"Turning 20 in the probable pre-apocalypse" by Parv Mahajan

"Turning 20 in the probable pre-apocalypse" by Parv Mahajan

Author: LessWrong December 23, 2025 Duration: 5:03
Master version of this on https://parvmahajan.com/2025/12/21/turning-20.html

I turn 20 in January, and the world looks very strange. Probably, things will change very quickly. Maybe, one of those things is whether or not we’re still here.

This moment seems very fragile, and perhaps more than most moments will never happen again. I want to capture a little bit of what it feels like to be alive right now.

1. 

Everywhere around me there is this incredible sense of freefall and of grasping. I realize with excitement and horror that over a semester Claude went from not understanding my homework to easily solving it, and I recognize this is the most normal things will ever be. Suddenly, the ceiling for what is possible seems so high - my classmates join startups, accelerate their degrees; I find myself building bespoke bioinformatics tools in minutes, running month-long projects in days. I write dozens of emails and thousands of lines of code a week, and for the first time I no longer feel limited by my ability but by my willpower. I spread the gospel to my friends - “there has never been a better time to have a problem” - even as [...]

---

Outline:

(00:34) 1.

(03:12) 2.

---

First published:
December 21st, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/S5dnLsmRbj2JkLWvf/turning-20-in-the-probable-pre-apocalypse

---



Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.


Dive into a stream of ideas where technology, culture, philosophy, and society intersect, all through the lens of the LessWrong (Curated & Popular) podcast. This isn't a traditional talk show with hosts, but rather a curated audio library of the most impactful writing from the LessWrong community. Each episode is a narration of a full post, selected for its high value and interesting arguments, focusing on pieces that have been formally curated or have garnered significant community approval. You'll hear clear, thoughtful readings of essays that tackle complex topics like artificial intelligence, rational thinking, moral philosophy, and the forces shaping our future. The audio format lets you absorb these dense, often paradigm-shifting concepts during a commute or a walk, turning written analysis into an immersive listening experience. This particular feed is deliberately selective, offering a manageable stream of the community's standout work. For those who want an even deeper dive into the discussion, there are broader feeds available. The LessWrong (Curated & Popular) podcast serves as an intellectual filter, delivering the signal through the noise and inviting you to engage with some of the most rigorously examined ideas on the internet.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)
Podcast Episodes
“Claude 4.5 Opus’ Soul Document” by null [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:57
Summary As far as I understand and uncovered, a document for the character training for Claude is compressed in Claude's weights. The full document can be found at the "Anthropic Guidelines" heading at the end. The Gist…
“Alignment remains a hard, unsolved problem” by null [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:23
Thanks to (in alphabetical order) Joshua Batson, Roger Grosse, Jeremy Hadfield, Jared Kaplan, Jan Leike, Jack Lindsey, Monte MacDiarmid, Francesco Mosconi, Chris Olah, Ethan Perez, Sara Price, Ansh Radhakrishnan, Fabien…
“Video games are philosophy’s playground” by Rachel Shu [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:50
Crypto people have this saying: "cryptocurrencies are macroeconomics' playground." The idea is that blockchains let you cheaply spin up toy economies to test mechanisms that would be impossibly expensive or unethical to…
“Stop Applying And Get To Work” by plex [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:52
TL;DR: Figure out what needs doing and do it, don't wait on approval from fellowships or jobs. If you... Have short timelines Have been struggling to get into a position in AI safety Are able to self-motivate your effort…
“Gemini 3 is Evaluation-Paranoid and Contaminated” by null [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 14:59
TL;DR: Gemini 3 frequently thinks it is in an evaluation when it is not, assuming that all of its reality is fabricated. It can also reliably output the BIG-bench canary string, indicating that Google likely trained on a…

«1...678910