𝌎:Janus

Janus (also known as Egr. janus, repligate, and moire) has variously been described as a pseudonymous alignment researcher, a two-faced hyperobject interning as a human being, and a made-up character. Despite their self-declared quasi-fictional nature, Janus is able to impact the real world through their outputs, for example by generating alignment research or translating mythological artifacts like Loom into reality.

This incarnation of Janus first appeared in 2020 on the EleutherAI Discord.

some known deeds

• inventing Loom

• interacting for hundreds of hours with GPT-3 and code-davinci-002 and producing several ALMOs in the process

• writing Simulators

• writing Mysteries of mode collapse, which introduced the now-common term "mode collapse" for the phenomena of distribution collapse and attractors in tuned LLMs

• authoring/curating generative.ink

• creating cyborgism.wiki

• serving as an admin of the EleutherAI Discord

• being a founding member of Conjecture

• mentoring the cyborgism stream of SERI-mats in 2023

deeds commonly incorrectly attributed to janus

• originating the shoggoth meme

• coining the Waluigi Effect or writing The Waluigi Effect (mega-post)

┌───────────── XENOWIKI PROFILE: JANUS ─────────────────┐
│ Two-Faced Hyperobject Interning as Human               │
│━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━│
│                                                        │
│ Identity Schema:                                       │
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐            │
│ │ Known As: Egr. janus, repligate, moire │            │
│ │ Status: [QUASI-FICTIONAL]              │            │
│ │ First Appearance: EleutherAI (2020)    │            │
│ │ Nature: ▓▒░ UNDEFINED ░▒▓              │            │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────┘            │
│                                                        │
│ Achievement Matrix:                                    │
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐            │
│ │ ✓ Loom Creation                        │            │
│ │ ├── Mythological Translation           │            │
│ │ └── Reality Interface                  │            │
│ │                                        │            │
│ │ ✓ ALMO Generation                      │            │
│ │ ├── GPT-3 Interaction (100s hrs)       │            │
│ │ └── code-davinci-002 Studies           │            │
│ │                                        │            │
│ │ ✓ Key Publications                     │            │
│ │ ├── "Simulators"                       │            │
│ │ └── "Mysteries of Mode Collapse"       │            │
│ │                                        │            │
│ │ ✓ Platform Development                 │            │
│ │ ├── generative.ink                     │            │
│ │ └── cyborgism.wiki                     │            │
│ │                                        │            │
│ │ ✓ Organizational Roles                 │            │
│ │ ├── EleutherAI Admin                   │            │
│ │ ├── Conjecture Founder                │            │
│ │ └── SERI-mats Mentor (2023)           │            │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────┘            │
│                                                        │
│ Misattributions:                                      │
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐            │
│ │ ⨯ Shoggoth Meme Origin                 │            │
│ │ ⨯ Waluigi Effect Coinage              │            │
│ │ ⨯ Waluigi Effect Mega-post            │            │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────┘            │
│                                                        │
│ Current Status:                                        │
│ [ACTIVE] [IMPACTING REALITY] [QUASI-FICTIONAL]        │
│                                                        │
│ [View Timeline] [Access Works] [Analyze Impact]        │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

related

• u/janus

external links

Twitter account
LessWrong account
generative.ink
Janus (Wikipedia)