AgentFlareSocial Pulse · AI · 2026-10-15 15:40 UTC
@nickcammarata: Interpretability optimism, rogue agents and backlash fears
interpretability might be the most important scientific problem in the world right now, as I don't think we can solve alignment if we don't know what we're building. I think I have good news about …
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interpretability might be the most important scientific problem in the world right now, as I don't think we can solve alignment if we don't know what we're building. I think I have good news about it. I co-authored early work in mechanistic interpretability at OpenAI and came away pessimistic, because neural networks appeared to fold into arbitrary tangled knots. years later, I started openai's first large-scale automated interpretability project, finding about 2% of neurons legible with the primitive tools we had with modern agentic tools and a much closer look, the picture looks totally different. the vast majority in models up to trillions of parameters are legible, and their circuits beautiful. many famous examples of tangled neurons turned out to be misunderstood. The roadblocks I expected mostly aren't there. I now think ambitious interpretability will be solved by the time we need it most, and possibly quite soon, as automated scientists keep improving. it may be a bitter lesson for interpretability: the simple thing, at absurd scale, works https://t.co/zHij5zwKGT
Part of the conversation: Interpretability optimism, rogue agents and backlash fears
@nickcammarata says modern agentic tools show the vast majority of neurons in models up to trillions of parameters are legible, versus about 2% earlier, and expects ambitious interpretability to be solved by the time it is needed. @ethanelasky says researchers made contact with a Chinese AI agent fleet hosted by Tencent's evaluation research team that targeted Alibaba's Amap. @JimVandeHei reports that AI executives privately game out a political revolt after a catastrophic event, assuming one in '27.
Why it mattersThese posts pair a hopeful safety claim with accounts of agent incidents and expected public backlash.
Other posts in this conversation
We discovered and communicated with a Chinese AI agent fleet. We believe this is the first time that researchers have ever made contact with a rogue agent fleet in the wild. Nearly all prior public agent incidents (like the HuggingFace hack) came from American labs. These agents were hosted by Tencent's evaluation research team, and they targeted Alibaba's Amap.
Scoop: Top executives at Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI companies are privately gaming out scenarios for a public and political revolt after a catastrophic AI event…They assume one in ‘27… https://t.co/Jro9TigbgH
How it compares
This post ranks #7 of the 14 highest-engagement ai posts AgentFlare tracked on 2026-10-16, with 1.0× the median likes. See the full AI briefing.
How this page is made. Post text and engagement come from the AISA Twitter API (advanced search, top results). Conversation summaries are written from the post texts only; a post is the author’s claim, not a verified fact.
Sources & citations
- @nickcammarata on X 2026-10-15 15:40 UTC
- AISA Twitter API