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home joe carlsmith joe carlsmith about archive i m a writer researcher and philosopher i work at anthropic on the constitution for claude the company s ai i m also a visiting lecturer at yale law school during spring term of 2026 prior to this i was a senior advisor at coefficient giving where i focused on existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence i also write independently about various topics in philosophy and futurism and i have a doctorate in philosophy from the university of oxford much of my work is about trying to help us orient wisely towards humanity s long term future i see this work as fitting a loose logical structure with questions about meta ethics and rationality at the foundation feeding into questions about ethics and especially about effective altruism which motivate concern for the long term future which motivates attention to advanced artificial intelligence in particular and a further strand of my work what i m calling the crazy train strand grapples with some of the stranger places that further philosophical reflection of this broad sort can lead i also sometimes write about topics in the philosophy of mind and about other aspects of my overall existential spiritual orientation death evil clinging sincerity in 2024 i completed a series of essays called otherness and control in the age of agi pdf here which mixes a lot of these topics together you can listen to me discuss this series on the dwarkesh podcast here you can learn more about me here my cv is here my twitter is jkcarlsmith my email is joe joecarlsmith com if you d like new essays emailed to you subscribe rss feed for this site here see here for audio versions of the essays or search joe carlsmith audio on your podcast app latest view all the latest essays video and transcript of talk on writing ai constitutions from a talk at yale law school in march 2026 how do we solve the alignment problem part 11 on restraining ai development for the sake of safety my take on slowing down ai how do we solve the alignment problem part 10 building ais that do human like philosophy ais will face philosophical questions humans can t answer for them favorites view all favorites is power seeking ai an existential risk report for open philanthropy examining what i see as the core argument for concern about existential risk from misaligned artificial intelligence otherness and control in the age of agi part 1 otherness and control in the age of agi introduction and summary for a series of essays about how agents with different values should relate to one another and about the ethics of seeking and sharing power actually possible thoughts on utopia there are oceans we have barely dipped a toe into there are drums and symphonies we can barely hear there are suns whose heat we can barely feel on our skin meta ethics why should ethical anti realists do ethics who needs a system if you re free 02 16 2023 continue reading seeing more whole on looking out of your own eyes 02 17 2023 continue reading on the limits of idealized values contra some meta ethical views you can t forever aim to approximate the self you would become in idealized conditions you have to actively create yourself often in the here and now 06 21 2021 continue reading view all meta ethics essays rationality series on expected utility a series of essays examining the theoretical foundations of expected utility maximization as a theory of instrumental rationality pdf of the full series here 03 16 2022 part 1 skyscrapers and madmen part 2 why it can be ok to predictably lose part 3 vnm separability and more part 4 dutch books cox and complete class series sia ssa a series of essays arguing that one prominent theory of anthropic reasoning the self indication assumption or sia is better than another the self sampling assumption or ssa pdf of the full series here 09 30 2021 part 1 learning from the fact that you exist part 2 telekinesis reference classes and other scandals part 3 an aside on betting in anthropics part 4 in defense of the presumptuous philosopher view all rationality essays ethics wholehearted choices and morality as taxes reimagining peter singer s drowning child from the perspective of care rather than guilt 12 12 2020 continue reading in search of benevolence or what should you get clippy for christmas what is altruism towards a paperclipper can you paint with all the colors of the wind at once 07 19 2021 continue reading care and demandingness we wouldn t expect prudence to be not demanding why would morality be different 03 07 2021 continue reading view all ethics essays longtermism actually possible thoughts on utopia there are oceans we have barely dipped a toe into there are drums and symphonies we can barely hear there are suns whose heat we can barely feel on our skin 01 18 2021 continue reading on future people looking back at 21st century longtermism an intuition pump for a certain kind of holy sh reaction to existential risk and to the possible size and quality of the future at stake 03 22 2021 continue reading against neutrality about creating happy lives making happy people is good just ask the golden rule 03 14 2021 continue reading view all longtermism essays ai series otherness and control in the age of agi a series of essays about how agents with different values should relate to one another and about the ethics of seeking and sharing power pdf here 01 02 2024 part 1 otherness and control in the age of agi part 2 gentleness and the artificial other part 3 deep atheism and ai risk part 4 when yang goes wrong part 5 does ai risk other the ais part 6 an even deeper atheism part 7 being nicer than clippy part 8 on the abolition of man part 9 on green part 10 on attunement part 11 loving a world you don t trust new report scheming ais will ais fake alignment during training in order to get power my report examining the