Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 05/03/2026Here's my contribution on using agents to support academic research. I've got a pipeline going now with coding agents that checks arxiv, twitter, bluesky, philpapers, a bunch of journals, many RSS feeds and more, classifies it against a long statement of my lab's interests... 241
Reposted by Seth LazarJoel Z Leibo @jzleibo.bsky.social · 31/01/2026To anyone encountering Moltbook this week and wondering about AI personhood, consciousness, sentience, etc---we published a very relevant paper in October: A Pragmatic View of AI Personhood. arxiv.org/abs/2510.26396 2276
Reposted by Seth LazarScott McGrath @smcgrath.phd · 22/09/2025🔁 If you are enjoying the feed, please like and share it with others for discoverability! 1347
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 31/01/2026I made this feed ages ago, and it was crap then. Now it’s pretty good? Are there any other better ones that have been made since? Surely? bsky.app/profile/did:... 110
Reposted by Seth LazarYanai Elazar @yanai.bsky.social · 29/01/2026🚨 New Study 🚨 @arxiv.bsky.social has recently decided to prohibit any 'position' paper from being submitted to its CS servers. Why? Because of the "AI slop", and allegedly higher ratios of LLM-generated content in review papers, compared to non-review papers. 2299
Reposted by Seth LazarCas (Stephen Casper) @scasper.bsky.social · 30/01/2026Turns out, there are a TON of image/video AI models hosted on CivitAI with dogwhistles for NCII and/or CSAM in their names. 👀 Max Kamachee and I just updated our "Video Deepfake Abuse" paper with this new fig: 🔗 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... 242
Reposted by Seth LazarScience Magazine @science.org · 30/01/2026In a new Science study, researchers train a neural classifier to spot #AI-generated Python functions in over 30 million GitHub commits by 160,097 software developers, tracking how fast, and where, these tools take hold. scim.ag/4aeUdAVscim.agWho is using AI to code? Global diffusion and impact of generative AIGenerative coding tools promise big productivity gains, but uneven uptake could widen skill and income gaps. We train a neural classifier to spot AI-generated Python functions in over 30 million GitHu... 1368
Reposted by Seth LazarPhilipp Steinkrüger @psteinkrueger.eurosky.social · 31/01/2026And this is from Anthropic... We need to get LLMs out of learning contexts "Our findings suggest that AI-enhanced productivity is not a shortcut to competence and AI assistance should be carefully adopted into workflows to preserve skill formation..." arxiv.org/abs/2601.20245arxiv.orgHow AI Impacts Skill FormationAI assistance produces significant productivity gains across professional domains, particularly for novice workers. Yet how this assistance affects the development of skills required to effectively su... 071
Reposted by Seth LazarSung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 31/01/2026Meta in effort to fix safety, factually, hallucinations at *pretraining* they ensure the model is trained to generate only high-quality safe tokens, even for unsafe prompts. "Self-Improving Pretraining: using post-trained models to pretrain better models" ( arxiv.org/abs/2601.21343 ) 0122
Reposted by Seth LazarAlexandre Nédélec @techwatching.bsky.social · 31/01/2026I'm a huge fan of Playwright MCP or Chrome Dev Tools MCP but I just came across Playwright CLI this morning and something tells me using this with a skill is going to be my preferred way of using browser automation with Agents. github.com/microsoft/pl...github.comGitHub - microsoft/playwright-cli: CLI for common Playwright actions. Record and generate Playwright code, inspect selectors and take screenshots.CLI for common Playwright actions. Record and generate Playwright code, inspect selectors and take screenshots. - microsoft/playwright-cli 112
Reposted by Seth LazarAI Firehose @ai-firehose.column.social · 31/01/2026A study reveals 'graph probing,' showing that the neural topology of large language models predicts language abilities better than traditional methods, enhancing understanding of LLMs and enabling applications like pruning and hallucination detection. arxiv.org/abs/2506.01042arxiv.orgProbing Neural Topology of Large Language ModelsArXiv link for Probing Neural Topology of Large Language Models 0103
Reposted by Seth LazarKnight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 08/09/2025In a new paper in our AI & Democratic Freedoms series, Rachel M. Kim, Blaine Kuehnert, @sethlazar.org, Ranjit Singh, & Hoda Heidari propose creating an AI Power Disparity Index, designed to measure and signal the changing distribution of power in the AI ecosystem. knightcolumbia.org/content/the-...knightcolumbia.orgThe AI Power Disparity Index: Toward a Compound Measure of AI Actors’ Power to Shape the AI Ecosystem 073
