Read Scott Alexander

Want to dive into Scott Alexander's work and his thousands of blog posts? This fan website lets you sort and do semantic search through the whole codex. Enjoy!

Links For February 2026

48 min • 7,419 words • 660 comments • 255 likes • podcast (49 min)

A monthly collection of diverse links covering AI developments and regulation, COVID origins debates, healthcare policy, cultural phenomena, scientific research, and internet curiosities, maintaining Scott's characteristic blend of serious analysis and entertaining observations. Longer summary

Scott Alexander's February 2026 links collection covers a wide range of topics including AI developments, politics, science, culture, and internet phenomena. Major themes include updates on AI capabilities and regulation (with discussions of OpenAI, Anthropic, and various political machinations around AI policy), the ongoing COVID lab leak debate and related prediction markets, healthcare and drug development issues, cultural observations from around the world, and various scientific and academic findings. The post maintains Scott's characteristic style of jumping between serious policy discussions, academic research, internet curiosities, and cultural commentary, with particular attention to AI safety concerns, rationalist community topics, and interesting historical or linguistic oddities. Shorter summary

Recurring tags: forecasting (87), prediction markets (85), scientific research (64), links (62), rationalist community (38), internet culture (34), AI alignment (32), links roundup (28), OpenAI (27), AI development (23), AI capabilities (21), healthcare policy (20), drug development (18), dating (18), AI regulation (14), crime statistics (13), Anthropic (12), AI policy (11), COVID-19 origins (6), lab leak theory (3), cultural observations (2), political influence (2)

Oct 30, 2025

acx

Read on

Links For October 2025

42 min • 6,423 words • 803 comments • 211 likes • podcast (38 min)

Scott Alexander presents 51 links covering AI progress and safety, political developments, scientific research, cultural oddities, and ongoing philosophical debates about miracles and education reform. Longer summary

Scott Alexander shares 51 links covering diverse topics including AI developments (agents, safety, consciousness research), political news (Ukraine policy, UK politics, Trump administration), science updates (climate predictions, genetics, bacteriophages), cultural curiosities (Shakespeare superfan plastic surgery, Soviet naming conventions, flag cones), health research (Alzheimer's prevention, shingles vaccine reducing dementia, kidney donation), and philosophical debates (Hume's argument against miracles, the Fatima miracle discussion). The post maintains Scott's characteristic blend of serious analysis and quirky observations, touching on everything from Bach's descendants in Oklahoma to the mystery of why AI still struggles with laundry folding despite mastering protein folding. Shorter summary

Recurring tags: book review (212), AI safety (69), links (62), genetics (58), climate change (33), Eliezer Yudkowsky (30), links roundup (28), OpenAI (27), AI progress (15), Anthropic (12), education reform (7), Richard Hanania (5), Freddie deBoer (5), kidney donation (3), cultural history (2), Kelsey Piper (2), Curtis Yarvin (2), dementia prevention (2), NVIDIA (2), David Hume (2), political news (2)

May 08, 2025

acx

Read on

Highlights From The Comments On AI Geoguessr

18 min • 2,728 words • 98 comments • 96 likes • podcast (17 min)

Scott examines reader tests and discussions of AI's GeoGuessr abilities, revealing that AIs perform best with tourist locations and are roughly on par with human professionals. Longer summary

This post discusses the comments and follow-up tests on Scott's previous article about AI's GeoGuessr abilities. Various readers tested Claude/o3's location-guessing capabilities, with mixed results. The key insight was that the AI performs better with tourist destinations that have lots of photos available. Scott addresses suspicions about the Nepal picture from his original post, showing the AI's reasoning was sound. The post also compares AI performance to human GeoGuessr champions like Trevor Rainbolt, and discusses formal AI GeoGuessr benchmarks that show AIs performing similarly to human professionals. The post concludes by considering whether this represents true intelligence or just specialized training, though noting that even OpenAI's leaders seem impressed by the capability. Shorter summary

Recurring tags: study critique (268), highlights from the comments (67), AI capabilities (21), AI progress (15), tourism (2), human vs AI performance (2)

Aug 08, 2022

acx

Read on

Why Not Slow AI Progress?

20 min • 3,004 words • 612 comments • 181 likes • podcast (22 min)

Scott examines why the AI safety community isn't more actively opposing AI development, exploring the complex dynamics between AI capabilities and safety efforts. Longer summary

Scott Alexander discusses the complex relationship between AI capabilities research and AI safety efforts, exploring why the AI safety community is not more actively opposing AI development. He explains how major AI companies were founded by safety-conscious individuals, the risks of a 'race dynamic' in AI development, and the challenges of regulating AI globally. The post concludes that the current cooperation between AI capabilities companies and the alignment community may be the best strategy, despite its imperfections. Shorter summary

Recurring tags: AI safety (69), ethics (52), AI development (23), AI regulation (14), China-US relations (8), AI governance (7), AI companies (4)

Apr 18, 2022

acx

Read on

Mantic Monday 4/18/22

15 min • 2,264 words • 458 comments • 45 likes • podcast (21 min)

Scott reviews recent changes in prediction markets covering the Ukraine war, nuclear risk, AI development, and other current events. Longer summary

This post covers several prediction markets and forecasts related to current events. It discusses changes in Ukraine war predictions, nuclear risk estimates, AI development timelines, and other topics like Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition and the French presidential election. Scott analyzes discrepancies between different forecasts and markets, and explores potential reasons for changes in predictions. Shorter summary

Recurring tags: forecasting (87), prediction markets (85), current events (28), Mantic Monday (22), AI progress (15), Elon Musk (11), nuclear risk (4), Ukraine-Russia war (4)

Per page:

Showing 1 to 5 of 5 results