Open thread: 2026 Q3 (July - September)

Hi everyone, my name is Serena, and I am currently working as a consultant Technical Adviser in a capacity-building organisation in the Pacific, as well as writing for the EA NZ organisation. Previously I spent 7-8 years in government roles - strategic writing, research, and analysis - and left to see if I could find work which better aligned with my values and goals. I'm interested in pursuing different avenues of work as part of that quest, but writing, research, and team leadership are all strengths and interests of mine (as a generalist). 

I'm interested in building up my EA connections - I first read up on EA principles and literature about 15 years ago and have aligned my giving to effective causes since then, but I am newer to the Forum and some of the philosophies within the EA umbrella. Looking forward to learning more. 

Hello everyone. My name is Vitaly, and I am an independent researcher based in Israel.

For more than a year, I have been building an experimental AI system called Garmon. The project explores whether an AI system can form behavior from its internal state before language is generated, rather than allowing language itself to become the source of decisions.

So far, I have completed controlled tests of state-dependent behavior and long continuous pre-language runs, including a 12-hour run in which the language model and memory were not allowed to act as decision-makers.

My current focus is memory continuity: how a long-running AI system can preserve one causal history over time and distinguish its own completed experience from information that was merely stored or inserted. There are still several difficult questions here that I am working through.

I would be glad to connect with people interested in AI safety, agent memory, state continuity, provenance, or long-running AI systems. I am especially open to criticism, research references, practical suggestions, and conversations with people working on related problems.

Hey everyone, my name is Diego and I'm a freelance web developer based in Italy.

After years of working for a couple of companies with dubious goals I got fed up and decided that I want to change my career and do something good for the world. With my software engineering background I'm obviously drawn to the AI safety topic (but I won't shy away from other causes like animal welfare for example).

Since by trade I make websites and apps and I don't have formal training or experience in the AI space (bar a couple of chat bots integrations), I'm now on a quest to learn how this field works and how can I best apply my skills to safeguard our future from potentially catastrophic AI development.

I've been doing a lot of reading in the past month, and I'm looking for connections that can guide me in this process. Should anyone be in need of advice regarding web development don't hesitate to drop a message, I'll be glad to help!

As for my hobbies I'm into martial arts, role playing games, and music (I play the electric bass).

Looking forward to connect with like minded people and do some good :)

Hi everyone, my name is Emily and I'm the CEO and cofounder of PermitPal focused on transforming the way that clean energy gets built. 

I've been involved with effective altruism for the past 10 years but haven't been very active on the forum. 

I'd love to connect with people thinking about questions like:

• How can AI be used to meaningfully accelerate clean energy deployment?
• Which bottlenecks to building clean energy are most neglected and tractable?
• How can we improve state capacity for permitting and infrastructure delivery?
• Where are the biggest opportunities to increase clean energy supply over the coming decades?

Hello everyone! I'm Alex, I found my way here through recommendations from contacts involved in AI safety. 

I started thinking about how to have a more concrete impact while finishing my comp sci PhD (quantum cryptography and adversarial scenarios), so I pivoted to medicine. Stayed close to those "red team" roots by getting as much exposure as possible to CBRN-related fields, including nuclear medicine, Ebola preparedness, and got deployed in intensive care at peak-COVID.

I'm currently a postdoc scientist at Yale on AI+immunobiology, and interested in AI/bio safety as a long-term career. 

On the less serious side, I do martial arts, rock climbing and strongman, and design board games as a hobby.

Happy to connect with anyone sharing interests!

Has the forum team considered making a settings option to hide vote counts? The option to hide agree/disagree and reaction counts are something I would also appreciate.

I stayed away from this forum for over a year because of it being structured like Reddit, and have also heard concerns about vote counts anywhere influencing bias, as well as issues with like and dislike buttons in general. This post on LessWrong makes a more ambitious case for this, though I'm not campaigning here for any change affecting all users.

I understand the voting system is a necessary evil for maintaining the quality of what's read on the forum, and do think that users here are more responsible about vote count vs. agree count, as well as voicing why one personally disagrees with something, than is commonplace on Reddit. I just think it would be great for us not interested in rating and numbers in discourse to be able to opt out of seeing and indeed being influenced by them.

I do appreciate the removal of the downvote button on the front and user pages as well as the options already here for hiding usernames. Thank you for reading and considering all this! 👍