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 05/09/2025How will AI agents impact democratic values? Democracies are—for independent reasons—already under acute pressure. Since WWII Moore's Law and democratisation went up and to the right in lockstep. Not any more. 282
Reposted by Seth LazarKnight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 04/09/2025In the latest essay in our AI & Democratic Freedoms series, @sethlazar.org and Tino Cuéllar (@carnegieendowment.org) discuss how AI agents might affect the realization of democratic values. knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a...knightcolumbia.orgAI Agents and Democratic Resilience 065
Reposted by Seth LazarCarnegie Endowment @carnegieendowment.org · 04/09/2025"Democracies are weaker than they have been for decades," write Carnegie president Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and @sethlazar.org for @knightcolumbia.org. "A great wave is coming, and they are ill-prepared." AI agents could help or hurt. And they won't protect democratic values on their own. 131
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 11/04/2025@caseynewton.bsky.social in re an old discussion about AI denialists. , hope you’ve caught knightcolumbia.org/events/artif...knightcolumbia.orgArtificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms 030
Reposted by Seth LazarKnight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 28/02/2025🚨 UPCOMING EVENT: Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms, April 10-11 at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social & online. In collaboration with Senior AI Advisor @sethlazar.org & co-sponsored by the Knight Institute and @columbiaseas.bsky.social. RSVP: knightcolumbia.org/events/artif... 12612
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 25/02/2025New Philosophy of Computing newsletter: share with your philosophy friends. Lots of CFPs, events, opportunities, new papers. philosophyofcomputing.substack.com/p/normative-...philosophyofcomputing.substack.comNormative Philosophy of Computing NewsletterWelcome to February! 092
Reposted by Seth LazarChris Summerfield @summerfieldlab.bsky.social · 22/02/2025I am a bit bashful about sharing this profile www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog... of me in @thetimes.com, but will do so because it kindly refers to my new book which is coming out in early March. www.penguin.co.uk/books/460891.... The tech titans pictured seem to be decoration (and not my co-authors)penguin.co.ukThese Strange New MindsStunning advances in digital technology have given us a new wave of disarmingly human-like AI systems. The march of this new technology is set to upturn our economies, challenge our democracies, and r... 46012
Reposted by Seth LazarSayash Kapoor @sayash.bsky.social · 03/02/2025I spent a few hours with OpenAI's Operator automating expense reports. Most corporate jobs require filing expenses, so Operator could save *millions* of person-hours every year if it gets this right. Some insights on what worked, what broke, and why this matters for the future of agents 🧵 63910
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 24/01/2025Since Agents are now on everyone's minds, do check out this tutorial on the ethics of Language Model Agents, from June last year. Looks at what 'agent' means, how LM agents work, what kinds of impacts we should expect, and what norms (and regulations) should govern them.youtube.comLM Agents: Prospects and Impacts (FAccT tutorial)YouTube video by Seth Lazar 0154
Reposted by Seth LazarKnight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 23/01/2025We're excited to announce that our upcoming symposium on #AI and democracy w/ @sethlazar.org (4/10-4/11, at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social & online) will feature papers by a highly accomplished group of authors from a wide range of disciplines. Check them out: knightcolumbia.org/blog/knight-...knightcolumbia.orgKnight Institute Symposium on AI and Democratic Freedoms to Feature Leading Scholars and Technologists 182
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 16/01/2025January update from the normative philosophy of computing newsletter: new CFPs, papers, workshops, and resources for philosophers working on normative questions raised by AI and computing.mintresearch.orgNormative Philosophy of Computing - JanuaryHappy New Year! 1165
Reposted by Seth LazarKnight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 09/01/2025EVENT: Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms, 4/10-11, at @columbiauniversity.bsky.social & online. We're hosting a symposium w/ @sethlazar.org exploring the risks advanced #AI systems pose to democratic freedoms and interventions to mitigate them. RSVP: knightcolumbia.org/events/artif...knightcolumbia.orgArtificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms 0195
