Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 28/09/2026TFW you ask an LLM about how to derive the key result in a paper you've just read the abstract for, it seems to do so, but you can't check it because you can't access the paper. Well done to everyone involved in this farce. 070
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 26/09/2026We're going to be doing "Begriffe ohne Anschauung sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind" for ever, aren't we? 030
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 25/09/2026I honestly wonder how much of the language policing around LLMs is just failure to appreciate how metonymy works. I just don't think that "Microsoft wants me to log in", "Brussels will capitulate" and "Claude said it's false" carry the ontological commitments their grammar might suggest. 5634
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/09/2026The boring but effective way to ensure 'AI alignment' has two steps: 1. make those who build and sell AI responsible for what it does. 2. apply our best existing alignment technology – the law – to them. Maybe the AI is sentient, malign or benign. Who cares? It doesn't matter for this to work. 43310
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/09/2026hurry up and get the phone bans in place so we can attribute this to them 170
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/09/2026If you find this art as delightful as I do, but have, in other threads on here, found yourself mired in amateur philosophy discussions of what LLMs are doing and who you're talking to when you use them, then here's a short story relevant to both. I think you'll enjoy it.philosophy.as.uky.edu 030
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/09/2026[very Ian Hacking voice] So... there's a continuous measure of a continuous trait that smoothly predicts health outcomes until it is thresholded to define different types of people, who are then treated differently enough that their health consequences become discontinuous in the underlying measure? 1100
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 22/09/2026tired: left brain, right brain wired: forebrain/midbrain, hindbrain 110
Reposted by Will LoweLawfare @lawfaremedia.org · 19/09/2026"After years of engaging in systematic torture rationalized by pretextual legal arguments, the United States has systematically failed—or refused—to hold torturers accountable or provide remedies to the victims," writes @nkorpett.bsky.social. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/9-11...lawfaremedia.org9/11’s Legacy of TortureTwenty-five years after the war on terror began, the United States still hasn’t grappled with its legacy of torture—or the law that enabled it. 39947
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 18/09/2026If you mentally replace all references to 'robots' & 'AI' and 'off switches' to 'tech companies' and 'regulation' then these papers become potentially quite useful. This one seems to be about regulatory capture. 050
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 18/09/2026You may not care for revealed preference theory, but it's the baseline to beat. 030
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 17/09/2026lol, describing someone whose views are not ideologically structured as 'heterodox' is like attributing heretical views of the trinity to someone only vaguely aware of catholicism. Some centrists' view are well described by the middle. Others just get projected there from wherever they actually are 152
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 17/09/2026Es ist eine Sache, die Instinkte von einem mürrischen alten Mann zu haben (hallöchen! 👋🏻). Aber es ist etwas ganz anderes, sie in die Tat umzusetzen, weil sie sich richtig anfühlen – obwohl sie wahrscheinlich verfassungswidrig sind und sowieso nicht funktionieren werden. 070
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 16/09/2026Your 20s are for believing everything is structural, your 30s are for joining the small group of guys (gender neutral) who are putting the next structure together, and your 40s are for realizing that. 0101
Reposted by Will LoweWill Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 23/11/2023What I see when tech companies talk about the dangers of AI 1123
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 11/09/2026Alternatively, what you see now really *is* a livestream because both your brain and your streaming software consume signal as it arrives, fill a jitter buffer where it's edited for gaps and consistency, and only then show you the result. 070
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 11/09/2026In case you thought your causal inference problem was tricky 1102
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 10/09/2026Good luck Germany and the UK trying to resolve their commitment to international criminal law and respective Staatsräson and 'special' relationship. Naturally, both will try not to choose for as long as possible, but when they do, may they choose wisely. 031
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 09/09/2026Just checking in on the UK and... what the actual fuck is this? 231
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 08/09/2026Causal inference is the art of considering what you'd need to assume to identify your estimate as causal while slowly shaking your head and whistling through your teeth like the guy who came out to look at your boiler. 2579
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 08/09/2026Traditional post-war German curse: May foreigners become interested in your politics. 1100
