Daniel Van Zant

When I find an interesting article/paper/etc I don't read it right away, I save it in a folder on my computer. Once I have enough, I run a small script to get it printed as a glossy magazine with an AI-designed cover (here's the latest) and read through everything at my leisure.

YouTube video by Wolfram Institute Presentation | Daniel Van Zant | How AI-assisted Organization can Accelerate Science Theory-Building

I am presenting online for the Wolfram Institute at 2pm ET today. Will be talking about an AI system that I am building and how it might be used to validate abstract theories with purely computational "Wolframian-style" experiments.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=S9qz...

YouTube video by Elan Barenholtz, PhD Is Memory Real? UWaterloo Discussion w/ Prof. Elan Barenholtz & Dan Van Zant | Ekkolapto Salon

Got to have a great conversation with my advisor Dr. Elan Barenholtz on his theory of language!
youtu.be/P-yfQLDM5pA?...

Setting up a weapons shop inside Rome's walls makes you a respected merchant. Outside the walls, you're seen as a barbarian threat, but you're free from Rome's taxes and politics. Research has the same geography. It's worth knowing which side of the wall serves your purposes.

One minute clip from a short talk with Dr. Elan Barenholtz about how he uses AI in his work. Check out the full video here: www.danielvanzant.com/p/an-extra-c... . Also worth checking out an interview he did with Curt Jaimungal of Theories of Everything: curtjaimungal.substack.com/p/the-theory...

Cyberneticist | Substack Writing about the higher level theory of computation and cybernetics from a critical perspective

For anyone interested in this question this guy: substack.com/@cyberneticist sent me this excellent resource: people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jrs/highd/ over on Substack.

Cyberneticist | Substack Writing about the higher level theory of computation and cybernetics from a critical perspective

For anyone interested in this question this guy: substack.com/@cyberneticist sent me this excellent resource: people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jrs/highd/ over on Substack.

Being unbiased in science communication seems almost impossible. I admire scientists who, instead of pretending to be unbiased, work to be transparent about their biases. I.e. "I came up with this theory so I prefer it," "my field looks at this thing this particular way," etc.

Hyperdimensional spaces (like the ones that LLMs and other AI systems work in) have emergent properties that are more than just "scaling up 3 dimensions a lot". Is there a single resource that lists these unique properties. Or even better one that gives a good intuition of them? #MLSky

I've definitely found myself being unfairly negative about LLM's. I suspect it's because I'm completely epistemically exhausted from distinguishing the 0.1% of truth from the hype, and my priors subconsciously become "If someone is saying LLM's can do a thing they are wrong.".

Sensitivity to visual features in inattentional blindness As a group, inattentionally blind participants can successfully report the location, color, and shape of stimuli they deny noticing, and exhibit a systematic bias to report not noticing.

5 years since our first pilot, and 25,000 participants later, I'm super happy this work with Makaela Nartker, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and Howard Egeth on inattentional blindness is now out in eLife! A little 🧵 of what we found... 1/12 elifesciences.org/articles/100...

Wikipedia is also a good evaluator of how much I can trust the LLM. If the topic has multiple fleshed-out Wikipedia articles with lots of sources then the LLM is usually mostly right. If there's just one two-paragraph article that cites one paper then usually the LLM output has many hallucinations.

There's so much polarization around LLMs. They are way overhyped, I agree. But I also use them semi-regularly now.

Here's a thread of genuine use cases where I find them helpful. Please add your own!

Wikipedia is also a good evaluator of how much I can trust the LLM. If the topic has multiple fleshed-out Wikipedia articles with lots of sources then the LLM is usually mostly right. If there's just one two-paragraph article that cites one paper then usually the LLM output has many hallucinations.

Augmenting technical conversations with AI (demo) A quick demo of a project I am working on for an AI tool that displays relevant information live as you are having a technical conversation or presentation.

