Q*
Article
Q* is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between December 05, 2023 and February 27, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “a breakthrough in a model called Q*, which had learned to do math”; “remember the rumors about “Q*”“. It most often appears alongside Aella, AGI, Helen Toner.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: December 05, 2023
- Last seen: February 27, 2025
Appears In
Related Pages
-
- Aella (2 shared issues)
-
- AGI (2 shared issues)
-
- Helen Toner (2 shared issues)
-
- Metaculus (2 shared issues)
-
- Musk (2 shared issues)
-
- OpenAI (2 shared issues)
-
- Sam Altman (2 shared issues)
-
- Twitter (2 shared issues)
-
- NootropicsDepot (1 shared issues)
-
- @AISafetyMemes (1 shared issues)
-
- @betafuzz (1 shared issues)
-
- @fae_dreams (1 shared issues)
External Links
None.
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
There was a Reuters story that the firing was precipitated by a breakthrough in a model called Q*, which had learned to do math. The market seems to think Q* exists, but is not a breakthrough, and wasn’t involved in the firing.
Inline links: a Reuters story
44: My list of links to publish today includes something like a dozen about DeepSeek, which now seems so thoroughly yesterday’s news that I’m tempted to throw them all out. But in case you still have questions about it, I felt most enlightened by takes from Dean Ball (X), Helen Toner (X), and Miles Brundage (X). The story seems to be that DeepSeek genuinely did a great job, made extensive algorithmic progress, and was able to create an excellent AI on chips scrounged up from before the export controls hit + mediocre chips that got through the export controls. Along with these real reasons to be impressed, there is also a little bit of illusion at work - OpenAI delayed announcing o1 for a long time (remember the rumors about “Q*” and “Strawberry”?) and DeepSeek was very fast to announce r1, which made DeepSeek seem closer behind OpenAI than they really were. Most of the smart people I read said that the absolute worst response to this (from an arms race point of view) would be to give up on export controls - if a rival has geniuses who can use resources ultra-effectively, you don’t want to also give them more resources!