Open Thread 456
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Astral Codex Ten’s Open Thread 456 is a weekly community post that invites discussion and shares updates on local meetups, election guides, an AI safety grantmaking survey and new projects. The post also describes MNX, a real-money prediction market focused on AI, and Common Notes, a proposed community-notes system for content across the web.

Astral Codex Ten published Open Thread 456, a weekly post inviting readers to discuss any topic while sharing updates on local meetups, an election guide, an AI grantmaking survey and projects related to AI markets and online notes. The post is a community roundup rather than a report of one breaking event, and several of its notices include dates or deadlines that depend on the publication’s original calendar.

The post says meetups have changed in Rockville, Northampton, Eindhoven, Great Barrington, Cairo, Portland and Sofia, directing readers to the post for details. It also gives an early notice for a Bay Area meetup planned for Saturday, Oct. 24, at 1 p.m. at Mox, 1680 Mission St. in San Francisco. The author says a separate post may follow.

The Boston ACX meetup group has completed a Greater Boston general-election voting guide, according to the thread. The author says they may publish more guides in the following week and are still considering whether a Bay Area guide is possible. The post names Scott Wiener for Congress as the group’s main San Francisco endorsement and says the city’s mail-in ballot registration deadline was the end of that Monday. It does not provide the year in the excerpt.

The author is seeking responses from people familiar with AI and grantmaking for a survey asking them to assign utility weights to about 80 AI safety accomplishments. A second version asks respondents to predict how the author would answer the first survey, which the post says could help distinguish differences in worldview from random variation in how people assign weights. The thread also highlights MNX, a real-money AI prediction market, and Common Notes, a proposed system for community notes across websites.

At a glance
announcementWhen: Published as a weekly open thread; the…
The developmentAstral Codex Ten published its 456th weekly open thread, combining a general discussion invitation with updates on meetups, surveys and AI-related projects.

Community Projects Reach Beyond ACX

The thread connects the ACX audience to several activities with practical consequences: local gatherings, voter information, research into how AI safety work is valued, and tools for interpreting claims about AI companies. Readers may use the meetup notices to participate locally, while the survey could contribute to the author’s ongoing effort to model parts of AI grantmaking. The post describes that work as exploratory; it does not report completed automation or validated results.

MNX is presented as a market where participants can trade real-money futures tied to AI company stocks, company revenues and targets such as the Epoch Capabilities Index. Prediction-market prices can show what traders are wagering, but they are not by themselves verified measures of a company’s value or future performance. The author says both Polymarket and MNX continued to price Anthropic at around $2 trillion despite discussion of a possible drop from $2 trillion to $1.5 trillion. The post does not establish that either figure is a company valuation or explain the contracts’ terms.

Common Notes, meanwhile, is described as an attempt to extend a community-notes model beyond a single social platform. Its proposed mix of AI-written notes, user contributions and voting, displayed through a browser extension, would affect how readers encounter context across websites if adopted. The thread offers a project description, not evidence of its reach or effectiveness.

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A Weekly Thread With Local Notices

Open Thread 456 follows the format identified by Astral Codex Ten as its weekly visible open thread: readers can post about any subject or ask informal questions. The post also points readers to the blog’s unofficial subreddit, Discord, bulletin board and in-person meetups. It says most content is free, with some material available to subscribers.

The author groups routine community notices with requests and project announcements rather than presenting them as a single coordinated initiative. The voting-guide update concerns local election information; the survey is part of ongoing work on AI grantmaking; and MNX and Common Notes are projects introduced by people associated with the blog’s wider community. The post supplies links for readers seeking more information, but the source material here does not include independent documentation about the projects.

Its references to a Monday registration deadline and an Oct. 24 Saturday meetup are relative to the original post’s calendar. Without a publication date and year in the supplied excerpt, those dates should not be treated as upcoming or current now. Readers should check the linked local or event information before relying on them.

“This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever.”

— Astral Codex Ten author

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Dates and Project Details Need Checking

The excerpt does not specify the post’s publication date or year, so the Monday ballot-registration deadline and Oct. 24 meetup cannot be confirmed as still relevant. It also does not include the full details of the listed meetup changes or the voting guide’s recommendations beyond the stated San Francisco endorsement.

For the survey, the post does not report how many people have responded, how the utility weights will be analyzed, or whether the results will be published. For MNX, it does not provide contract rules, trading volumes or the basis for the prices it cites. The comparison between discussion of Anthropic at $2 trillion and $1.5 trillion is presented without further sourcing or explanation. Common Notes’ availability, coverage and performance are also not established by the excerpt.

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Survey, Events and Project Updates

The immediate steps described by the author are to collect survey responses from people with AI and grantmaking experience and to provide more information about meetup changes. The author says a Bay Area election guide may still be under consideration and that more material could follow in the upcoming week, without committing to a publication date.

Readers interested in the events should confirm current schedules with the organizers, particularly because the dates in the post are tied to its original publication calendar. Further information about MNX and Common Notes would be needed to assess their terms, use and results. The thread itself does not announce a later milestone or guarantee that any of these projects will expand.

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Key Questions

What is Open Thread 456?

It is Astral Codex Ten’s weekly open discussion post, where readers are invited to raise topics and ask questions. This edition also carries community announcements and project updates.

What did the AI grantmaking survey ask?

The survey asks people familiar with AI and grantmaking to assign utility weights to about 80 AI safety accomplishments. An alternate version asks respondents to predict how the author would answer the first survey.

What is MNX?

The post describes MNX as a real-money prediction market focused on AI, with futures tied to AI company stocks, company revenues and other targets. The excerpt does not provide the market’s contract terms or trading data.

What is Common Notes?

Goodheart Labs describes Common Notes as a system intended to bring community notes to content across websites. The post says it combines AI-written notes, user submissions and votes, with a browser extension to display the notes.

Are the meetup and ballot dates current?

The source excerpt does not state the publication year. Its Oct. 24 meetup notice and Monday ballot-registration reminder are therefore historical references to the post’s calendar, not confirmed current deadlines.

Source: rss

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