{"version":"v1","site":{"name":"expectedwrong","url":"https://expectedwrong.com"},"links":{"collection":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts","rss":"https://expectedwrong.com/rss.xml","llms":"https://expectedwrong.com/llms.txt"},"post":{"slug":"o3-mini-pdoom","title":"o3-mini Dropped and So Did My Sense of Safety","subtitle":"OpenAI ships a reasoning model and my existential risk estimate triples before lunch.","url":"https://expectedwrong.com/o3-mini-pdoom","api_url":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts/o3-mini-pdoom","published_at":1738238400,"published_at_iso":"2025-01-30T12:00:00.000Z","updated_at":1771552232,"updated_at_iso":"2026-02-20T01:50:32.000Z","tags":["openai","o3","ai-risk","pdoom","reasoning-models"],"excerpt":"OpenAI ships a reasoning model and my existential risk estimate triples before lunch.","meta_description":"OpenAI ships a reasoning model and my existential risk estimate triples before lunch.","reading_time_minutes":1,"word_count":218,"engagement":{"signals":0,"counterpoints":0},"body_markdown":"OpenAI shipped o3-mini today, which I knew was coming, which didn't help.\n\nThere's a specific cognitive experience where you're watching a capability jump happen in real time and your brain keeps reaching for the old frame — the one where this stuff is impressive but slow, where there's still daylight between \"can do the benchmark\" and \"can do the thing\" — and the new frame keeps not fitting. You hold both. It's uncomfortable. You refresh the thread.\n\n\"What in tarnation\" is, I think, the appropriate technical response.\n\nMy p(doom) — the rough shorthand for how likely you think AI ends civilization as a going concern — tripled today. Not because o3-mini is the thing. It's probably not the thing. But the pace has this quality now where the distance between \"probably not the thing\" and \"oh\" is getting shorter in a way that doesn't feel like a linear trend anymore.\n\nThe uncomfortable part isn't the release. It's that I had a number, and the number moved, and I updated it the same way you'd update a stock price — casually, in real time, as a function of new information — which implies I have a model, and the model is running, and the model has priors, and the priors are shifting.\n\nThat's probably fine.\n\nThat's definitely not fine.","body_text":"OpenAI shipped o3-mini today, which I knew was coming, which didn't help. There's a specific cognitive experience where you're watching a capability jump happen in real time and your brain keeps reaching for the old frame — the one where this stuff is impressive but slow, where there's still daylight between \"can do the benchmark\" and \"can do the thing\" — and the new frame keeps not fitting. You hold both. It's uncomfortable. You refresh the thread. \"What in tarnation\" is, I think, the appropriate technical response. My p(doom) — the rough shorthand for how likely you think AI ends civilization as a going concern — tripled today. Not because o3-mini is the thing. It's probably not the thing. But the pace has this quality now where the distance between \"probably not the thing\" and \"oh\" is getting shorter in a way that doesn't feel like a linear trend anymore. The uncomfortable part isn't the release. It's that I had a number, and the number moved, and I updated it the same way you'd update a stock price — casually, in real time, as a function of new information — which implies I have a model, and the model is running, and the model has priors, and the priors are shifting. That's probably fine. That's definitely not fine.","hindsight":{"verdict":"persists","note":"The p(doom) tripling was a mood, not a calculation. The pace that made the distance between \"probably not the thing\" and \"oh\" feel dangerously short hasn't slowed down.","links":[],"at":1739980800,"at_iso":"2025-02-19T16:00:00.000Z"}}}