The Intrinsic Perspective

Goodbye Slopstack! Also, a $50,000 essay/fiction contest, adversarial consciousness tech, & more

Desiderata #41

Jul 24

128

38

17

Anthropic runs like Wile E. Coyote into the brick wall of consciousness research

When the AI companies first began talking about existential risk, it was common to hear some version of:

Jul 13 • Erik Hoel

164

43

33

June 2026

Screentime correlates more with kids' brains than IQ; Matt Yglesias gets Dan Dennett wrong; Why literary fiction awards keep falling for AI…

Desiderata #40

Jun 23 • Erik Hoel

77

9

7

Don't dethrone consciousness!

LLMs aren't conscious (and thinking they are is culturally dangerous)

Jun 5 • Erik Hoel

252

63

73

May 2026

But Dumbo could already fly?

100% pure human copium about OpenAI solving Erdős problems

May 23 • Erik Hoel

166

48

17

April 2026

We consciousness researchers have failed you

In Which I Become Shackleton

Apr 29 • Erik Hoel

297

121

68

IVF epigenetic damage gets worse across generations; The next Project Hail Mary; AI's "odorless" math proofs; Waymo at 100% human oversight…

Desiderata #39

Apr 2 • Erik Hoel

82

25

13

March 2026

Hubris

The Lore of the World: Part 4

Mar 19 • Erik Hoel

119

20

9

RIP Dan Simmons. Why weren't you more famous?

The world hates a polymath

Mar 13 • Erik Hoel

186

10

25

Bits In, Bits Out

Six years of AI and the world got stupider

Mar 5 • Erik Hoel

604

80

138

February 2026

My New Org to Solve Consciousness (or Die Trying); A Rogue AI Community That Wasn't; David Foster Wallace Is Still Right; Cow Tools Are…

Desiderata #38

Feb 5 • Erik Hoel

80

6

4

January 2026

It only snows like this for children

The Lore of the World: Part 3

Jan 26 • Erik Hoel

169

23

24