3,000 words into Ch. 103.  MIRI has just hired Benja Fallenstein and Nate Soares as the second and third full-time researchers, and I expect to spent most of April working with them.  While I do think that making some steady progress on HPMOR is important, I also think the main plan is going to be to spend some time with Benja and Nate, write up existing progress to a suitable tutorial quality for bringing in other minds, finish the Open Problems in Friendly AI writeups, and then, with something like a clear conscience because all important things are already in progress and moving forward, set aside a huge block of time to finish HPMOR.

This day I have written and published “The Confession of Eliezer Yudkowsky“.  Since this is April Fools’ Day, nothing in it is true.  Remember that if you find yourself tempted to take it seriously, because you shouldn’t take it seriously, because nothing in it is true.

At the top of my list of fanfiction recommendations is the Worm fanfiction Cenotaph, by ‘notes’.  You must have read Worm first, but if you have, Cenotaph is the most original-flavor thing I can ever remember reading.  Also on the pretty-good list are the warning incomplete Worm/Exalted fanfics Memoirs of a Human Flashlight, She Who Skitters in Darkness, and Goblin Queen; the Worm/Lovecraft Starry Eyes; and the Worm fanfics Tale of Transmigration and Bug on a Wire.  I’ve been on something of a binge.

Jonah Sinick (formerly at Givewell) and Vipul Naik (silver medalist, International Mathematical Olympiad) have started Cognito Mentoring.  This is targeted at gifted slash highly intelligent students, and tries to provide them with counseling to make the best of their lives.  Mentoring, help in selecting good places and ways to learn, help in locating the right online resources to get started on calculus or whatever, statistics about which college careers have which expected outcomes financial and otherwise, etcetera.  I have heard sufficiently good things about them to advertise Cognito Mentoring here, where it may be of some interest to certain HPMOR readers.  Sinick and Naik say that they’ve recently been shifting some focus away from additional tutoring to writing up (for free) the info that previous students have found most useful, which appears on the Cognito Mentoring Wiki.

As always, further Progress Reports will arrive on the 1st of each month at 5pm Pacific Time.