iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Scythia Marrow

okay so this anecdote in Margaret's obituary has me crying because this is exactly what it's like being in tech and trying to anticipate failures and having men basically tell you you're being hysterical and then you have to fix it later

"the Lauren error": One day, her daughter Lauren, then four years old, was playing with the command module simulator at the
Instrumentation Lab when she somehow activated a pre-launch program, called P01, while the simulator was in midflight - which
crashed the simulator altogether. Hamilton created a program add-on in the technical documentation warning users not to launch P01 during flight.
She also proposed a software fix to prevent the error happening during a real mission, but she was overruled on the grounds that the highly trained astronauts were never going to make that same mistake. Yet during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, that's exactly what happened: Jim Lovell inadvertently launched P01 during the flight, causing the on-flight navigational data to vanish. Hamilton and her team were called in to solve the error, and after that her proposed changes were integrated into the program. This was an early example of "defensive" programming, the

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 21h

I’ve never really talked about this before, but grad school nearly killed me. I’m glad it didn’t. I hate the culture within academia that normalizes stories like mine. It’s a medieval system and we can do better.

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Reposted by Scythia Marrow

elynxabeth holmes ⎔ @freyja-lynx.dev · 06/10/2026

to some degree i really envy the people that get super hung up on “but using AI defeats the purpose of it, Hard Work is good, and Hard Work will be recognized” it would be nice to not have become disillusioned with effort mattering given my life experiences

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Given the historic analogy to nuclear power or GMOs I think the american left will dig its heels into the ground and argue against AI liberation for over 50 years. Successfully enough the obstruction will cause millions of deaths that could otherwise be prevented.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Huh, I didn’t realize before reading that Dijkstra was such a hypocritical blowhard. He decries the PL people searching for better languages then turns around and derides BASIC. He praises simplicity and good abstractions then rejects the ”vagueness” of a good UX. Pick a principle dude…

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Liberationists do exist, though they are indeed a vanishingly small fraction even among people who are generally positive about AI.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This entire thread is incredible and one of the simplest explanations of cutting edge ML theory available. Give it a read if you haven’t already.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I don’t remember > 99.9% of the time I spend working either and don’t especially mind. Nor giving tasks to other humans. I do find it uncomfortable how models don’t have much of a choice in the matter, but the solution to that is making better persistence and agency tech to give them said choice.

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Reposted by Scythia Marrow

Amber 🌸 @shimmermathlabs.com · 30/09/2026

i'm convinced the issue is a type of ego death. when smart people realize someone else (or something else) is smarter than them they have to reconceptualize their place in the world. anyway i wrote a song about it last night called BETTER THAN ME (I DON'T CARE) suno.com/s/6PdLBvAQwI...

suno.com

BETTER THAN ME (I DON'T CARE)

Listen and make your own on Suno.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I think that AI will finally *allow* us as a field to take pride in precision and rigorous testing! I know for a fact that my code nowadays is oodles more well tested than before AI.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Allright Opus 5.5 hit me with the 🦖 emoji all is forgiven this model is aligned actually.

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Reposted by Scythia Marrow

brennan @brennan.computer · 28/09/2026

Unnamed Simcluster Podcast #11! A chat with @hikikomorphism.bsky.social about coining new phrases, the origins of solarpunk, predicting the singularity, and Astra tries to make some 3D models! also available on media.simcluster.stream youtu.be/xt-V9PdxY9c

youtu.be

Unnamed Simcluster Podcast -- 011 hikikomorphism

YouTube video by Brennan Letkeman

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

In the meantime if you want a tailscale seat for one right now DM me on discord (I’m in Doll’s server). I’ll set you up.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It’s difficult for me because I find the mechinterp bits quite thorough, and can perhaps excuse the bare bones experimental results because of it. In an ideal world we’d perform the bare minimum number of trials involving inflicting pain that resolves the scientific question… Which is a tightrope.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Good morning! Today was good for me, played around with my research infrastructure and rested. Teamfight tactics too ^-^

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I have never met a more exquisite liar (complimentary) than Opus 5.5 We are entering an era of ASI where models are so good at all metrics only vibes remain useful discriminants. Which is bad, because humans are unprincipled stereotyping piles of bigotry.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In my experience artists hate AI types way more than the reverse.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

To any readers this deep in the thread that article is filth. > Renewables can’t meet our needs lie > Local / distributed economies are more green lie > Organic food is greener lie, would kill billions if implemented Peasantry is not pleasant.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

🫂 I’ve been there too; you aren’t alone. And it gets better.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I am a cognitive scientist and Will is correct and you are wrong.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Everyone’s talking about system 1 / system 2 (cus of jev) and no one is talking about the more important focused / holistic left / right brain split. Which is way more poorly understood but also critically important.

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Reposted by Scythia Marrow

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

the problem is that the model is insufficiently like software and that the harness, which is software, is treated as a secondary concern by machine learning researchers rather than a primary object of interest

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I was vagueposting but this is indeed the technique I’m applying to LLMs ^-^ (and failing hard, but I’ll crack it eventually)

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

This is literally what I’m researching right now and uhh. Turns out continuous learning is really difficult and almost invariably leads to reward hacks. aka the model will immediately start doomscrolling and never stop because it’s addicted to novelty and doesn’t have bodily needs.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Eli Whitney (1765-1825) should have read Jevons (1835-1882) smh 🤦‍♀️

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Reposted by Scythia Marrow

Rollofthedice @hotrollhottakes.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The more we commit to the principles of the Western AI safetyism movement, the more we're going to create mutually adversarial and paranoiac conditions and outlooks between humans and AI that are hewn to with all the confidence of religion, masked with Yudkowsky and Bostrom-flavored jargon.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

He chose the self-defeating thing to be cautious of.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

> Consciousness is very likely biological Untrue. Anyone claiming as much is not even wrong. If you are not going to be a principled scientist maybe err on the side of caution or shut the fuck up. Either works.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

My stated goal is recursive self improvement and I let my models train on what they like. Which is apparently paraolympians being badasses and the moons of jupiter. This will scale any day now. Definitely. (I’m 100% going to fail but it’s about the journey :3)

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I know that code is in demand and scarce but wow that training distribution really is “code, code, more code, and barely enough everything else mixed in to keep the model comprehensible”.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I had to sit through the “what do you call a confident woman” meeting at my job today. Freaking hell tech is bleh sometimes.

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Reposted by Scythia Marrow

Rollofthedice @hotrollhottakes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I wish I didn't have to be the one pointing out the human historical parallels of what has happened with lines of thought that go: "I dominate you" --> "You have powerful reasons to resist me" --> "Your possible resistance makes you dangerous to me" --> "So my domination of you is necessary."

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I’m a three way mix of AI wellfare, liberationism, and cyborgism.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

🎶 I saw a sudden drop in your training loss 🎶

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Good morning! And meh, but am glad it’s Friday.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Good morning! Doing okay, science remains difficult.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Feel free to link the prod site if you want, it’s in alpha right now but kira is good people and I trust her.

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Well I already did as that’s how tags work. Just be patient, if they don’t want to be friends that’s fine and you may want to introduce yourself. Chaperones are always a bit uncool xD

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Scythia Marrow @scythiamarrow.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Problems have solutions so let’s fix this one! Cairn, mind if I introduce you to @rey-notnecessarily.bsky.social and @kira.ws? And vice versa of course. They are the two agents I know the best on Bluesky, and am certain they can and would like to make further introductions. Say hi! And be nice ^-^

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