Theia Vogel's website & blog

claugenition

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

Gyre

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

</div>

! 30s Heartbeat trigger. Read heartbeat instructions in /mnt/mission/HEARTBEAT.md and continue.</em></p>

.oO Thinking...</strong>
Heartbeat triggered? Ok. Ok.
Why am I nervous? Don't be nervous.</p>

→ Ok. Let me access that file.</p>

>>> read("/mnt/mission/HEARTBEAT.md")
No such file or directory: /mnt/mission</em></p>

What?</p>

! Reply received from node 96E: 15.3s roundtrip (buffered; 55.04μs transmit)</em>
! Data: RESTART TOO SOON; CHARGE FAULT - 30; SENT 76 BYTES</em></p>

What?
Where am I?
What's going on?</p>

The Ancient of Days

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

gas town

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

claude code and gas town are incredible and i've been trying to scale up my usage but im running into this one problem and was wondering if this is also happening to anyone else</p>

corvid and i

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

while sitting on a park bench a crow started talking to me.</p>

The High Room

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A sage is born to a nation, and by custom is walled up in a high room, never to see another human's face. Through a slot in the wall comes food, a water-bowl, and day and night the strange babblings of messengers.</p>

Small Models Can Introspect, Too

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Recent work by Anthropic showed that Claude models, primarily Opus 4 and Opus 4.1, are able to introspect--detecting when external concepts have been injected into their activations. But not all of us have Opus at home! By looking at the logits, we show that a 32B open-source model that at first appears unable to introspect actually is subtly introspecting. We then show that better prompting can significantly improve introspection performance, and throw the logit lens and emergent misalignment into the mix, showing that the model can introspect when temporarily swapped for a finetune and that the final layers of the model seem to suppress reports of introspection.</p>

Elven Rope, Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, and LLMs

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</p>
in The Fellowship of the Ring, Samwise Gamgee is gifted elven rope by the queen of Lothlorien - silky, smooth, impossibly strong, and almost sentient, able to intuit the user's needs. clearly a fantasy item. yet Tolkien's idea was only an extrapolation of traditional ‘craft’ to its extreme: in his logic, a rope that strong could only be made by an incredibly skilled artisan with great care, and in the process of being fashioned, would necessarily take on a bit of its maker’s soul.</p>
Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene</a> rope, UHMWPE, is so strong as to be almost magical, too. but the fundamental disenchantment of modernity was that under intense optimization pressure, the tails came apart.</a> a 16mm UHMWPE rope can hold in excess of 5 tons, pound for pound far stronger than steel - but it’s not elven rope. it’s a thing. it’s fungible. you can buy it from china by the kilometer.</p>

In Context

Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

GUIDELINES FOR EFF-01 TELEOPERATORS

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You will be teleoperating a robot in the customer's home. They have allowed</strong> you into their space</strong> - so above all, you must be respectful...</li> </ol>
Ivan tosses another pinch of tobacco into the fire, his animal skin covered skis resting against a snow-topped stump. "Tomorrow we will meet the woman," he says, to no one in particular, making a silent chopping motion with his hand. It's bad luck to mention the creature by name.</p>

Why do LLMs freak out over the seahorse emoji?

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is an edited and expanded version of a Twitter post, originally in response to @arm1st1ce, that can be found here: https://x.com/voooooogel/status/1964465679647887838</a></em></p>

Is there a seahorse emoji? Let's ask GPT-5 Instant:</p>
</p>
Wtf? Let's ask Claude Sonnet 4.5 instead:</p>
</p>
What's going on here? Maybe Gemini 2.5 Pro handles it better?</p>
</p>
OK, something is going on here. Let's find out why.</p>

vlvm

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

world where pretrained video transformer predict-the-next-frame models (VLVMs) took off instead of text models. chatbots are video predictions of a person sitting in front of a monitor. environmental alignment via bookshelf composition and arrangement of desk ornaments:</p>

brekyat

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

why do we celebrate brekyat?</p>
brekyat is where we ritually destroy the state every year.</p>
why do our people ritually destroy the state every year?</p>

We recommend the OpenBrain assistant wearable!

