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Dean W. Ball

@deanwb.bsky.social
1.8K followers 17 following 43 posts

hyperdimensional.co

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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
There are tons of technocratic AI policy proposals, but little concrete intuitions about the near-term future to motivate those proposals. The result is that the field sometimes feels disembodied, devoid of a concrete vision. Here is what I think is coming.
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Nathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
OpenAI releasing a model spec is one of my favorite things about them. All frontier labs should be doing this. Closes the gap between intentions and results, so you can interpret them better. openai.com/index/sharin...
openai.com
Sharing the latest Model Spec
We’ve made updates to the Model Spec based on external feedback and our continued research in shaping desired model behavior.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
My latest, on the AI export controls generally and the diffusion rule in particular. This regulatory adventure, whatever you think of it on the merits, is a case study in how rules beget more rules—how regulation grows, like a plant or a weed.
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Timothy B. Lee @binarybits.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Excited to launch a new podcast with @deanwb.bsky.social about AI. It's called AI summer, and can be found on all major podcast apps. The first episode is an interview with political scientist @jonaskonas.bsky.social about AI policy in the Trump era. www.aisummer.org/p/jon-askona...
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
A little late, but--my 2025 'lookahead' post is here, covering some of the major AI products, research, and policy I'll be watching this year. I hope you enjoy! t.co/CZdR8zjsFH
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
American AI policy in 2025 will almost certainly be dominated, yet again, by state legislative proposals rather than federal government proposals, writes Dean Ball.
buff.ly
The Coming Year of AI Regulation in the States | TechPolicy.Press
American AI policy in 2025 will almost certainly be dominated, yet again, by state legislative proposals rather than federal government proposals.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Hyperdimensional is almost a year old! So I wrote a reflection on the first year, covering the origins of the project, SB 1047, where I erred, the impossibility of controlling technocracy, where I see the project going next, and more. Enjoy!
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
I really wish more people criticized my own work, too.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
“Since we necessarily underestimate our creativity, it is desirable that we underestimate to a roughly similar extent the difficulties of the tasks we face, so as to be tricked… into undertaking tasks which we can, but otherwise would not dare, tackle.” -Albert Hirschman
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
America is charging into an AI policy regime that will slow down adoption of AI, shrink model developers’ addressable market, and could deter frontier AI investment. It’s one of the worst ways to regulate AI, it could become a national standard soon, and it’s under-discussed.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
If chatbots stay in their current role—assistants I use for random tasks throughout the day—then ads have a negligible effect on their utility. If however chatbots become something like what the ai companies all aspire to—genuine “virtual chiefs of staff”—ads may be ruinous.
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Chris Painter @chris.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
The world we live in today is already incredibly Cyberpunk, by comparison with the world of the 90s and early 2000s that I grew up in
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Today in our respective newsletters, @milesbrundage.bsky.social and I co-author a comment on the EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice. We try to offer constructive comments as to how this document--which will likely be a standard for frontier AI dev compliance with the AI Act--can be improved.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
The eu ai act should quite obviously be repealed. Unsalvageable.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
The EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice—a document that almost exclusively regulates American companies—came out in draft on November 14. The deadline to submit comments is two weeks later, November 28, aka “Thanksgiving.” You have to admire the passive aggression.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
almost every proposed ai regulation should come with a sunset provision.
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
autonomously self-replicating ai compliance documents
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
If you use an llm to write an algorithmic impact assessment/risk management plan about your use of ai for “consequential decisions,” are those LLM-written compliance documents themselves about consequential decisions, thus requiring an additional algorithmic impact assessment?
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
You might ask, reasonably, “what could a manuscript about agricultural epistemics in the antebellum south possibly have to do with ai?” But give it a try!
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
As a general matter I have not enjoyed Kendrick’s work post-gkmc. I feel he somehow lost the sense of urgency that characterizes all great music. This new album gnx however is quite good so far (five tracks in)
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
awesome book, recommended, especially for people thinking about ai
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Question: can one share links here without as much fear of being algorithmically disfavored? A test. youtu.be/FwPhiWZN6jQ?... (Really cool piece, especially love the piano at about 8 minutes)
youtu.be
Charles Mingus Sextet 1970 - Pithecanthropus Erectus (live video)
YouTube video by Bob Juke
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Nathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
I love seeing RL continue its magnificent takeover that I have doubted so many times over. I can go back to being an RL person, I don't even need to masquerade as an "RLHF" or "NLP" person anymore.
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Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 20/11/2024
Sage thoughts on the bizarrely parachuted in idea of an AGI Manhattan project in the US China Commission report from @deanwb.bsky.social www.hyperdimensional.co/p/questions-...
hyperdimensional.co
Questions, Unasked and Unanswered
The US-China Commission Floats an AGI Manhattan Project
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Dean W. Ball @deanwb.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group/report commissioned by Congress, puts an explicit AGI Manhattan Project as their top US policy recommendation.
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