messed up so many of our schools are despite abundant funding, it also raises the question of what the schools are even for. If her daughter can fully recover from severe deficits and be getting As and Bs at a challenging school within a year, what are the first eight years of school for? How much of the schools, grades and tests are fake? Can we somehow do better? Table of Contents New York City PS 307. Nikole Knew And Had Exit Ramps. PS 307 Is Fraudulent And Indifferent. Moving In Unison. A Good School. What [...] ---Outline:(01:05) New York City PS 307(02:51) Nikole Knew And Had Exit Ramps(04:50) PS 307 Is Fraudulent And Indifferent(06:37) Moving In Unison(07:03) A Good School(08:11) What Were Elementary and Middle School Even For?(09:56) The Project Was Ideological(14:01) Null Hypothesis Watch(15:58) School Spending(18:06) Costs Are Not Benefits(19:08) Fire The Bad Teachers And Hire And Retain Better Ones(19:18) Teachers Unions Are Not Beating The Rumors(21:11) Death Spiral(22:07) Another One Bites The Dust(24:13) Where To?(24:59) Public Schools Cost A Lot Of Money(27:04) Schools Can Fail In Many Ways(28:55) Results(30:25) Grades(30:42) They Nerfed AP Tests(31:28) What Happens Without Academic Standards(37:10) The Two Big Scandals(38:58) Alpha School --- First published: October 30th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2STd6qthbJS6fqxBr/childhood-and-education-22-voice-without-exit --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.