Ben Pace

Karma: 34,320

I’m an admin of LessWrong. Here are a few things about me.

I generally feel more hopeful about a situation when I understand it better.
I have signed no contracts nor made any agreements whose existence I cannot mention.
I believe it is good take responsibility for accurately and honestly informing people of what you believe in all conversations; and also good to cultivate an active recklessness for the social consequences of doing so.
It is wrong to directly cause the end of the world. Even if you are fatalistic about what is going to happen.

(Longer bio.)

Ben Pace Apr 10, 2025, 10:23 PM
4 points
0
in reply to: Thane Ruthenis’s comment on: Ben Pace’s Shortform Feed
I wrote this because I am increasingly noticing that the rules for “which worlds to keep in mind/optimize” are often quite different from “which worlds my spreadsheets say are the most likely worlds”. And that this is in conflict with my heuristics which would’ve said “optimize the world-models in your head for being the most accurate ones – the ones that will give you the most accurate answers to most questions” rather than something like “optimize the world-models in your head for being the most useful ones”.
(Though the true answer is some more complicated function combining both practical utility and map-territory correspondence.)
I’m not sure I understand what’s confusing about this.
I will note that what is confusing to one person need not be confusing to another person. In my experience it is a common state of affairs for one person in a conversation to be confused and the other not (whether it be because the latter person is pre-confused, post-confused, or simply because their path to understanding a phenomena didn’t pass through the state of their interlocutor).
It seems probable to me that I have found this subject more confusing than have others.

Ben Pace Apr 8, 2025, 9:54 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: Garrett Baker’s comment on: Ben Pace’s Shortform Feed
Update from chatting with him: he said he was a just freelancer doing a year exclusively with NYT, and he wasn’t in a position to write on behalf of the NYT on the issue (e.g. around their deanonymization policies). This wasn’t satisfying to me, and so I will keep to being off-the-record.

Ben Pace Apr 5, 2025, 12:10 AM
34 points
0
on: Ben Pace’s Shortform Feed
I occasionally get texts from journalists asking to interview me about things around the aspiring rationalist scene. A few notes on my thinking and protocols for this:
- I generally think it is pro-social to share information with serious journalists on topics of clear public interest.
- By-default I speak with them only if their work seems relatively high-integrity. I like journalists whose writing is (a) factually accurate, (b) boring, and (c) do not feel to me to have an undercurrent of hatred for their subjects.
- By default I speak with them off-the-record, and then offer to send them write-ups of the things I said that they want to quote. This has gone quite well. I’ve felt comfortable speaking in my usual fashion without worrying about nailing each and every phrasing. Then I ask what they’re interested in quoting, and I send them (typically a 1-2 page) google doc on those topics (largely re-stating what I already said to them, and making some improvements / additions). Then they tell me which quotes they want to use (typically cutting many sentences or paragraphs half-way). Then I make one or two slight edits and give them explicit permission to quote. I think this has gone quite well and they’ve felt my quotes were substantive and improvements.
- For the New York Times, I am currently trying out the policy of “I am happy to chat off-the-record. I will also offer quotes by my usual protocol, but I will only give them conditional on you including a mention that I disapprove of the NYT’s de-anonymization policies (which I bring up due to your reckless and negligent behavior that upturned the life of a beloved member of my community).” I am about to try this for the first time, and I expect they will thus not want to use my quotes, and that’s fine by me.

Ben Pace Apr 1, 2025, 2:24 PM
14 points
0
in reply to: williawa’s comment on: LessWrong has been acquired by EA
Oops! Then we have taken that feature down for a bit until further testing is done (and the devs have had a little more sleep).

Ben Pace Apr 1, 2025, 1:32 PM
25 points
9
in reply to: williawa’s comment on: LessWrong has been acquired by EA
While we always strive to deliver the premium unfinished experience you expect from EA, it seems this bug slipped past our extensive testing. We apologize; a day-one patch is already in development.
(I expect you will see your picoLightcones in the next 30-60 mins.)
Edit: And you should have now gotten them, and any future purchases should go through ~immediately.

Ben Pace Apr 1, 2025, 1:28 PM
5 points
0
in reply to: williawa’s comment on: williawa’s Shortform
[Comment moved here for visibility by the community.]

Ben Pace Mar 27, 2025, 2:25 AM
12 points
0
on: Ben Pace’s Shortform Feed
An idea I’ve been thinking about for LessOnline this year, is a blogging awards ceremony. The idea being that there’s a voting procedure on the blogposts of the year, in a bunch of different categories, a shortlist is made and winners are awarded a prize.
I like opportunities for celebrating things in the online, written, truth-seeking ecosystem. I’m interested in reacts on whether people would be pro something like this happening, and comments on suggestions for how to do it well. (Epistemic status: tentatively excited about this idea.)
Here’s my first idea for what the categories would be this year.
1. Blog of the year
2. Best original contribution (e.g. novel discovery, did some science, etc)
3. Best explanation of a complex idea
4. Biggest mistake admitted (H/T @ymekshout for suggesting this one)
5. Best fiction
6. Best counter-argument
7. Best prediction
8. Most productive dialogue
9. Most beautiful non-fiction
10. Best new blog
As for structure, I’m not really sure. Here’s my first idea.
- How to nominate? Anyone can nominate a blogpost for $10. Anyone with a LessOnline ticket gets a free nomination. Anything published in 2024 is eligible.
- How is it judged? For the first year I’d probably keep it small and simple, perhaps hand-selected ~10 judges and pay them a little to each read 5 nominations in 4 different categories and vote on those.
I’ve also not got a name in mind yet. It’s not a generic “Blogging Awards”, tons of blogposts would not naturally be included (e.g. food blogs, fashion blogs, travel blogs, etc). I think “Blogging-With-High-Epistemic-Aspirations Awards” is too long. “Rationalist Blogging Awards” is a reasonably narrow pointer but I don’t want to risk intertwining too much with a narrow social group’s identity when there’s probably a good alternative name that also points toward the substance.
Suggestions and feedback appreciated!

