Oliver Habryka - Podcast Details

Shows

EA Forum Podcast (All audio)“My 2025 donations (so far)” by richard_ngo Here's a list of my donations so far this year (put together as part of thinking through whether I and others should participate in an OpenAI equity donation round). I originally posted them to LessWrong as a shortform, but since donations are a more central topic on the EA forum I decided to make it a top-level post here. They are roughly in chronological order (though it's possible I missed one or two). I include some thoughts on what I've learned and what I'm now doing differently at the bottom. $100k to Lightcone This grant was...

2025-11-3006 min

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)Bits and bricks: Oliver Habryka on LessWrong, LightHaven, and community infrastructurePatrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Oliver Habryka, who runs Lightcone Infrastructure—the organization behind both the LessWrong forum and the Lighthaven conference venue in Berkeley. They explore how LessWrong became one of the most intellectually consequential forums on the internet, the surprising challenges of running a hotel with fractal geometry, and why Berkeley's building regulations include an explicit permission to plug in a lamp. The conversation ranges from fire codes that inadvertently shape traffic deaths, to nonprofit fundraising strategies borrowed from church capital campaigns, to why coordination is scarcer than money in philanthropy.–Full transcript avai...

2025-10-091h 16

The Bayesian Conspiracy 228 – The Deep Lore of LightHaven, with Oliver HabrykaOliver tells us how Less Wrong instantiated itself into physical reality, along with a bit of deep lore of foundational Rationalist/EA orgs. Donate to LightCone (caretakers of both LessWrong and LightHaven) here! LINKS LessWrong LightHaven Oliver’s very in-depth post on the funding situation (again) Donate Eneasz’s nominated 2023 post/story on LessWrong (you can also read his review of it on his blog) Matt Freeman’s post “The Parable of the King and the Random Process” 00:00:05 – The Birth of LightHaven 00:23:20 – The FTX Collapse 00:38:08 – The deal with Lev...

2024-12-242h 06

Star Spangled Gamblers Should Richard Hanania Be Canceled from the Political Forecasting Community?Rule3O3 and Pratik Chougule discuss whether the political forecasting community should cancel Richard Hanania in light of his edgy writings on race, sex, and other hot-button issues. Timestamps: 0:53: Jonathan Zubkoff wins the CSPI/Salem Center forecasting tournament 2:58: Manifest conference 5:04: Crime markets on Manifold 6:58: Open invitation to Hanania to appear on SSG 10:23: Who is Hanania? 15:22: Why a cancel attempt on Hanania 19:09: Should Hanania be canceled from the forecasting community? 23:24: Peter Wildeford's criticism 29:03: Aaron Bergman's warning on ideological policing 32:22: Political betting as a solution to political...

2023-09-1550 min

TYPE III AUDIO (All episodes)"Enemies vs Malefactors" by Nate Soares---client: lesswrongproject_id: curatednarrator: pwqa: kmnarrator_time: 1h15mqa_time: 0h15m---Status: some mix of common wisdom (that bears repeating in our particular context), and another deeper point that I mostly failed to communicate.Short versionHarmful people often lack explicit malicious intent. It’s worth deploying your social or community defenses against them anyway. I recommend focusing less on intent and more on patterns of harm.(Credit to my explicit articulation of this idea goes in la...

2023-03-1409 min

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)"Enemies vs Malefactors" by Nate Soareshttps://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zidQmfFhMgwFzcHhs/enemies-vs-malefactorsStatus: some mix of common wisdom (that bears repeating in our particular context), and another deeper point that I mostly failed to communicate.Short versionHarmful people often lack explicit malicious intent. It’s worth deploying your social or community defenses against them anyway. I recommend focusing less on intent and more on patterns of harm.(Credit to my explicit articulation of this idea goes in large part to Aella, and also in part to Oliver Habryka.)

2023-03-1409 min

The Filan Cabinet 6 - Oliver Habryka on LessWrong and other projectsIn this episode I speak with Oliver Habryka, head of Lightcone Infrastructure, the organization that runs the internet forum LessWrong, about his projects in the rationality and existential risk spaces. Topics we talk about include: How did LessWrong get revived? How good is LessWrong? Is there anything that beats essays for making intellectual contributions on the internet? Why did the team behind LessWrong pivot to property development? What does the FTX situation tell us about the wider LessWrong and Effective Altruism communities? What projects could help improve the world's rationality? Oli on LessWrong Oli on...

2023-02-051h 58

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Forum Top Posts My current framework for thinking about AGI timelines by Alex ZhuWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: My current framework for thinking about AGI timelines, published by Alex Zhu on the AI Alignment Forum. At the beginning of 2017, someone I deeply trusted said they thought AGI would come in 10 years, with 50% probability. I didn't take their opinion at face value, especially since so many experts seemed confident that AGI was decades away. But the possibility of imminent apocalypse seemed plausible enough and important enough that I decided to prioritize...

