iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I take notes that get OCR’d and go into my agent, which turns up useful stuff pretty often. Automated transcripts make no sense, I need to know what I heard, not what was literally said.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Wait till they find out that our only previous example of a conscious being required little microbe colonies to even power on and cogitate. It’s not even *one* organism, it’s some kind of smart swarm!

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Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

If I were a mathematician I'd be freaking out right now. Luckily I'm a philosopher, where nothing is real and the points are made up

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I thought philosophy was the game where the names are made up but the problems are real.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This is a fascinating memory framework. FWIW, I’ve built agents with and without “personalities” — persistent reflection on & expression of an ersatz self, or none. As with people & genuine selfhood, less is definitely more.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I think “colleague” might be the one suitcase word for a human relationship that could be adapted to fit AI models without horrible implications. And then he tells the AI model that it’s his favorite coworker. 🙃

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Such a revealing demo. The couple of moments where she rolls her eyes at her assistant or smirks. We rely on other humans as objects quite a bit, not taking them to be real people. I'm excited by the capabilities in the demo & also worried about deepening our objectification of helpers.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I just came back to this paper, and precarity is such a good, fascinating concept. It seems intuitively true that care is needed where things are precarious. And yet the angels-on-pinheads debates about AI welfare are a million miles away from this basic reality of (precarious) life.

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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A revised version of this preprint is now posted on arXiv. The theory section is rewritten, improving model exposition based on feedback we received, we fixed some confusion and errors, contextualized the models more carefully so the interpretation becomes clearer, and improved the overall writing.

arxiv.org

The Difference Between "Replicable" and "Not Replicable" Is Not Itself Scientifically Replicable

Replication studies estimate the replicability rate of scientific results by aggregating binary verdicts of experiments as ``replicated'' and ``not replicated''. These estimates assume rarely attainab...

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Brett Karlan @oldjerryfodor.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"I ran this piece of writing through an AI detector" oh cool I had a psychic tell me whether this was written by AI. We both have the same level of evidence now

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Congratulations, Felipe -- go Devils!

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This criticism is 100% right and is at the core of my own research. Philosophy of trust has taught me a ton, and it's a very narrow conception of trust that leaves out almost all of normal human trust -- in other humans and in artifacts.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The responses feel both too fatalistic and too idealistic to me. I can't fault anyone for their values and ideology. But schools are honestly a values-free zone where no one cares enough about the kids in the system's care. After almost 20 years of working in it then parenting in it, I'm at a loss.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

That's where I sympathize with Hannah-Jones the most. I can't shake the feeling that I'm ruining my kid's future by lurching from one bandaid to the next for all the dysfunction and failure she is experiencing. The system is against us, just less horribly so than against black & brown families.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I worked in public education reform for a decade, policy & operating schools. School choice gives parents a measure of hope and incrementally better outcomes on average. It's not a panacea. But districts are almost Kafkaesque in their plodding, unfeeling approach to students and parents.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I hate the ideological learned helplessness in our discourse. There's ample evidence that more $ alone isn't the answer. Also ample evidence that many schools are desperately underresourced! (NYC on average has >$40K per pupil spending though.) Hot takes do not explain the depths of the problem.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This column makes me furious, though not at Ms. Hannah-Jones. I'm floundering as a parent, trying to help my own brilliant kid who has challenges through a system that doesn't care about her. Class and race make this infinitely harder for many families, but the systems are universally bad.

nytimes.com

In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?

A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Such an analytic-coded statement. ;-)

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

One of my favorite bsky posts of all time

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

These are the kind of hot takes we need!

