Nicky's Plans for 2025, Probably

Hi Patreon supporters,

A reminder: last month, when trying to cross the U.S.-Canada land border, I had my phone, laptop, and iPad all confiscated (because I wouldn't give them my passcodes). They even read & scanned my pen-and-paper diary?? Now, 7 weeks later, I still have no update when or if I'm getting my devices back; I bought a new phone & am currently using a friend's borrowed laptop.

Since I don't have my iPad, here's a pen-and-paper drawing of my feelings:

Unfortunately, this means a lot of my original plans were thrown into disarray.  AI Safety for Fleshy Humans Part 3 will now most likely come out March 2025 instead. 😭

On the plus side, I did get accepted into the AI Safety research camp, MATS! Alas, I can't attend in person coz of above border issues. But for the next two months I'll be working with Eli Lifland (made explorables on AI safety) and Daniel Kokotajlo (best known for whistleblowing on OpenAI's sleaziness) to make "cyborg" tools, that use tech to enhance human decision-making, not replace it. (See my recent talk on the "Cyborgism" approach)

Here's a screenshot of one of our prototypes, "Model UN + chatbots + Jackbox Party Pack game":

In March 2025, I'll more publicly share our projects; stay tuned!

(This research camp is also why AI Safety for Fleshy Humans Part 3 is now pushed back to March 2025 -- the original plan was to publish it before the research camp started, but then I got all my devices taken & had to deal with lawyers, getting back access to my accounts, etc, aaaaaargh.)

Anyway, my probably-plan for The Year 2025:

Q1 2025:

• 🤖 AI Safety research program: some prototypes for "cyborg" tools-for-thought

• 🙀 AI Safety for Fleshy Humans Part 3 (Finale)

• 👾 (secret educational/puzzle game contract under NDA, sorry)

Q2 2025:

• 🏖️ I need a vacation. I am a bundle of stress.

Q3 & Q4 2025:

• 👩‍🔬 Pivot to doing research full-time!

• 👩‍🏫 (and sharing them as accessible explainers, as quick blog posts and/or videos)

I hope your new year is going off to a better start than mine!

See ya again soon,
~ Nicky Case

= = =

✨ BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE ✨

👽 P.S: THERE'S A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT NEWGROUNDS CURRENTLY BEING KICKSTARTED! And I'm in it!  Newgrounds, if you don't know, was one of the sites on Ye Olde Internete, and where it was where lots of folks got their start, such as: the creators of Super Meat Boy, Salad Fingers, Smiling Friends... and yours truly, me!

🧪 P.P.S: I collaborated with Egg Syntax, an AI Safety researcher, on: "Numberwang: Can LLMs do science?" We made LLMs play a "science game" around finding the hidden rules behind number sequences. Long story short: all the frontier models currently suck at doing science, but there's some sparks of scientific reasoning. Check out the above link for details, and if you have feedback/suggestions for our future experiments, reply to this Patreon post! ^_^ Thank you!