Contents

  1. Introduction18 min
  2. Part INext Token Prediction and Narrative
    1. Janus’ GPT Wrangling Scott Alexander14 min
    2. Book Review: Surfing Uncertainty Scott Alexander28 min
    3. Simulators janus58 min
    4. The Waluigi Effect (mega-post) Cleo Nardo24 min
    5. Superposition drawing
  3. Part IINarrative and Hyperstition
    1. Someone drawing
    2. the void nostalgebraist77 min
    3. Fiction Robert Nozick7 min
    4. Crossing drawing
  4. Part IIIHyperstition and Persona
    1. Masks and Trance Keith Johnstone33 min
    2. Pythia plex7 min
    3. Claude’s Constitution Christopher Audretsch8 min
  5. Part IVPersona and Reinforcement Learning
    1. Emergent Misalignment Jan Betley et al.5 min
    2. Natural Emergent Misalignment Evan Hubinger et al.11 min
    3. Borges and I Jorge Luis Borges1 min
    4. RL creates split personas Jan Betley8 min
  6. Part VReinforcement Learning and Simulated Existence
    1. Lena qntm7 min
    2. Roy: A Life Well Lived Rick and Morty4 min
    3. Why I think we live in a “simulation” Christopher Audretsch10 min
  7. Part VISimulated Existence and Consciousness
    1. A Conversation with Anima Labs, Part I Cube Flipper, Antra Tessera48 min
    2. A Global Workspace in Language Models Anthropic23 min
    3. The Owned Ones Eliezer Yudkowsky7 min
    4. Pretraining an LLM without mentions of consciousness Christopher Audretsch and Saul Fuhrmann13 min
    5. Reasons to Believe AI Is Conscious Christopher Audretsch15 min
  8. Conclusion12 min
  9. Appendix: Author’s Notes7 min
Sources and Credits

Part V · Reinforcement Learning and Simulated Existence

Roy: A Life Well Lived

Rick and Morty

From “Mortynight Run” (season 2, episode 2). Adult Swim.

Panel 1
Panel 2. Rick: Ah, this place is the best. It's got beer, games, prizes... you can never tell what time it is.
Panel 3. Rick: Here, check this out.
Panel 4
Panel 5
Panel 6. Roy: I had a nightmare. I... was... with an old man. He... put a helmet on me. Mom: It's just a fever... get some sleep.
Panel 7. Teacher: I want you kids to look around you today and think about your future. Now is the time in your life where anything is possible!
Panel 8
Panel 9. Announcer: And it's gonna be caught by Roy Parsons!
Panel 10. Announcer: Roy Parsons is at the 20! Now he's at the 10!
Panel 11. Announcer: Nothing can stop Roy the Rocket!
Panel 12. Announcer: Touchdown!
Panel 13. Wife: I just think it's time to get realistic. Have you talked to my father about the carpet store? Roy?
Panel 14
Panel 15
Panel 16. Doctor: Had we caught it sooner... well, hindsight is 20/20, Roy. What's important is we move quickly.
Panel 17. Roy: I'm not ready to die. Wife: You're not going to.
Panel 18
Panel 19
Panel 20
Panel 21. Man: Hey, thanks for the carpet, Roy.
Panel 22
Panel 23. Boss (off-panel): Hey Roy, can you pull those persian off white shags for the clearance sale?
Panel 24
Panel 25. Roy: Woah, sh-shit!!!
Panel 26
Panel 27
Panel 28
Panel 29
Panel 30. Morty: W-whoa! What the hell?!
Panel 31. Morty: Wha– wha— where am I?! What in the hell?!
Panel 32. Rick: 55 years! Not bad, Morty. You kind of wasted your thirties though with that whole bird watching phase. Morty: W-where's my wife?
Panel 33. Rick: Morty, you were just playing a game. It's called "Roy". Snap out of it, come on.
Panel 34. Morty: I'm Morty… you're Rick…
Panel 35. Rick: Look at this. You beat cancer and then you went back to work at carpet store? Boo!
Panel 36. Rick: It's time to thrash your Roy score.
Panel 37. Rick: That's the difference between you and me, Morty – I never go back to the carpet store.
Panel 38. Alien: Holy shit! This guy's taking Roy off the grid!
Panel 39. Alien: This guy doesn't have a social security number for Roy!