Demo of an AI tool that displays relevant information live as you are having a technical conversation or presentation. The display is based on either a query you gave it beforehand where it can grab and process relevant documents from the internet.
www.danielvanzant.com/p/augmenting...

Greening the Solar System—Asterisk A future where life flourishes beyond Earth is closer than you think. How, precisely, will we get there?

asteriskmag.com/issues/09/gr...
Very cool article going into detail on what the best strategies might be for humans to take their first steps into becoming a multi-planet species. Always excited about anything on how we could get one step closer to Star Trek.

I will be presenting my work building an artificial intelligence cognitive co-pilot to help neuroscientists create better theories next week, April 9th, 10am EST. Anyone is welcome to join the Zoom: fau-edu.zoom.us/j/3806783624... . The talk will also be recorded and posted on Youtube.

1. Figure out what the current self-maintenance mechanisms are.
2. Figure out how to circumvent those self-maintenance mechanisms.
3. Setup new self-maintenance mechanisms for the new desired state.
4. Wait for the system to transition on its' own to the new desired state.

Most systems that exists do so because they are good at maintaining their current state in the face of entropy. If you want to change the state of a system on the long-term you have to do three things:

Revealed: How the UK tech secretary uses ChatGPT for policy advice New Scientist has used freedom of information laws to obtain the ChatGPT records of Peter Kyle, the UK's technology secretary, in what is believed to be a world-first use of such legislation

www.newscientist.com/article/2472... UK tech secretary's official chatgpt records were requested and given under freedom of information(FOI) laws. Under most FOI laws, text conversations between two people on are exempt. Should conversations with a chatbot be treated the same?

Breakthrough Incentive Markets Aligning financial incentives with scientific progress to solve humanity's most urgent challenges

7/7 Read the full proposal on my blog open.substack.com/pub/danielva.... I'd love some constructive criticism on this idea. #EffectiveAltruism #ScienceFunding #metascience

6/7 Everyone does what they do best: The public identifies important problems through donations, markets efficiently allocate resources, and researchers focus on innovation instead of grant-writing.

5/7 The key innovation: Investors' returns are higher when solutions come sooner. This creates powerful incentives for speed, collaboration, and funding approaches too radical for grants but too public-good-oriented for industry.

4/7 Breakthrough Incentive Markets create outcome pools for specific scientific problems. Investors buy positions, fund promising research, and earn returns when breakthroughs happen.

3/7 What if we harnessed the same efficient mechanisms that drive innovation in the private sector to fund science that solves our most important problems?

2/7 Science today is trapped: academic funding favors incremental progress over radical ideas, while industry only invests where profits exist. Critical research falls through this gap.

Breakthrough Incentive Markets Aligning financial incentives with scientific progress to solve humanity's most urgent challenges

1/7 New on the my blog: Breakthrough Incentive Markets - a third path for science funding that combines democratic problem prioritization with market-driven resource allocation.
open.substack.com/pub/danielva...

Have been enjoying participating in these
"salons" which are long-form semi-structured conversations with a neat group of scientists and thinkers. I have appeared in these two:
youtu.be/lzLg4lEnQuY?...
youtu.be/TN4aMXWpnoI?...
and there are others on that Youtube channel.

Emergent Symbolic Mechanisms Support Abstract Reasoning in Large Language Models Many recent studies have found evidence for emergent reasoning capabilities in large language models, but debate persists concerning the robustness of these capabilities, and the extent to which they ...

arxiv.org/abs/2502.203... Maybe LLM's are using symbolic mechanisms built through transformers? Raw transformers are only the "machine code" explanation for how LLM's incredible performance. I really enjoy papers like this that form theories about what the "software" might be.

Memory Isn't Real (Part 1) The autoregressive theory of cognition changes everything we thought we knew about knowing

open.substack.com/pub/elanbare...

Start of a series my advisor is writing on his theory of cognition. Even though I disagree with some parts of it, this theory is well-argued, well-evidenced, compelling and accessibly written. It deserves serious thought and consideration.