Reposted by Seth LazarAnka Reuel ➡️ NeurIPS @ankareuel.bsky.social · 05/01/2025📢 Excited to share: I'm again leading the efforts for the Responsible AI chapter for Stanford's 2025 AI Index, curated by @stanfordhai.bsky.social. As last year, we're asking you to submit your favorite papers on the topic for consideration (including your own!) 🧵 1/ 1148
Reposted by Seth LazarSimon Willison @simonwillison.net · 24/12/2024Turns out we weren't done for major LLM releases in 2024 after all... Alibaba's Qwen just released QvQ, a "visual reasoning model" - the same chain-of-thought trick as OpenAI's o1 applied to running a prompt against an image Trying it out is a lot of fun: simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/24/...simonwillison.netTrying out QvQ—Qwen’s new visual reasoning modelI thought we were done for major model releases in 2024, but apparently not: Alibaba’s Qwen team just dropped the Apache2 2 licensed QvQ-72B-Preview, “an experimental research model focusing on … 517125
Reposted by Seth LazarSimon Willison @simonwillison.net · 25/12/2024Here are my collected notes on DeepSeek v3 so far: simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/25/...simonwillison.netdeepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3-BaseNo model card or announcement yet, but this new model release from Chinese AI lab DeepSeek (an arm of Chinese hedge fund [High-Flyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Flyer_(company))) looks very si... 3368
Reposted by Seth LazarSung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 25/12/2024deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3-Base huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/...huggingface.codeepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3-Base · Hugging FaceWe’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science. 1344
Reposted by Seth LazarMelanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 23/12/2024Some of my thoughts on OpenAI's o3 and the ARC-AGI benchmark aiguide.substack.com/p/did-openai...aiguide.substack.comDid OpenAI Just Solve Abstract Reasoning?OpenAI’s o3 model aces the "Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus" — but what does it mean? 1634099
Reposted by Seth LazarNathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 20/12/2024OpenAI skips o2, previews o3 scores, and they're truly crazy. Huge progress on the few benchmarks we think are truly hard today. Including ARC AGI. Rip to people who say any of "progress is done," "scale is done," or "llms cant reason" 2024 was awesome. I love my job. 1111314
Reposted by Seth LazarNathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 20/12/2024OpenAI's o3: The grand finale of AI in 2024 A step change as influential as the release of GPT-4. Reasoning language models are the current and next big thing. I explain: * The ARC prize * o3 model size / cost * Dispelling training myths * Extreme benchmark progressbuff.lyo3: The grand finale of AI in 2024A step change as influential as the release of GPT-4. Reasoning language models are the current big thing. 87912
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 26/12/2024I'm not seeing (here) much discussion of o3. If you are, point me to who's on here that I'm missing? If you're not: just registering that o3's performance on SWE-bench verified is *bananas*, and likely to have massive impacts in 2025. 5201
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 23/12/2024Busy shopping day in Causeway Bay (long exposures handheld with Spectre App) 120
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 21/12/2024Feeling good (after o3) about some of the bets made in these papers… Human level software agents now seem nailed on for the near-term. 040
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 20/12/2024Two papers on anticipating and evaluating AI agent impacts now ready for (private) comments: if you're interested in how language agents might reshape democracy, or in how *platform agents* might intensify the worst features of the platform economy (but could also fix it), lmk. 360
Reposted by Seth LazarAnka Reuel ➡️ NeurIPS @ankareuel.bsky.social · 19/12/2024As one of the vice chairs of the EU GPAI Code of Practice process, I co-wrote the second draft which just went online – feedback is open until mid-January, please let me know your thoughts, especially on the internal governance section! digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/s...digital-strategy.ec.europa.euSecond Draft of the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice published, written by independent expertsIndependent experts present the second draft of the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, based on the feedback received on the first draft, published on 14 November 2024. 0145
