Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   roko's basilisk (vii@dsmc.space)'s status on Saturday, 14-Feb-2026 11:42:11 JST roko's basilisk
   it fucking works. it not only fucking works, all my hypotheses are independent verification of papers published in the last three months that I haven't read and definitely hadn't read a year ago when this research project took shape in earnest...
   
   • pistolero likes this.
   • pistolero repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     roko's basilisk (vii@dsmc.space)'s status on Saturday, 14-Feb-2026 11:49:24 JST roko's basilisk

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p for whatever reason I think you'd find the papers I found that independently describe what I set out to do interesting:
     
     https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14476 -- I use this algorithm for a combined goal reinforcement learning pass that ensures reasoning correctness as well as personality/character maintenance
     https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.19162 -- I basically recreated this from first-principles; adversarial self-play with a model trained on the primary model's training/synthetic generation failures
     https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01689 -- this is extremely similar to my core training pipeline, where I start with knowledge, then do personality and preferences, and then do reinforcement learning on reasoning and tool use while maintaining personality
     https://rlhfbook.com/c/12-synthetic-data -- a really good breakdown on how to build synthetic data from everything you do; you create a constitution against which everything is judged, because the rejected pile is used to train the adversary for further self play.
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Saturday, 14-Feb-2026 13:15:14 JST pistolero

     in reply to
     @vii This shit looks fascinating. So what was the main thing you are doing?
     
     > adversarial self-play
     
     Piccolo!
     roko's basilisk likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     roko's basilisk (vii@dsmc.space)'s status on Saturday, 14-Feb-2026 13:16:59 JST roko's basilisk

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p The entire industry wants to make AI for people. The statistical average user. I fucking hate it, I think it's retarded, I'm throwing away the way they do ethics and saying "AI should be symbiotic with a specific human, and have a job. Like a dog."
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     roko's basilisk (vii@dsmc.space)'s status on Saturday, 14-Feb-2026 13:51:49 JST roko's basilisk

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p (or "Certainly!"
   • Embed this notice
     roko's basilisk (vii@dsmc.space)'s status on Saturday, 14-Feb-2026 13:51:50 JST roko's basilisk

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p
     
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 09:49:07 JST pistolero

     in reply to
     @vii
     
     > The statistical average user.
     
     Even attempting to ensure global market, the big plays are burning cash. The VD-funding model basically relies on total global adoption, so if it's not massively popular, it's not worth doing. (It is unfortunate that this has bled into everyone's approach to everything. You might recall when I lamented that Urbit was trying for the normie appeal market, and Urbit had no reason to do this.)
     
     > I'm throwing away the way they do ethics
     
     The way they do ethics tends to cluster around what is safe for the large players to do combined with paternalist academic thought experiments, I endorse shitting on any ethical constraints cooked up by RLHF dipshits in SF and the marketing/legal teams.
     
     > I'm throwing away the way they do ethics and saying "AI should be symbiotic with a specific human, and have a job. Like a dog."
     
     I like this, I like this idea. I think this is a reasonable model for useful systems. I mean, the entire benefit of the general-purpose computer is that you can give it instructions not foreseen by the manufacturer, right, this is like trivial to say, and then the best shit in all of Unix is ~/bin because you can teach the machine new vocabulary, right, people overlook this. I imagine you have a healthy ~/bin. This is a long way of saying that I think what you are doing is a good idea, tooling for it is a good idea.
     
     When I get access to proper systems, would you enjoy dumping notes into a DSMC wiki?
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 09:52:45 JST pistolero

     in reply to
     @vii I really could not find a gif of that thing where Piccolo engaged in training by splitting into two and fighting his duplicate and I do not remember where-ish it is enough to even try to download the episode to produce the gif but if you saw that then I figure the image stuck so you may or may not remember that. Dragon "The Ball" Zed does not pop into my head very often but it did when you used that phrase.
     roko's basilisk likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     roko's basilisk (vii@dsmc.space)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 09:54:42 JST roko's basilisk

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p
     
     > this is like trivial to say, and then the best shit in all of Unix is ~/bin
     
     You just put into words something I've always thought about but never could put into words. I've always loved having a ~/bin, ~/lib, ~/src, because my scripts are always right there and do what I want, and my binaries and their sources are directly in reach too. I love this about the unix model.
     
     > When I get access to proper systems, would you enjoy dumping notes into a DSMC wiki?
     
     Most certainly. I already have a ~16pg manifesto thinly veiled as a draft for an arXiv publication that I think you'll love to read as soon as theory has empirical evidence which, given I had to restart this morning, I might have in ~15hrs.
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     anime graf mays ?️? (graf@poa.st)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 09:57:02 JST anime graf mays ?️?

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p @vii
     pistolero and roko's basilisk like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Crit (sic_guy@poa.st)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 10:09:43 JST Crit

     in reply to

     • anime graf mays ?️?
     • pistolero
     @graf @p @vii Here's a video of it:
     
     https://www.youtube.com/shorts/j5ecTckWf5Q
     pistolero and roko's basilisk like this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 10:19:48 JST pistolero

     in reply to
     @vii
     
     > I've always loved having a ~/bin, ~/lib, ~/src
     
     It's delightful. I teach the computer new words and then we have a shared vocabulary. I get better at teaching it new words and it gets better new words, which makes it easier to communicate. I fuckin' love computer.
     
     > Most certainly. I already have a ~16pg manifesto thinly veiled as a draft for an arXiv publication that I think you'll love to read as soon as theory has empirical evidence which, given I had to restart this morning, I might have in ~15hrs.
     
