Building a community of people and research to understand and engineer better mindware—both human and AI. 501(c)3 NFP. See also: @RADVACproject

Boston, MA
Joined May 2013
Concerned about the potential for AI to increase biorisks? Check out the latest Substack post on Modernizing Variolation from @PrestonWEstep prestonestep.substack.com/p/…
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Everyone is arguing about global-scale AI risks, but many remain poorly informed about key published ideas and risk factors. Here is my intro for newbies to old hands, doomers to zoomers. prestonestep.substack.com/p/…
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I'm really happy with how my "Longevity Lightning Talks" event went on October 9th. We had five speakers: @PrestonWEstep, myself, @GStolyarovII, @IanHuyett, and Nolan Shafik. Three talks were recorded and are now published: Preston Estep : youtube.com/watch?v=9-bRs-HN… Dan Elton: youtube.com/watch?v=4Eq3BRfJ… Gennady Stolyarov II: youtube.com/watch?v=Ud7rp3PA… There was a lot of excitement and energy in the room after the event, and afterwards a group of about 10 of us walked to the new Atlas Hotel near HBS and continued discussions at the rooftop bar and terrace late into the night. Thank you to @JustinQTaylor for making it part of Boston Longevity Week! The event was sponsored by @MetascienceObs and @mind_first. I'll be running similar events in Cambridge/Somerville in the future. Topics of interest include metascience, longevity science, longevity biotechnology, AI for science, AI alignment, and the AI "deccel vs accel" debate. To be notified of future events, sign up to this email list here: metascienceobservatoryboston… and follow this page on Luma: luma.com/metascienceobservat…
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Sick and tired of becoming sick and tired during winter months? Read it!
Respiratory illness/flu season is coming! If you want to avoid being sick you need to read my substack post Modernizing Variolation Part 2 prestonestep.substack.com/p/…. Modernized Variolation methods are easy and I have used them to avoid four consecutive respiratory illnesses in my home.
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Everyone should read this highly detailed blog post on “How to pandemic-proof the world.” I don’t share their optimism that such a goal is achievable, but it is an important goal.
I've been thinking hard about modern biosecurity for five years. In the course of that thinking, I've learned a lot about what the field consensus is on a complete biodefense stack for the AI age. Today, as part of my work with @BlueDotImpact, @chrisstrahle_ and I have published an overview of this defense stack, alongside a starting list of ten projects we would like to support motivated founders to build. Funding will be available through the Seed Grants program. Please share this with the best founders you know. blog.bluedot.org/p/biosecuri…
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Radvac is excellent! Balvi supported them too early on.
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Respiratory illness/flu season is fast approaching. If you hate to be sick and you haven’t read my posts Modernizing Variolation Part 1 prestonestep.substack.com/p/… and Part 2 prestonestep.substack.com/p/…, you really should. Modernized Variolation methods are easy and I have used them to avoid four consecutive respiratory illnesses in my home. xitter.cf/PrestonWEstep/status/2…
Check out my Substack post: Modernizing Variolation, Part 2. A case report on the second consecutive time I avoided getting ill by using MV when all others living in my home were sick with a respiratory illness. prestonestep.substack.com/p/… If your kids are back in school you need to read this!
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Right, Tylenol and vaccines do not cause autism. These findings will be confirmed again and again.
I won again! A new study on Tylenol and autism has come out. It leveraged a recall in 1982 to show that the affected cohort—which saw greatly reduced Tylenol usage in utero—saw no deviation from trend in autism diagnoses down the line. Tylenol does not cause autism.
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Nobody is safer
Are people feeling safer because the highest ranking health official in the US is trashing vaccines and investigating chemtrails? We not only need superintelligent AI ASAP, it has to be deployed in a way that frauds and kooks can never again be in power. xitter.cf/atrupar/status/2100651…
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Definitely! Communities should standardize practices and build infrastructure around Modernized Variolation. Disease transmission would be greatly reduced. I'm not opposed to vaccination but MV is a powerful and completely unused approach to staying healthy.
We should be putting billions into this.
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Acknowledging AI risks is not the same as accepting AI doom!
I agree with most of the points made by @slatestarcodex and disagree strongly with @sapinker on AI. In fact, I think the case Scott made could have been even stronger but he left out a few key points. Like Scott, I am a longtime fan of Steven’s but he needs to stop communicating about AI until he really understands what is going on. But just because Scott is more informed doesn’t mean that I agree with his doomer leanings. I can’t decide if I’m more afraid of human irrationality or machine capability, but at the moment I’m willing to trade more of the latter for the former. astralcodexten.com/p/an-open…
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Definitely intriguing and probably no downside
I'm intrigued by the idea of immunizing myself by using inactivated snot samples from my own kids What are the downsides here?
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PSA for Boston-area folks and anyone visiting Boston Longevity Week events! I'm organizing a lightning talks event for the evening of October 9th. The venue is in Cambridge, about a 15 minute walk from where the Translational Longevity Summit will take place! (link to RSVP 👇)
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Don't let your kid's snot go to waste!
Funny aside @NielsHoven: my 4.5 yo daughter thinks it is totally normal for me to place a sample collection vial under her nostrils to collect her snot. She even announces when her nose is runny and approaches me while expelling her latest emission! xitter.cf/NielsHoven/status/2107…
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2.5 million kids. No evidence of vaccines contributing to autism risk. At some point, antivaxers are going to have to put the crack pipe down and wake up... ovid.com/jnls/pidj/abstract/…
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Certain aspects of biowarfare are deeply asymmetric Thanks @WSJ
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The event is sponsored by the @Mind_First Foundation and the @MetascienceObs and taking place as part of bostonlongevityweek.com Legal expert @IanHuyett will also be traveling from NH to give a talk about Right to Try laws and FDA policy! RSVP here => luma.com/gpz4wljv
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Mind First retweeted
2027 is going to be the inflection point for AI ppl will argue that AGI arrived earlier, but 2027 could be the year we get end-to-end recursive self-improvement, with AGI rapidly pushing us toward superintelligence and once those self-improvement loops kick in, accelerating returns and the intelligence explosion will be impossible to ignore
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RT @PrestonWEstep: Check out my Substack post: Modernizing Variolation, Part 2. A case report on the second consecutive time I avoided gett…
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