probability of a behavior often called deceptive alignment 11 15 2023 continue reading view all ai essays crazy train a stranger priority topics at the outer reaches of effective altruism my dissertation 02 21 2023 continue reading can you control the past i think that you can control events you have no causal interaction with including events in the past and that this is a wild and disorienting fact with uncertain but possibly significant implications this essay attempts to impart such disorientation 08 27 2021 continue reading on infinite ethics infinities puncture the dream of a simple bullet biting utilitarianism but they re everyone s problem 01 30 2022 continue reading view all crazy train essays mind grokking illusionism trying to see through the eyes of people who think consciousness is an illusion 11 29 2020 continue reading thoughts on personal identity on living in a glass tunnel and on open air 11 16 2020 continue reading how core is confusion about consciousness if we re confused about consciousness what else are we confused about 11 08 2020 continue reading view all mind essays spirit thoughts on being mortal you can t keep any of it the only thing to do is to give it away on purpose 12 06 2020 continue reading on clinging how can non attachment be compatible with care we need to distinguish between caring and clinging 01 24 2021 continue reading on sincerity nearby is the country they call life 12 23 2022 continue reading view all spirit essays misc killing the ants if you kill something look it in the eyes as you do 02 07 2021 continue reading in memory of louise glück it was she said a great discovery albeit my real life 10 15 2023 continue reading the impact merge against hitching together your desire to accomplish things and your desire to do good 11 22 2020 continue reading view all misc essays about before doing my doctorate at oxford i was a phd student in philosophy at nyu from 2016 2018 i also have a bphil in philosophy from oxford and a ba in philosophy from yale i spent the academic year of 2017 18 helping toby ord write the precipice existential risk and the future of humanity which is a clear statement of a number of ideas that matter to me notably that human history might be just beginning that the future could be incomprehensibly vast and extraordinary and that it is extremely important that we do not mess up in a way that destroys this possibility this new yorker piece about toby and the book is also a good summary i am also interested in meditation i ve spent over a year of my life on silent meditation retreat in stretches ranging from a few days to three months opinions on this site are my own not speaking on behalf of my employer audio consciousness and competition on forecast with fin moorhouse transcript here extended audio from my conversation with dwarkesh patel transcript here joe carlsmith on scheming ai on hear this idea with fin moorhouse transcript here navigating serious philosophical confusions on the 80 000 podcast with rob wiblin transcript here utopia on earth and morality without guilt on clearer thinking with spencer greenberg creating utopia on the utilitarian podcast with gus docker transcript here video how human like do safe ai motivations need to be talk at constellation december 2025 a wiser ai powered civilization is the successor the trajectory with dan fagella november 2025 giving ais safe motivations talk at ut austin september 2025 can goodness compete public talk at mox july 2025 how should we think about ai welfare talk at anthropic may 2025 can we safely automate alignment research talk at anthropic april 2025 otherness and control in the age of agi lecture at stanford university october 2024 otherness and control in the age of agi the dwarkesh podcast august 2024 sharing reality with walt whitman lovely short video created by michel justen inspired by my essay on future people looking back at 21st century longtermism april 2024 scheming ais ea global global catastrophic risks february 2024 on infinite ethics utopia and ai the foresight institute existential hope podcast september 2023 the dangers of advanced ai an existential risk the flares podcast july 2023 how we change our minds about ai risk future of life institute podcast with gus docker june 2023 utopia ai and infinite ethics lunar society podcast with dwarkesh patel august 2022 existential risk from power seeking ai harvard effective altruism agathon lecture series orienting towards the long term future effective altruism global 2017 the writing on this site published prior to october 2022 was originally hosted on the blog hands and cities which now links to this site you can view the old comments on that blog here the logo is a reference to the true city which is a term i once heard used to refer to utopia the other images are from marilyn robinson s housekeeping and from walt whitman s crossing brooklyn ferry something happened something so memorable that when i think back to the crossing of the bridge one moment bulges like the belly of a lens and all the others are at the peripheries and diminished was it only that the wind rose suddenly so that we had to cower and lean against it like blind women groping their way along a wall or did we really hear some sound too loud to be heard some word so true we did not understand it but merely felt it pour through our nerves like darkness or water marilyn robinson it avails not time nor place distance avails not i am with you you men and women of a generation or ever so many generations hence just as you feel when you look on the river and sky so i felt just as any of you is one of a living crowd i was one of a crowd just as you are refresh d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow i was refresh d just as you stand and lean on the rail yet hurry with the swift current i stood yet was hurried walt whitman joe carlsmith 2026 policies designed by and now subscribe