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SolidGoldMagikarp

A Descent into the AI Underworld
By Matthew Watkins
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Brief Description
When English mathematician Matthew Watkins went to San Francisco to study an early version of ChatGPT, he expected dry technical work. Instead, he uncovered a series of 'rare tokens' that made the system go haywire. Some produced gibberish. Others turned it hostile. One trigger word -... Read More
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A gripping descent into the hidden psychology of AI, and the strange subcultures trying to control it before it destroys us

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

When English mathematician Matthew Watkins went to San Francisco to study an early version of ChatGPT, he expected dry technical work. Instead, he uncovered a series of 'rare tokens' that made the system go haywire. Some produced gibberish. Others turned it hostile. One trigger word - petertodd - sent the machine into what looked like full-blown paranoia. Was it a simple bug? A trail of breadcrumbs left by whistleblowers? Or a glimpse into how AI really thinks?

The search for answers pulls Watkins into the secretive world of AI safety research. In this rapidly expanding domain, the line between science and belief blurs: billionaires play god while rogue chatbots win fortunes and groupies. What starts as a computer mystery becomes something much bigger: both a window into the eerie inner worlds of LLMs and a cryptic clue to what might be history's greatest power grab.

The system has since been patched. Even so, before the window closed, we saw inside for a brief moment - and what stared back at us was both stranger and more human than we might like to admit.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781399635899

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 27 August 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 153.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 368

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About the Author

Matthew Watkins is a British mathematician and AI safety researcher. While studying language models at SERI MATS in Berkeley and London, he discovered 'a cluster of strange keywords that will break ChatGPT' (Vice). Posts about his findings for the tech-rationalist website LessWrong were among the most upvoted in the site's history. Leading AI critic Eliezer Yudkowsky called his research 'one of the more hopeful processes happening on Earth right now'.

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