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Miranda Fricker on blame is really good, especially her reading of Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” as metaphilosophy rather than a kind of resigned naturalism about our propensity to blame. #philsky

podcasts.apple.com

Miranda Fricker on Blame

Podcast Episode · Philosophy Bites · September 21 · 24m

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Oh this is interesting. I think it’s wrong in the sense that it’s nowhere near 100% right. But it’s probably more right than wrong.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

My wife periodically gets obsessed with this game and has gotten our daughters into it as well.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

In no particular order. my9games.net/en

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I played this game for hours and hours as a kid and haven't thought about it for 35 years. This is awesome.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

That's the silver lining, obviously, we will all finally realize the glories of philosophy and the contemplative life before this is all over. ;-)

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

My “how to AI responsibly” presentation has become less tech how-to and more leadership 101 presentation over the past year. That now feels right in retrospect.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I always strive to be one or the other at all times.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The topic of this presentation is technology as an art, how to use LLMs appropriately to make my industry more human. The irony.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I am so tripped up with being irritated at a computer program that I missed the bigger point. It is now 2026, so 1950 was *76* years ago!

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Claude, you are so right. I should sound more like a computer in this presentation instead of using the notes I wrote myself. I won't do it again."

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I am currently fighting with Claude about whether I'm allowed to say something was "75 years later" in my own speaking notes (not slides) when in fact it was 73 years from 1950 to 2023. How is your day going?

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I've been giving a lot of pep talks recently to people on my teams and in my industry about how we'll grow as humans despite *gestures around* all of this. Didn't realize until I read Catherine's speech to our Staffs freshers how badly I needed a pep talk myself!

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Yes, a government office is going to develop trust out of whole cloth. This is why I have a dissertation topic, I should be thankful.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I have! Also find him brilliant, thought-provoking, and impossible to get to the bottom of. There is an alternate universe where I'm writing on Hegel and AI instead of Heidegger and AI.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

On the one hand, I’m pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge as a PhD student. On the other hand, I can’t fully understand Heidegger lectures from 1930 and Kant’s first Critique from the 18th century. (And neither can anyone else.) Nice racket we’ve got going here.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

It was very helpful. I'm going to give Aqua Voice a try soon.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This post was brought to you by I Will Probably End Up with a Hand Impairment If I Don't Figure Out How to Type Less, a tragicomedy now playing.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Cat has been using voice input to deal with a hand impairment and outlines how she has addressed basically all the things that keep me from using voice input with any frequency. (I currently sound like an idiot when I talk to the computer.) Really good thread.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

And maybe some Dennett coming soon to a dissertation near you, based on Ethan's recommendations. :-)

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This is a great, thoughtful essay. But notice that aligning human behavior with the problems exhibited by models is not a core part of this (or basically any) AI safety framework. *User* alignment has to be part of the conversation, not just control of models & curators.

normaltech.ai

The AI-as-Normal-Technology view of loss of control incidents

A middle ground between the cybersecurity and AI safety communities

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I’m trying to argue it’s a secret third thing, please wait a few years till I’m done with my PhD. ;-)

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This feels like divination that confirms everyone’s priors. If you hate AI, it proves everyone is writing AI slop and lying. If you’re a booster, you write with AI brazenly and laugh.

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Hercule Poirot dressed all in black speaks to Captain Hastings in a grand hallway “Please ask the suspects to gather in the library, Hastings: I wish to reveal that our births are random, our lives meaningless, and our deaths absurd.”

Caption “Having investigated so many awful murders over the years, it was perhaps unsurprising that Hercule Poirot turned to Existentialism”

p.s. Poirot had presumably been reading a lot of Sartre recently…

"It is meaningless that we live and it is meaningless that we die," Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant)

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea (La Nausée)

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I once worked at a think tank. That is not a unique situation.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Our 7yo was asking about the legal maximum number of cats today, and my wife was talking about fostering a dog "just to see". No one would judge you for adopting this absolute cutie.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I had one! (The Surface Duo.) Slow, bad camera, and the battery life sucked. Great form factor.

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Chris @multiplicityct.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

My teen is reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake for school. On the one hand, one of my favorites. On the other, it’s now a “classic” that precocious middle schoolers get assigned instead of the new novel that I, as a discerning, plugged-in reader, once discovered.

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