This is the bi-weekly visible open thread (there are also hidden open threads twice a week you can reach through the Open Thread tab on the top of the page). Post about anything you want, but please try to avoid hot-button political and social topics. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit – and also check out the SSC Podcast. Also:

1. In last month’s links, I posted about concern that Alcor was getting too close to a weird cult. Alcor leader Max More commented with an explanation of why that wasn’t a fair claim, which I believe. I apologize for helping spread an exaggerated and poorly-contextualized version of the story.

2. Also in the spirit of “very long comments by very important people” – Brian Earp of Yale University’s Program In Ethics And Health Policy posted some thoughts on the adversarial collaboration about circumcision.

3. But if you prefer very short comments by very important people, here’s Gary Marcus on Twitter about GPT-2 chess. Gary Marcus calling your work trivial is how you know you’ve really made it in AI! Also, with all of the great Gwern stuff I mentioned on that post I should have mentioned that Gwern has a Patreon that helps fund his projects. Also, it looks like a commenter made a better GPT-2 chessbot, although you can’t play it.

4. And if you prefer medium-length comments by non-famous people – chaosmage tries to extend my Why Doctors Think They’re The Best post to programmers.

5. This is your absolute last chance to vote for the winner of the adversarial collaboration contest. I’ll be naming the victor and distributing prizes this coming week.

6. And this is your second-to-last chance to take the 2020 SSC survey if you didn’t already; I’ll probably post one more reminder this week, then close it on Friday or so.