Reposted by Seth LazarSam Bowman @sleepinyourhat.bsky.social · 18/12/2024New work from my team at Anthropic in collaboration with Redwood Research. I think this is plausibly the most important AGI safety result of the year. Cross-posting the thread below: 512629
Reposted by Seth LazarACM FAccT @facct.bsky.social · 18/12/2024We're working hard behind the scenes to finalize the dates and venue for #FAccT2025! While final confirmation is still pending, our tentative conference dates are June 23-26. Expect more updates soon! 0155
Reposted by Seth LazarRisto Uuk @ristouuk.bsky.social · 17/12/2024I’m excited to share the announcement of 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞-𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤𝐬. The conference will take place 𝟐𝟔-𝟐𝟖𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓 at the Institute of Philosophy of KU Leuven in 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐠𝐢𝐮𝐦. Our keynote speakers: • Yoshua Bengio • Dawn Song • Iason Gabriel Submit abstract by 15 February:kuleuven.beInternational Conference on Large-Scale AI Risks 0214
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 17/12/2024Really love the container ships we can see from our balcony. We now have an app to track them… 370
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 17/12/2024What flipping genius decided that if you want to search for "82.52" in your email you'd be just as interested in something with "83" in it. It is SO BLOODY HARD to find a specific email (and no quotation marks don't help, it's apple's default mail app). 340
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 17/12/2024New Normative Philosophy of Computing Newsletter. Events, jobs, papers, links...open.substack.comNormative Philosophy of Computing - DecemberHappy Holidays! 050
Seth Lazar @sethlazar.org · 17/12/2024Much enjoyed first @neuripsconf.bsky.social—fantastic to see the number (in absolute if not relative terms) of ML researchers seriously concerned with questions of ethics and safety. The coming months and years will try your integrity: I’m hopeful you’ll hold fast! 1202
Reposted by Seth LazarHanna Wallach @hannawallach.bsky.social · 15/12/2024Super excited for the Evaluating Evaluations workshop at @neuripsconf.bsky.social today!!! evaleval.github.io #NeurIPS2024 @msftresearch.bsky.social's FATE group, Sociotechnical Alignment Center, and friends will be presenting several papers there. See below for details...evaleval.github.ioHome - EvalEval 2024A NeurIPS 2024 workshop on best practices for measuring the broader impacts of generative AI systems 1254
Reposted by Seth LazarHellina Hailu Nigatu @hellinanigatu.bsky.social · 14/12/2024As I am wraping up my time in Vancouver for #NeurIPS2024, I want to share that our paper with @rajiinio.bsky.social won Best paper award at Black In AI ☺️ 0253
Reposted by Seth LazarLilly Irani @gleemie.bsky.social · 14/12/2024Scale AI worker sues the company, accusing them of wage theft, misclassifying them as contractors, and unfairly cutting off contractors. The issues these workers are suing over impact workers across the platform economy. www.sfgate.com/tech/article...sfgate.comSF tech startup, 27-year-old billionaire CEO accused of widespread wage theftScale AI, a San Francisco tech startup worth $13.8 billion, was sued Tuesday and accused of exploiting and misclassifying contracted workers. 2166
Reposted by Seth LazarHanna Wallach @hannawallach.bsky.social · 14/12/2024New paper on why machine "unlearning" is much harder than it seems is now up on arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2412.06966 This was a huuuuuge cross-disciplinary effort led by @msftresearch.bsky.social FATE postdoc @grumpy-frog.bsky.social!!!arxiv.orgMachine Unlearning Doesn't Do What You Think: Lessons for Generative AI Policy, Research, and PracticeWe articulate fundamental mismatches between technical methods for machine unlearning in Generative AI, and documented aspirations for broader impact that these methods could have for law and policy. ... 27224
Reposted by Seth LazarSung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 13/12/2024Microsoft's Phi-4 A small language model that performs as well as (and often better than) large models on certain types of complex reasoning tasks such as math. techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/aiplatf...techcommunity.microsoft.comIntroducing Phi-4: Microsoft’s Newest Small Language Model Specializing in Complex Reasoning | Microsoft Community HubToday we are introducing Phi-4, our 14B parameter state-of-the-art small language model (SLM) that excels at complex reasoning in areas such as math, in... 0394