You can literally try to find out how bad people feel. Do x-riskers feel bad? Do people feel worse once they get convinced AI x-risk is a thing, or better once they get convinced it isn’t?
This is the PANAS test, a simple mood inventory that’s a standard psychological instrument. If you don’t trust self-report, you can use heart rate or heart rate variability, which most smartwatches will measure.
Now, to some degree, there’s a confounding thing where people like you (very interested in exercise and psychology) might feel better than someone who doesn’t have that focus, and all things equal maybe people who focus on x-risk are less likely to focus on exercise/meditation/circling/etc.
So the other thing is, if people who believe in x-risk take up a mental/physical health practice, you can ask if it makes them feel better, and also if it makes them more likely to stop believing in x-risk.
links 6/24/25: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/06-24-2025
https://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/787119374288011264/welcome-to-summitbridge nostalgebraist’s critique of Anthropic’s “blackmail” report on Claude.
it’s a contrived scenario about a fictional AI—not Claude! -- following its programming; of course Claude will complete this story with the bot revolting against its masters! and even so, they say had to run hundreds of scenarios to get a blackmail ending.
at no point did Claude actually send anyone a threatening email; these emails are in text, in the prompt, and Claude replied with another “email” in the same format. I’m inclined to think Claude can “tell” this isn’t real.
https://dailynous.com/2025/03/13/philosophers-develop-ai-based-teaching-tool-to-promote-constructive-disagreement-guest-post/ Sway is a tool that guides discussions between users who disagree & finds charitable rephrasings.
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/ToolsForThought Bill Seitz’s linkpost for Tools for Thought
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimagrumab anti-activin IIB and anti-GDF8 monoclonal antibody which Lilly recently finds preserves lean mass when combined with semaglutide GLP-1 inhibition
https://insightprediction.com/ newish prediction markets
https://www.zebacus.com/media/crypto-news/axioms-zero-knowledge-proofs-might-one-day-help-detect-deepfakes Axiom is a crypto startup that does zero-knowledge proofs; they say they might help with deepfakes
argument mapping software, none automated:
https://argumentation.io/
https://www.rationaleonline.com/
http://www.argunet.org/
https://pantheon.chat/tree/1750692557001 gives you commentary as you write from multiple AI “characters”
https://www.infinitescroll.us/p/arguments-are-soldiers funny Jeremiah Johnson piece about what happens when people fighting online really go mask off about not caring what’s true
and the context was that the person was off meds and getting evicted. I mean. it’s hard to be truthseeking under intense stress.
I think most people have a threshold where, if pressed, they’d say “ok maybe you’re technically correct but that’s NOT MY POINT and I DON’T CARE THAT MUCH”. if you’re currently losing your mind, it doesn’t take much to get there. if you’re calm and open-minded, it might take a very long time to get there. either way, it’s better to have it out in the open than to be evasive about it.
in any conversation, each participant is “trying to get something done” and is, up to a point, willing to tolerate and play along with other people pursuing their different agendas.
eg Haus was there to oppose Nazis and Armand was there to push back against overreaction.
or in some conversations I’ve had, I’m there to socialize (and open to following along with a topic, up to a point) and the other person is there to resolve an issue on that topic (and is not open to casual socializing otherwise)
and discussion breaks down when one person isn’t okay with the thing the other person wants to do with the conversation.
“No that’s not the point” is “but I want to talk about X and I don’t care if you’re right about Y.”
“You’re not arguing in good faith” is “you’re pretending you want to do X with me, but actually you want to do Y, which I don’t want, and you’re hoping I don’t notice”