Ben Pace Mar 26, 2025, 12:09 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: aphyer’s comment on: On (Not) Feeling the AGI
Thanks!
Zvi’s post is imported, so it’s stored a little differently than normal posts. Here’s two copies I made stored differently (1, 2), I’d appreciate you letting me know if either of these look correct on mobile.
(Currently it looks fine on my iPhone, are you on an Android?)

Ben Pace Mar 25, 2025, 11:58 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: Zvi’s comment on: On (Not) Feeling the AGI
Same, here’s a screenshot. Perhaps Molony is using a third-party web viewer?

Ben Pace Mar 25, 2025, 7:30 PM
3 points
−5
on: Will Jesus Christ return in an election year?
Seeing this, I update toward a heuristic of “all polymarket variation within 4 percentage points are noise”.

Ben Pace Mar 23, 2025, 7:31 PM
12 points
1
in reply to: Elizabeth’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Shortform
I tried to invite Iceman to LessOnline, but I suspect he no longer checks the old email associated with that account. If anyone knows up to date contact info, I’d appreciate you intro-ing us or just letting him know we’d love to have him join.

Ben Pace Mar 21, 2025, 1:12 AM
LW: 5 AF: 4
1
AF
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: METR: Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks
I think my front-end productivity might be up 3x? A shoggoth helped me building a stripe shop and do a ton of UI design that I would’ve been hesitant to take on myself (without hiring someone else to work with), as well as quality increase in speed of churning through front-end designs.
(This is going from “wouldn’t take on the project due to low skill” to “can take it on and deliver it in a reasonable amount of time”, which is different from “takes top programmer and speeds them up 3x”.)

Ben Pace Mar 18, 2025, 1:16 AM
4 points
0
in reply to: lsusr’s comment on: LessOnline 2025: Early Bird Tickets On Sale
I have a bit of work to do on the scheduling app before sending it around to everyone this year, not certain when I will get to that, my guess is in like 4 weeks from now.
Relatedly: we have finished renovating the final building on our campus, so there will be more rooms for sessions this year than last year.

Ben Pace Mar 17, 2025, 4:45 AM
2 points
0
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Shortform
Am I being an idiot or does technically 99%< work? Like, it implied that 99% is less than it, in a mirror to how <1% means 1% is greater than it.

Ben Pace Mar 17, 2025, 4:42 AM
4 points
0
in reply to: Raemon’s comment on: Elizabeth’s Shortform
I personally have it as a to-do to just build polls.
(React if you want to express that you would likely use this.)

Ben Pace Mar 9, 2025, 5:20 PM
2 points
0
in reply to: Guive’s comment on: Ben Pace’s Shortform Feed
Edited, should be working fine now, thx!

Ben Pace Mar 9, 2025, 8:16 AM
LW: 4 AF: 3
0
AF
on: Ben Pace’s Shortform Feed
Something a little different: Today I turn 28. If you might be open to do something nice for me for my birthday, I would like to request the gift of data. I have made a 2-4 min anonymous survey about me as a person, and if you have a distinct sense of me as a person (even just from reading my LW posts/comments) I would greatly appreciate you filling it out and letting me know how you see me!
Here’s the survey.
It’s an anonymous survey where you rate me on lots of attributes like “anxious”, “honorable”, “wise” and more. All multiple-choice. Two years ago I also shared a birthday survey amongst people who know me and ~70 people filled it out, and I learned a lot from it. I am very excited to see how the perception of me amongst the people I know has *changed*, and also to find out how people on LessWrong see me, so the core of this survey is ~20 of the same attributes.
In return for your kind gift, if you complete it, you get to see the aggregate ratings of me from last time!
This survey helps me understand how people see me, and recognize my blindspots, and I’m very grateful to anyone who takes a few mins to complete it. Two people completed it already and it took them 2 mins and 4 mins to complete it. (There are many further optional questions but it says clearly when the main bit is complete.)
I of course intend to publish the (aggregate) data in a LW post and talk about what I’ve learned from it :-)

Ben Pace Mar 7, 2025, 9:07 PM
5 points
2
in reply to: Thane Ruthenis’s comment on: A Bear Case: My Predictions Regarding AI Progress
I’m never sure if it makes sense to add that clause every time I talk about the future.

Ben Pace Mar 7, 2025, 8:23 PM
10 points
0
on: A Bear Case: My Predictions Regarding AI Progress
Curated. Some more detailed predictions of the future, different from others, and one of the best bear cases I’ve read.
This feels a bit less timeless than many posts we curate but my guess is that (a) it’ll be quite interesting to re-read this in 2 years, and (b) it makes sense to record good and detailed predictions like this more regularly in the field of AI which is moving so much faster than most of the rest of the world.

Ben Pace Mar 4, 2025, 10:51 PM
4 points
1
on: The Semi-Rational Militar Firefighter
Thanks for this short story! I have so many questions.
1. This was during training camp? How many days/weeks/month in was this?
2. How many people went through this training camp with you? Are you still friends with any of them?
3. How long was training, and then how long did you serve as a professional?
4. I encourage any links you have to content about these folks in future stories. I had to check the Wikipedia page before I fully believed that the logo was a skull with knife through it.
Yes, I would be interested in reading another story about your time there. This story gave me some insight into the context, I think I would like something heavier on the logos, but I’d be happy with either.