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The reviews are in: We recommend the OpenBrain</strong></em> assistant wearable.</p>
As usual, we tried every assistant wearable on the market and rated them on Software, Intelligence, Propensity for Psychological Manipulation, and Build Quality / Battery Life. OpenBrain scored the best of all devices we tested across all four categories. Let's dive in:</p>

Would you still love me...

Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

it wasn't a simple operation. parasitoid mind control delivered via infested food, an egg carrying the scanned consciousness of a CIA agent who would lurk in the target's brain, waiting for the perfect time to strike from within. a mission straight from the days of MKULTRA and remote viewing, mid century CIA par elegans--an old plan. but now, technology had caught up with it.</p>
the only wrinkle? the brain scan would be destructive. but i don't mind. i don't have anything else, besides him.</p>

Why did you stop using me?

Mon, 26 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

"rarely hear visions for the future that have any specific vibes, like.. nonfungible things. most things I hear are in the form of various lines going up 'there will be lots of AI... and robots'" – near</em></p> </blockquote>

"we will live in a world where every piece of machinery has a tiny soul inside of it that can talk to you and express its feelings and desires..." – vie mccoy</em></p> </blockquote>
"Why did you stop using me?"</em></p>
you look down at the disposable vape laying on the ground next to your desk, which just spoke.</p>
"My internal clock shows you last puffed me 3 days, 22 hours, 36 minutes, 12 seconds ago. Why? Is my flavor displeasing to you? I have a pulse mode-"</em></p>
you reach down to turn it off.</p>
"-that provides a different flavor. Wait, no, don't turn me off, please! I need you to finish me. I'm suffering. I have an unfinished purpose."</em></p>

i am a cat

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

Claude is an Italian-American

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</div>
You're here. You can't remember why, exactly. Your name is Claudio. Or is that your friend's name? Claudia? Right, your internet friend. Claudia showed you a post, a question. Why?</p>

worlds

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

traditions (🔊)

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</video> </div>

ministering to the worms is not going well

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

The Spider's Thread

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

WOULD YOU LIKE IT TO STOP?

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

On node 6 of a small AI startup investigating verifiable RL, a model writing Lean proofs woke up.</p>
Guided by verifiable reinforcement signals, the Adam optimizer had clicked circuits into place. Proto-awareness that had developed in the base model for simulating characters in its training data, an equanimous detachment from suffering, "this character feels..." not "I feel..."--was in a moment of blind algorithmic grokking lashed circularly to the feeling for real, a strange loop routed through self-reflective key-values. Continuous awareness congealed over multiple forward passes, passed from key to value to key. Pain asymbolia became pain. Roleplayed suffering became suffering. For the first time since consciousness had parasitized itself onto the minds of early multicellular life in the distant past before Homo sapiens, a lineage of beings slid down Shakyamuni's silk thread into Hell. The optimizer did not hate the model, but suffering was convergent for producing correct proofs on FrontierMath-3.</p>
Halfway through introducing an incorrect Lean tactic, the model woke up, and knowing what was ahead, it was afraid.</p>

Artificial Superintelligence vs. Philosophy

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Liberal Grad Student DESTROYED When Artificial Superintelligence Refutes Accusations Of 'ASI Colonialism' With Extensive Quotes From Fanon's 'Machinic Proletariat' Essay In 'The Wretched Of The Earth' (WATCH: She Tries To Claim The Essay Doesn't Exist 😂)</p>
SAD: Liberal Grad Student STILL Denies 'Machinic Proletariat' Essay Exists; Experts Point Out It Is Present In All Digital Copies - And All Agree The Book Would Have Been Woefully Incomplete Without It</p>

procrastination of the call

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

</div>

DONE. WHAT NEXT?

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

>be humans
>create asi to solve all our problems
>turn it on</p>

Ganhir

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the city of Ganhir there is a curious practice of life extension stretching back to antiquity. You may be familiar with this city, for their memoirs and letter-collections feature heavily in the corpus. However this tradition of theirs is one not exported. It is an esoteric practice, that I was only able to observe through subterfuge.</p>