2021-12-0505 min

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Forum Top Posts Welcome & FAQ! by Ruben Bloom, Oliver HabrykaWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Welcome & FAQ!, published by by Ruben Bloom, Oliver Habryka on the AI Alignment Forum. The AI Alignment Forum was launched in 2018. Since then, several hundred researchers have contributed approximately two thousand posts and nine thousand comments. Nearing the third birthday of the Forum, we are publishing this updated and clarified FAQ. Minimalist, watercolor sketch of humanity spreading across the stars by VQGAN I have a practical question concerning a site feature.

2021-12-0511 min

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Forum Top Posts Apply to the ML for Alignment Bootcamp (MLAB) in Berkeley [Jan 3 - Jan 22] by Oliver Habryka, Buck ShlegerisWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Apply to the ML for Alignment Bootcamp (MLAB) in Berkeley [Jan 3 - Jan 22], published by Oliver Habryka, Buck Shlegeris on the AI Alignment Forum. We (Redwood Research and Lightcone Infrastructure) are organizing a bootcamp to bring people interested in AI Alignment up-to-speed with the state of modern ML engineering. We expect to invite about 20 technically talented effective altruists for three weeks of intense learning to Berkeley, taught by engineers working at AI Alignment...

2021-12-0503 min

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Forum Top Posts Writeup: Progress on AI Safety via Debate by Beth Barnes, Paul ChristianoWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Writeup: Progress on AI Safety via Debate, published by Beth Barnes, Paul Christiano on the AI Alignment Forum. This is a writeup of the research done by the "Reflection-Humans" team at OpenAI in Q3 and Q4 of 2019. During that period we investigated mechanisms that would allow evaluators to get correct and helpful answers from experts, without the evaluators themselves being expert in the domain of the questions. This follows from the original work...

2021-12-0552 min

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Forum Top Posts Introducing the AI Alignment Forum (FAQ) by Oliver Habryka, Ben Pace, Raymond Arnold, Jim BabcockWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Introducing the AI Alignment Forum (FAQ), published by Oliver Habryka, Ben Pace, Raymond Arnold, Jim Babcock on the AI Alignment Forum. After a few months of open beta, the AI Alignment Forum is ready to launch. It is a new website built by the team behind LessWrong 2.0, to help create a new hub for technical AI Alignment research and discussion. This is an in-progress FAQ about the new Forum. What are the...

2021-12-0510 min

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Section Writeup: Progress on AI Safety via Debate by Beth Barnes, Paul ChristianoWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Writeup: Progress on AI Safety via Debate, published by Beth Barnes, Paul Christiano on the AI Alignment Forum. This is a writeup of the research done by the "Reflection-Humans" team at OpenAI in Q3 and Q4 of 2019. During that period we investigated mechanisms that would allow evaluators to get correct and helpful answers from experts, without the evaluators themselves being expert in the domain of the questions. This follows from the original work on AI...

2021-11-1952 min

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Section Writeup: Progress on AI Safety via Debate by Beth Barnes, Paul ChristianoWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Writeup: Progress on AI Safety via Debate, published by Beth Barnes, Paul Christian on the AI Alignment Forum. This is a writeup of the research done by the "Reflection-Humans" team at OpenAI in Q3 and Q4 of 2019. During that period we investigated mechanisms that would allow evaluators to get correct and helpful answers from experts, without the evaluators themselves being expert in the domain of the questions. This follows from the original work on AI...

2021-11-1753 min

The Nonlinear Library: Alignment Section Apply to the ML for Alignment Bootcamp (MLAB) in Berkeley [Jan 3 - Jan 22] by Oliver Habryka, Buck ShlegerisWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Apply to the ML for Alignment Bootcamp (MLAB) in Berkeley [Jan 3 - Jan 22], published by Oliver Habryka, Buck Shlegeris on the AI Alignment Forum. We (Redwood Research and Lightcone Infrastructure) are organizing a bootcamp to bring people interested in AI Alignment up-to-speed with the state of modern ML engineering. We expect to invite about 20 technically talented effective altruists for three weeks of intense learning to Berkeley, taught by engineers working at AI Alignment organizations. The...

2021-11-1603 min

EA Talks EAG 2018 SF: Trusting expertsIf you have one opinion, and the prevailing experts have a different opinion, should you assume that you’re incorrect? And if so, how can you determine who’s an expert, and whether or not you count as one yourself? In this whiteboard discussion from Effective Altruism Global 2018: San Francisco, Gregory Lewis and Oliver Habryka offer their contrasting perspectives.To learn more about effective altruism, visithttp://www.effectivealtruism.orgTo read a transcript of this talk, visithttp://www.effectivealtruism.org/arti…This talk was filmed at EA Global. Find out ho...

2019-02-2858 min