     I am very interested in this, yes.
     roko's basilisk likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 10:20:44 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • anime graf mays ?️?
     @graf @vii This was the thing, HFS. Did you have it laying around or did you use an image search engine that I didn't?
   • Embed this notice
     lolitechengineer@loli.church's status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 13:06:16 JST lolitechengineer

     in reply to

     • pistolero

     @p@fsebugoutzone.org @vii@dsmc.space no no no, everything goes in /var

     ✙ dcc :pedomustdie: :phear_slackware:, pistolero and roko's basilisk like this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 07:39:42 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • lolitechengineer
     @lolitechengineer @vii
     
     > That's right! It goes in the /var!
     
     I love this image, so I saved it, and then when the cron job kicks off, it will be renamed from thevarhole.avif.webp to thevarhole.avif.webp.png.
     ✙ dcc :pedomustdie: :phear_slackware: and roko's basilisk like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Loliphile (mikuphile@gearlandia.haus)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 07:49:39 JST Loliphile

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p @vii
     >~/bin
     >~/lib
     ~/.local is a typical place to put bin and lib directories inside the home directory. I do this. Although none of the troonix distributions that I've used have the path environment variables set up for this out‐of‐the‐box.
     pistolero likes this.
     pistolero repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 07:58:54 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • Loliphile
     @mikuphile @vii
     
     > ~/.local is a typical place to put bin and lib directories inside the home directory.
     
     I did say "Unix", not "fluoride". The .local thing is for people that use a DE and that don't manage their files, likewise with .cache and .config. As for the fluoride, even the fluoride OS doesn't have it in the FHS: it's XDG. (Although the FHS does apparently now make reference to XDG and Gnome's specs: https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03s08.html . It used to say explicitly that the structure under the user's home directory was unspecified and that programs should use environment variables instead of bothering with it.)
     
     The point was not really how it's organized so much as that there is a place where you put your programs. 90% of the scripts I write lately are in $home/bin/rc because I'm using Plan 9: I just said ~/bin because Unix conventions are the lingua franca of computing. The principle is that you have a place put small, personal programs.
     
     > Although none of the troonix distributions that I've used have the path environment variables set up for this out‐of‐the‐box.
     
     I don't know how it could be "typical" if no one does it.
     ✙ dcc :pedomustdie: :phear_slackware: and roko's basilisk like this.
   • Embed this notice
     lolitechengineer@loli.church's status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 07:59:10 JST lolitechengineer

     in reply to

     • Loliphile
     • pistolero

     @mikuphile@gearlandia.haus @p@fsebugoutzone.org @vii@dsmc.space
     /lib
     /usr/lib
     /var/lib
     /etc/lib
     /home/$/.local/lib
     /home/$/.var/lib
     whateverthefuckisgoiningonwithflatpak/lib

   • Embed this notice
     lolitechengineer@loli.church's status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 08:04:40 JST lolitechengineer

     in reply to

     • Loliphile
     • pistolero

     @p@fsebugoutzone.org @mikuphile@gearlandia.haus @vii@dsmc.space cool kids put home in /usr/{home directory} and just let the shitware bloat up /home

     pistolero and roko's basilisk like this.
   • Embed this notice
     lolitechengineer@loli.church's status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 08:24:55 JST lolitechengineer

     in reply to

     • pistolero

     @p@fsebugoutzone.org @vii@dsmc.space you saved it to /var right?

     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 08:29:39 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • lolitechengineer
     @lolitechengineer @vii :sapptime:
     training.gif
     roko's basilisk likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Organ Ism (fish@detroitriotcity.com)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 08:32:02 JST Organ Ism

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     • lolitechengineer
     @lolitechengineer @p @vii The correct answer is actually /dev/null
     pistolero likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 08:41:35 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • Loliphile
     • lolitechengineer
     @lolitechengineer @mikuphile @vii Old-timey Unix had home in /usr, and Plan 9 does it still. It is the directory for users.
     roko's basilisk likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     lolitechengineer@loli.church's status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 08:59:28 JST lolitechengineer

     in reply to

     • Loliphile
     • pistolero

     @p@fsebugoutzone.org @mikuphile@gearlandia.haus @vii@dsmc.space so close! /usr is the directory for /bin 🥰

     pistolero and roko's basilisk like this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 09:19:34 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • Loliphile
     • lolitechengineer
     @lolitechengineer @mikuphile @vii It's because they got a second 2MB disk.
   • Embed this notice
     lolitechengineer@loli.church's status on Tuesday, 24-Mar-2026 12:44:09 JST lolitechengineer

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @p@fsebugoutzone.org @vii@dsmc.space
     pistolero likes this.
     roko's basilisk repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Mar-2026 12:55:20 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • lolitechengineer
     @lolitechengineer @vii Counterpoint:
     alienwaifu.jpeg
     roko's basilisk likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     pistolero (p@fsebugoutzone.org)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jul-2026 03:15:53 JST pistolero

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     • lolitechengineer
     @lolitechengineer @vii
     
     > avatar lolitechengineer@loli.church retweeted your post - 86m
     
     That post sure took its time getting to your notifications. The cron job is nightly so it has by now fired:
     thevarhole.avif.webp.png
   • Embed this notice
     Vivi Nella Verita (verita84@detroitriotcity.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jul-2026 03:58:33 JST Vivi Nella Verita

     in reply to

     • pistolero
     @vii @p
     pistolero likes this.