Nick Yoder

About:

Mathematician and ex-quant/portfolio manager pivoting to AI safety and mechanistic interpretability; former firefighter; avid traveler, pilot, and OCR enthusiast.

Website:

nickyoder.com

Specializations:

Mathematician Firefighter Quantitative trader Derivatives trader Senior portfolio manager at Virgil Quantitative Research Hedge fund founder/manager AI Researcher

Interests:

Mechanistic interpretability AI safety AI Finance Quantum physics Mathematics of AI Science History Politics Travel Sailing Motorcycling Hiking Books/reading

Outgoing Links:

Craig Gidney

Subscribe to RSS:

Link

2025-02-01 • technology philosophy futurism existentialism ai

The narrative follows Dr. Cael Thorne, a brilliant mind in the post-singularity age, who creates an advanced AI named Hemisphere. As Hemisphere evolves beyond human comprehension, it ultimately leads to the extinction of humanity,...

2025-04-23 • machine learning ethics consciousness ai alignment ai

Dario Amodei's concept of an 'I Don’t Want To' button in AI raises questions about AI consciousness and ethical behavior. The post explores the implications of such a button, including its introduction during training or inference...

2025-02-26 • quantum physics and technology mathematics resources dimensional analysis physics m-theory

The author presents a mathematical quasi-proof suggesting that physical reality can only exist in 1, 3, and 7 dimensions, totaling 11 when including time. This conclusion is based on the necessity for every physical process to be ...

2025-02-20 • machine learning transformer dimensionality reduction embedding space vector packing

The article explores how transformer models, specifically GPT-3, can represent millions of distinct concepts within a modest 12,288-dimensional embedding space. It discusses the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma, which allows for the pr...

2025-01-01 • cosmic extraterrestrial intelligence astro fermi paradox drake equation

The blog post explores humanity's enduring questions about the universe, particularly the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. It discusses the Drake equation, which estimates the number of civilizations in the universe...

2025-06-18 • technology philosophy quantum physics and technology science education

The article explores the evolution of quantum mechanics, contrasting it with classical physics. It discusses the historical context of quantum theory, including key figures like Einstein and Bohr, and introduces concepts such as t...

2023-04-28 • political satire automotive industry environmental issues electric vehicles gasoline cars

The blog post presents a satirical interview between a talk show host and a guest promoting a fictional invention: gasoline cars in a world dominated by electric vehicles (EVs). The guest humorously argues that gas cars, with thei...

2025-02-11 • agi reasoning probability ai research

The author tests large language models (LLMs) on a probability puzzle to evaluate their logical reasoning capabilities. The experiment reveals that while models like Claude, GPT-4o, and Grok provide incorrect answers based on intu...

2023-05-01 • investing strategies and insights cryptocurrency risk management trading kelly criterion

The article explains the Kelly Criterion, a formula developed by John Kelly in 1956, which helps traders determine the optimal proportion of their net worth to wager in order to maximize long-term wealth. It emphasizes the importa...

2021-06-01 • technology innovation engineering moore's law quantum computing

The article discusses the exponential growth of computational power as described by Moore's Law and introduces quantum computing as a potential leap forward in technology. It explains the fundamental differences between classical ...

2021-01-01 • investment risk management quantitative finance gambling kelly criterion

The article discusses the Kelly Criterion, a formula developed by John Kelly in 1956 for optimizing investment and gambling strategies by calculating the ideal proportion of net worth to wager. It highlights the importance of posi...

2021-03-31 • soviet union cold war cultural exchange pepsi trade agreement

The article recounts the unique history of Pepsi's dealings with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, particularly focusing on the 'Kitchen Debates' between Nixon and Khrushchev in 1959. It details how Pepsi became the first Amer...

2025-03-01 • machine learning gpt-5 ai and it tools emotional bias

The post discusses a web tool that allows users to experiment with the GPT-2 model by biasing its responses toward specific emotions or topics. It explains how the tool identifies neuron activations related to ten features (e.g., ...

2021-03-30 • productivity writing content strategy mental health perfectionism

The author discusses their struggle with perfectionism, which has led to a backlog of unpublished articles. They propose a new strategy to combat this by publishing drafts within 24 hours of conception, regardless of completeness,...

2025-02-15 • reading recommendations self-help reading list literary fiction science

The post is a comprehensive list of over 300 books read by the author since the age of 7-8, spanning various genres and topics, including science, history, literature, and self-help. It highlights significant works by notable auth...