Reflections on Publishing

    This blog is interesting, in that it is entirely unknown to the outside world. That means that while I have been publishing random thoughts and half-baked content on this webpage that is "technically" available to the outside world, I have yet to tell anyone of its existence. Having something external-facing is extremely important to me (to hold me accountable/engaged), but none of my ideas on EA or AI safety have made it into anyone else's brain. As such, it was very interesting to write and publish my first actual outward-facing content, Mind Crime. The actual publishing date is up for debate as it was complete in February 2025, and I was already sending free PDF copies to some during that time. But given that my first article on the topic was in May 2023, it is apparent that I could claim that this was an essentially two-year effort. The flurry of Mind Crime related topics I made in September 2023 were the basis for the core content of the book. Two years later, I am now a published author on one of the most obscure but potentially most important issues in human history to date. 

    As expected, no one has read the book. I have a single-digit number of reviews on Goodreads, and it is unlikely that double digit people will ever read it, despite the fact that I sunk hundreds of hours into writing, editing, and publishing. I likely spent $8,000 or so dollars of my personal savings on the project, and spent months wrecking my mental health thinking about existential philosophy, worse-than-extinction scenarios, and torture. Lots of torture. I also stressed continuously about impact, as the first published book in this space commands some amount of author responsibility. Over the last nine months (which in some sense was the bulk of the important work on the project), in addition to this project, I was working essentially full-time and also a full-time student (handling a more intense course load than probably 95% of others in the history of my dual-degree grad program). After all of this work, all of this stress, and my insane lack of time, I am now finally done. The result of my work is that a handful of family and friends read maybe a couple chapters of the book (if that), and it has done essentially nothing of value for anyone. There is only one question now: what's next?

    My head is already spinning with ideas. There's really two big options, both to do with advocacy:

1. Become a strong advocate for digital minds, continue from where I left off with the book (this time focused on policy, governance, and creating a workstream of impactful tasks that could help make a difference)

2. Take an indirect route, and advocate strongly for policy/awareness on the dangers on commercializing consciousness through biological computing (Cortical Labs, etc.). This issue is fundamentally intertwined issue with digital mind rights, it is just lower-stakes and much more visceral.

    I think that option 2 is probably the most impactful path forward, unless we start seriously hitting AGI or speed up into fast-takeoff scenarios. My plan for now is to use the very limited personal time, not thinking, but taking serious action regarding option 2. And then if the world speeds past lots of milestones in the next few months, consider focusing solely on option 1. Maybe two years from now I will look back at my work in this area, and chuckle at thinking years of my dedicated effort would result in anything widely impactful.

Mind Crime: Book Preview

Preview PDF

First published version of the book! As of March 13, 2025, I have officially "published" the book. Kindle version pending.

The Opening of 2025

    Two and a half weeks after the press release of OpenAI's o3 model capabilities, potentially one of the most important days in the history of AI, and thus, the world, I sit down in my first class of the quarter at the University of Chicago. A class called "Artificial Intelligence." It has been over a year since my last post on this blog. A year in which, to my astonishment, AI capabilities progress has outstripped my already insane expectations. Autonomous AI agents will likely arrive this year, video and music realism are slowly emerging us into the new Wild West, and AGI is either already here, or on the immediate horizon. Superintelligence is openly discussed, and AI welfare concerns are starting to slowly emerge. I have spent the last year devoted to, on and off, writing what is likely to be my first book: Mind Crime. It may, depending on the events of the coming two years, prove to be my last as well. After two and a half weeks of little sleep, with the realization that ASI is coming, and coming shockingly soon, I sit in a classroom and listen. 

    My professor is clearly of the belief that we may soon enter another AI winter, and he polls the class on when they think AGI will arrive. Estimates are between 20 and 50 years. In a world where not a single exam can be passed by a human that can not be passed by an AI, where every cognitive benchmark has been rendered useless, and where Sam Altman posted that day that OpenAI's sights are now set on machine superintelligence, a classroom of students nod along to a professor who has an entirely incorrect version of reality. The world, with announcements of $80 billion investments in AI by single companies in 2025, and with likely less than $200 million in AI safety research a year, is entirely blind to the fact that building superintelligent machines may carry enormous risk to civilization. I am reminded of Watchmen, "if you begin to feel an intense and crushing feeling of religious terror at the concept, don't be alarmed. That indicates only that you are still sane."

    Staying sane in these last three weeks has been relatively difficult. It is if I am man entirely alone, a complete outsider, swimming along in a world completely oblivious to the rapid pace of technological progress, and of the push towards ASI. Either I am crazy, and wrong, and ASI is decades or millennium away, or essentially every single person I interact with daily is. And it's clear to me which scenario strikes the most fear in me, and it is clearly the second. It is hard to function in this state, hard to believe that I am potentially one of the unprivileged few who lacks a veil of ignorance, and might have to witness society get shocked awake by thoughts I have been struggling with for years. Maybe it is better to have had a slow burn, to come to these realizations before many others, and frankly, to have read Bostrom's work back in 2018. To have spent the time to think deeply, to have laid awake at night, and to have had the luxury to meet my goals before the wave hits, instead of being thrown overboard at once. But unless I can affect the outcome, unless I can truly make a positive impact on the changing world ahead of me, unless my life is imbued with some level of cosmic significance for at least trying, something is clearly obvious to me at this point: I would trade it all.