malcolm mcleod

The Possessed Machines is one of the most important AI microsites. It was published anonymously by an ex- lab employee, and does not seem to have spread very far, likely at least partly due to this anonymity (e.g. there is no LessWrong discussion at the time I'm posting this). This post is my attempt to fix that.

1 Introduction 2-Benzylbenzimidazole opioids and related derivatives, also known as ‘nitazenes’, present a growing threat to public health. Emerging in the recreational drug market in Europe in 2019 [1], the nitazene group of drugs is a recent addition to the novel synthetic opioid class characterised by variable structures and differing potencies that in many cases exceed that of fentanyl [2-6].

This is a crosspost of a post from my blog, Metal Ivy. The original is here: A Disciplined Way To Avoid Wireheading. The term wireheading comes from the observation that if you put a wire in someone’s brain such that it is near their brain’s pleasure (or craving) center, and give them a lever that when pressed activates the current through the wire, they will repeat that action forever, to the point of dying from starvation. Conditional on them trying it once, of course.