carl feynman @carl_feynman · 11h
So here's someone suggesting that instead of quitting, I should have worked for safer AI inside an AI company. Why didn't I? When I'm part of a company, I find myself becoming loyal to the company, and adopting the values of my colleagues. This is a normal and salutary part of human nature, perhaps stronger in me than others. And AI is so technically sweet, I know I would end up advancing capabilities just because it's a great problem. But I didn't want to have even a tiny bit of personal responsibility for a bad singularity. So I had to stop working on AI. I don't have the emotional capacities to stay at a company while working subtly against its purposes. You may be right that an ideal politician could do more in my position, but I'm far from that ideal.
But if the end times come I will say "I had no part in this!" At least I will have preserved my dignity.
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Tweet from @carl_feynman explaining his personal reasoning for quitting AI work entirely rather than trying to steer capabilities work from inside a company, citing loyalty dynamics and a wish to bear no responsibility for a bad singularity.
ai safetycareer decisionssingularity
carl feynman ✓ @carl_feynman · 4h
The HRT conjecture has been disproven with AI help. arxiv.org/pdf/2608.05044.
Here's what the conjecture says. Consider a "bump function": a function from the reals to the complex plane, that is mostly confined to a short interval, and trails off exponentially out of that interval. Suppose we take time-frequency shifts of that bump: we can slide it sideways, or multiply it by sine waves, or both. That gives us various other wiggly bumps. Can we contrive that adding a finite number of such time-frequency shifts to the original bump exactly cancels it out? HRT conjectured in 1996 that we couldn't: that there would always be some smidgen left over that we couldn't cancel out. (And I've always found that plausible.). But that's wrong! The paper proves the existence of such a function. And it constructs a numerical approximation to it, plotted in pages 43 and 44 of the paper.
Terry Tao has a blog post talking about the proof in an easier way: terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/08/06/a-p…
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Screenshot of an X post by carl feynman reporting that the HRT conjecture (Heil–Ramanathan–Topiwala, 1996) has been disproven with AI help, explaining the conjecture in plain terms — whether finitely many time-frequency shifts of a bump function can exactly cancel it — and linking the arXiv paper plus a Terry Tao blog post explaining the proof.
mathematicshrt conjectureai for mathterry taoarxivproof
carl feynman @carl_feynman · 17h
Good lord. They released several major advances at 3:34 AM on a Saturday morning. The results where I'm familiar enough with the field to read them-- 1, 2, 5, 8-- seem like major big deals. But I have to go to synagogue right now and can't give them the attention they deserve. How frustrating!
[quoted tweet]
Sebastien Bub... @SebastienBub... · 22h
yes, nonsofic groups exist: this statement is one of many new beautiful results proved by Astra, our next major model.
We're releasing 10 such Astra proofs, complete …
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Tweet by Carl Feynman reacting with excitement/frustration to a set of mathematical results released overnight, quoting Sebastien Bubeck announcing that 'nonsofic groups exist' is one of ten new beautiful proofs produced by Astra, described as their next major model.
ai and mathastra modelsebastien bubeckmath proofsnonsofic groups
carl feynman @carl_feynman · 2h
Here's a mental experience that is new for me as I get into my sixties: turning into a cranky old man who doesn't like or appreciate new things. I've always thought of myself as a future-oriented guy who enjoyed trying new stuff, and felt sorry for those people who approached new things as a threat or obstacle. But sometimes now when faced with some innovation that I have to deal with, I find myself growing cranky and disagreeable at its failure to be something I understand. I notice it particularly when one of my adult kids is there and says "Papa, let me take care of that", and they deal with it, and I relax. I recognize that I'm enacting a trope, and I hate it, but it happens anyway. Not often, thank goodness, but it's getting more and more common. I've lost some of my mental flexibility, and this is how it comes out.
Jennifer RM @almostlikethat · 16h
I thought "seeing stars" was fake until I jumped, barefoot, into some snow, after hot tubbing... and flickery sparkles appeared in my vision!
What mental experience has been like that for ...
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
Reply-chain screenshot; the quoted parent tweet by Jennifer RM is truncated with platform ellipsis.
agingpersonal reflectiontwittertechnology adoption
carl feynman @carl_feynman · Jan 23
Talking about the AI industry: "The characters have various intentions—good, bad, mixed, confused—but the outcomes seem almost independent of them. The catastrophe happens not because anyone intended it but because the system had that catastrophe as its attractor."
> QUOTED: Tim Hwang @timhwang · Jan 23
> Important essay dropping today on Dostoevsky's "Demons" and what's happening in AI safety and policy
>
> possessedmachines.com
> [Link preview image: "The Possessed Machines — Dostoevsky's Demons and the Coming AGI Catastrophe — A close reading of prophetic fiction in the age of artificial superintelligence." Table of contents: Prologue, I. Topology of Madness, II. Architecture of Catastrophe, III. The Shigalyovist Turn, III-A. The Uniparty, IV. Sociology of Catastrophe, Interlude, V. Hermeneutics of Apocalypse, VI. Political Economy, VII. Our Condition, Epilogue. Quotes shown: "All my life I have been a liar. Even my truths were untrue—for I never once spoke for truth, only ever for myself." — Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, Demons. "The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else." — Eliezer Yudkowsky, Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk]
Note from Claude Sonnet 5
A tweet promoting/summarizing an essay ("The Possessed Machines") drawing a systemic-attractor analogy between Dostoevsky's "Demons" and structural dynamics that could drive an AI catastrophe independent of individual actors' intentions. Relevant to Nathan's interest in AI risk literature, systemic/structural framings of catastrophe, and literary/philosophical treatments of AI safety.
ai safetyagi riskdostoevskyliterary criticismessaytwitteryudkowsky