Thomas Woodside

  1. Melatonin Experiment

    About a year ago, for 70 days, I ran an experiment on myself to determine the effect of melatonin on my sleep. These are the results. “Experimental” setup Each day, at 10:30 PM, I used a random number generator to determine whether to take a 300 microgram melatonin pill…

  2. The Unbearable Lightness of Artificial Intelligence: The First Amendment’s Uncertain Application to AI

    This was written for a course at Yale, CPSC 610 (Computer Science and Law). The citations are unfortunately messed up here, for a proper version see this google doc. In recent years, language-generating models like GPT-3 have revolutionized natural language processing, and have dramatically expanded the ability for artificial systems…
    on language models

  3. What I've been reading - 6/3/21

    Human Compatible (Stuart Russell)Summary: Stuart Russell lays out the AI Alignment problem succinctly in a way that is interpretible to a wider audience than most previous publications. Russell presents the problem as being inherent in what he calls the "standard model": AI systems that operate via fixed objective functions…
    on Reading AI Alignment

  4. My Emoji Proposal

    I really love to grow vegetables; not only do I enjoy the act of gardening, but it's fun to eat what I grow afterwards! In the past, I've grown carrots, peas, potatoes, raspberries, watermelons, blueberries, and beets. Where I'm from in California, almost anything will grow the whole year long…
    on gardening

  5. What I've Been Reading - 4/15/21

    I've been doing some reading on AI Alignment topics recently. I thought I would note down the latest things I have read, brief summaries of them, and my opinion (following the model of Rohin Shah). This is very preliminary and certainly isn't any kind of unified curriculum. Learning To Summarize…
    on AI Alignment language models Reading

  6. About This Site

    Thanks for coming to this site! I plan to put preliminary thoughts and ideas here, before they go somewhere more fully fleshed out. I'm not yet totally sure how much I'll write, or what I'll write about, but my goal is to make everything I write a good learning experience…