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 07/09/2026The problem with discussions of 'trust in government' is that, depending on the government and who is doing the trusting, sometimes trust should be higher, but sometimes it should be lower. Trusting equilibria are better, but increasing citizens' trust might not be the best (or any) way to get one. 181
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 07/09/2026Much trouble comes from hearing "lead, follow, or get out of the way" and deciding you should try doing them all at once. 000
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 07/09/2026So much tea has been drunk, yet DE's immune system is still so weak 🤔 010
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 05/09/2026And you thought P. G. Wodehouse's Saviours of Britain, a.k.a the 'Black Shorts' would stay fictional for fear of acute embarrassment. 250
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 04/09/2026One of the better arguments that Claude is human-level intelligence is that it doesn't understand tikz either. 0151
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 04/09/2026The correct version of this maxim is: "Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. They're probably speaking English and English sound-spelling rules are insane." 3120
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 04/09/2026Good stuff from @phillipspobrien.bsky.social. Cover versions of I. Kant (1784) "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?" will continue until the message gets through.nypl.org 0297
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 02/09/2026Narrative seeding is a thing, which means it's going to be a incredibly stupid winter here in DE when gas gets scarce and this stinkflower blooms. 041
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 02/09/2026My constant refrain: climate change is not an information problem, it's an alignment problem. 0153
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 30/08/2026Seeing, like, a lake: How certain schemes to improve one human's mental condition have failed 171
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 30/08/2026This 'renaming water' business is a reminder that American really is a local variety of English. That's why localization sets the names of stuff in my map apps & gives my desktop a Trash, Bin or Papierkorb. Apropos: if posting language here could also localize English, much idiocy might be avoided. 130
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 30/08/2026In a fairytale moment of Deutsche Digitalisierung you can put the ticket for Berlin's Long Night of the Museums (6pm to 2am) on your phone, but it deletes itself at midnight. 0152
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 29/08/2026Really hate this performative "Thbbft!" people use to appear more like Bill the Cat 070
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 28/08/2026A nice summary of evidence for & against bicycle helmet mandates in the link below. Causal inference folk will recognize the good old administrative data DAG (mediation with case selection on the mediator) at the root of this dispute. Friends don't let friends condition on post-treatment variables! 052
Reposted by Will LoweJubo Malseeco [SEMI HIATUS] @thejubomalseeco.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Welcome to Bluesky. Please familiarize yourself with the following accounts to understand the range of opinions it is acceptable to express. 012120
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 26/08/2026If you're going to insist that cyclists should wear helmets, you should be able to explain why it is that you don't also insist that pedestrians wear helmets or that cyclists also wear body armour. If nothing else, it's a useful elicitation exercise, and consistency checks are usually illuminating. 380
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/08/2026Dipping in to LinkedIn, as you do, and marveling at the statistics content. Really you'd think R would have sorted this out by now. 5302
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/08/2026Of course it's 'not a panacea'. Nothing is a panacea, you idiot. Think of your word count or whatever it takes to get you to delete this nonsense. 060
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/08/2026Fortunately for the British Army, the expectation of £49K of debt was not a consideration when I decided to go to university instead. Today I would have jumped the other way. Or perhaps (it's hard to know what to hold constant in counterfactuals) I would have found a nice course somewhere in the EU. 140
Reposted by Will LoweKlaus Pforr @klauspforr.eurosky.social · 10/08/2026Interesting paper by Ruonan Xu and @jmwooldridge.bsky.social on spatial correlation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...sciencedirect.comA design-based approach to spatial correlationWhen observing spatial data, what standard errors should we report? Within a finite population framework, we identify three channels of possible spati… 152
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 24/08/2026Ha. No self-confidence about being German survives contact with Nietzsche. But since neither the AfD, the Wall Street Journal, nor the Economist are going to read any, the irony is irrelevant. Better stick with Bismarck. At least he liked the place. 050
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 23/08/2026Here's an answer you won't like: the United Kingdom is part of America's 'near abroad'. 041
Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 15/08/2026The weather forecast for this afternoon doesn't look so great. 0100