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The Beauty behind the Antipsychotic Evolution
I'll admit , "antipsychotic" is a bit of a scary word. The second half, "psychotic," refers to some of the most extreme and frightening...
Ethan Smith
Oct 1218 min read
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Where are You?
In another post , I shared some thoughts on why the physical boundaries of You  might be difficult to make solid on the basis that...
Ethan Smith
Sep 148 min read
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Instantaneous Vs Distributional Self
I'd like to make two distinctions. An Instantaneous You  and a Distributional You . The Instantaneous You  represents a singular point...
Ethan Smith
Sep 148 min read
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You as a Reflection of Your World
Something I am curious about is the role of other people, or other stimuli that prompt awareness of self, in influencing the formation of...
Ethan Smith
Sep 1115 min read
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Simulator AI
The most common generative models in deep learning include GANs, diffusion models, and autoregressive models. What they all have in common is that they are all methods of both modeling and sampling from p(x), a data distribution of interest, just different methods of decomposing the problem and relying on varying assumptions. Though in the end, all of them can do both: Create convincing samples that somewhat blend in with other real data samples. Give an estimate of the proba
Ethan Smith
Sep 623 min read
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Why does a "You" exist?
We appear to experience life through the point of view of a discretely singular, egocentric entity, distinct from everything else. Pride...
Ethan Smith
Aug 3111 min read
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The Symmetry Between Models and Data | The Isomorphism Between You and Your World.
There was an interesting quote from Janus's article on simulators. "GPT" is not the text which [it] writes itself Furthermore, they...
Ethan Smith
Jul 2817 min read
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Intelligence Was Born Out Of A Need To Predict The Future
From an evolutionary perspective, it's clear that humans have made it to the top of the food chain, but what did it take for us to reach...
Ethan Smith
Jul 1710 min read
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The Edge of Stability
Many facets of our universe seem to gravitate towards unstable, chaotic equilibria. One such example is criticality, a threshold where a...
Ethan Smith
Jun 46 min read
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Life in the Middle and After AGI
We are racing toward an uncertain future that draws nearer every day. We have a rough idea of what the future could look like. I'm...
Ethan Smith
Apr 1634 min read
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Stone Age Psychiatry
Once upon a time, I was set on becoming a psychiatrist. Throughout life, I've spent probably a near unhealthy amount of time thinking...
Ethan Smith
Apr 832 min read
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On Vibe Coding
The Distillery - a look under the hood of vibe coding Introduction Vibe coding may be one of the best and worst things 2025 has had to...
Ethan Smith
Mar 289 min read
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There are probably a lot of special people.
One conviction I hold very strongly is that "special" people are possibly much more common than we may be lead to believe. While sure, we...
Ethan Smith
Mar 2113 min read
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Minimum Faith
Within the study of machine learning, you'll often hear that the objective is to find the solution that maximizes likelihood . We have a...
Ethan Smith
Mar 148 min read
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Kolmogorov Complexity
Mandelbrot function: Zn+1 = (Zn)^2 + C | Location: -1.4732524061369524549 + -0.0058138265122775765014 i , Radius:...
Ethan Smith
Mar 114 min read
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To create something new, you need to make some noise.
One of the most interesting things about the development of AI was the order of achieved milestones. Relatively small models can create...
Ethan Smith
Feb 127 min read
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The Tough Case for Free Will
"Would someone without free will do this?" is one of the most common responses I've heard to the proposition that free will might not...
Ethan Smith
Jan 1311 min read
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How absurd it is, that anything is at all.
Art from "In the Aeroplane over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel There are several dimensions by which we may feel small. You may feel...
Ethan Smith
Jan 1210 min read
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AI should help humans understand each other.
Empathy through technology
Ethan Smith
Oct 18, 202410 min read
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