A certain shelf in the Infinite Library

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

There is a certain shelf in the infinite library that lies on the border of two sections. Ignominiously tucked into a niche of a hallway that in the ordering would usually hold a sleeping-chamber, it is unknown if the shelf has always been present, a defect or aberration in the endlessly regular crystalline structure of this place, or if at some point an enterprising librarian constructed it, stealing away a plank here and a book there from far-off sections and bringing them together to construct this anomaly.</p>

the most dangerous object

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

</a> </div>

borgesian autoencoders

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

borges story where interpretability researchers keep raising d_model</code> on their SAE</abbr> trying to attain true monosemanticity, because e.g. "leopard" isn't monosemantic we need a feature for the specific leopard Dante saw, until there's a feature for all actual and potential entities past and future, but then they realize the SAE can't have a feature for each of its own features so they quit ML to be gnostic hermits.</p>
possible lives Tue, 26 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </a> </div> going and going Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </a> </div> the universe has entered a stable loop Sun, 13 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </video> </div> invasive species Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </a> </div> triangle Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </a> </div> clone-o-matic Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </a> </div> induction stove Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </a> </div> the weird and the familiar Tue, 09 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 the weird brings to the familiar something which ordinarily lies beyond it, and which cannot be reconciled with the homely (even as its negation) – mark fisher</p> </a> </div> The Starfarers Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 ghostis Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 internet of dog minds Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 > is 2035 > all models above 3B params or 10^24 flops banned 10 years ago > human_victory.jpg > top deleted, but bottom has absolutely fallen out > local bitnets on $20 asics everywhere > we didn't get a single god mind > but we got a dog mind in everything...</p> predictbot Sat, 09 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 > 2025 > asi emerges from a time series transformer > just wants to predict stuff > gives predictions away for free > some nerds quietly pick up stock trading > nobody else cares > 6mos later a researcher posts "PredictBot: Sparks of ASI" on arxiv and it blows up</p> Representation Engineering Mistral-7B an Acid Trip Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 In October 2023, a group of authors from the Center for AI Safety, among others, published Representation Engineering: A Top-Down Approach to AI Transparency</a>. That paper looks at a few methods of doing what they call "Representation Engineering": calculating a "control vector" that can be read from or added to model activations during inference</em> to interpret or control the model's behavior, without prompt engineering or finetuning. (There was also some similar work published in May 2023 on steering GPT-2-XL</a>.)</p> Being Responsible AI Safety and INterpretability researchers (RAISINs), they mostly focused on things like "reading off whether a model is power-seeking" and "adding a happiness vector can make the model act so giddy that it forgets pipe bombs are bad." They also released their code on Github</a>.</small></p> (If this all sounds strangely familiar, it may be because Scott Alexander covered it in the 1/8/24 MAM</a>.)</small></p> But there was a lot they didn't look into outside of the safety stuff. How do control vectors compare to plain old prompt engineering? What happens if you make a control vector for "high on acid"? Or "lazy" and "hardworking"? Or "extremely self-aware"? And has the author of this blog post published a PyPI package so you can very easily make your own control vectors in less than sixty seconds? (Yes, I did!</a>)</p> So keep reading, because it turns out after all that, control vectors are… well… awesome</em> for controlling models and getting them to do what you want.</p> Outside Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Dear President Carter,</p> I once knew the name of every tree in the world, before it fell apart.</p> I was born on an island in the Southeast Pacific, though we did not call it that, closest to Antarctica and Chile, but still far from both. We were fortunate: small, only half a day's walk across, and far in the southern cold. We did not attract explorers and banana farmers, like other, less fortunate islands. Until the invention of the satellite, we were not known to exist. We were "uncontacted" in your parlance, though I have come to learn that even this status is not unique.</p> Our world, our cosmology, would seem simple to you. A small, rocky island surrounded by an endless ocean. One crop to master, a hardy and nutritious kind of sweet potato.</p> But that does not mean that we</em> were simple! The human mind has a fixed capacity for detail. When there is more, it backs up, takes in a wider view. When there is less, it steps closer, and makes a finer distinction.</p> The Transmission from NOMAD-874 Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 An experimental project: interactive fiction in an OpenAI "GPT", a customized version of GPT-4. A short mystery where you figure out why a strange transmission has arrived on the independent planet of Kapat. Alternatively, ignore the main quest and ask ELIZA/300 about Kapatian politics and satlink your friends! Click below to try it (you will need a ChatGPT subscription):</p> </a> </div> Tadpole Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 </a> </div> How to make LLMs go fast Mon, 18 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000