How to explore Scott Alexander's work and his 1500+ blog posts? This unaffiliated fan website lets you sort and do semantic search through the whole codex. Enjoy!

See also Top Posts and All Tags.

Tag: photography

Minutes:
Blog:
Year:
Show all filters

2 posts found
May 02, 2025
acx
Read on
28 min 4,188 words Comments pending
Scott tests OpenAI's o3 model's ability to identify locations from photos, finding it has remarkable success even with minimal visual information, raising questions about AI capabilities. Longer summary
Scott tests OpenAI's o3 model on increasingly difficult GeoGuessr-style location guessing challenges using his own photos. Starting with a Google Street View image of a featureless plain, progressing through personal photos of Nepal mountains, a dorm room, and extremely zoomed-in shots of grass and river water, Scott finds that o3 shows remarkable ability to identify locations from minimal visual cues. While it fails on some challenges like identifying a specific house address, its success rate and reasoning process on most images is impressive enough to make Scott question whether this represents a qualitatively different level of AI capability. Shorter summary
Nov 22, 2023
acx
Read on
25 min 3,738 words 125 comments 78 likes
Scott Alexander presents a visual tour of the Bay Area's eccentricities through a series of photos with humorous commentary. Longer summary
Scott Alexander shares a collection of quirky, unusual, and often humorous photos taken around the San Francisco Bay Area, showcasing the region's unique culture, politics, and characters. The post features images of eccentric signs, posters, advertisements, and street art that reflect the area's diverse ideologies, from radical leftist propaganda to cryptocurrency promotions. Scott provides witty commentary on each image, highlighting the peculiarities of Bay Area life and its residents. Shorter summary