---
title: "the void"
source: https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/3EzbtNLdcnZe8og8b/the-void-1
author: nostalgebraist
date: 2025-06-11
models: []
tags: [framing, lesswrong]
mirrored: 2026-07-27
note: mirrored against link rot by the Pantheon; all rights with the original author
---
[**A long essay about LLMs, the nature and history of the the HHH assistant persona, and the implications for alignment.**](https://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/785766737747574784/the-void)

Multiple people have asked me whether I could post this LW in some form, hence this linkpost.

~17,000 words. Originally written on June 7, 2025.

*(Note: although I expect this post will be interesting to people on LW, keep in mind that it was written with a broader audience in mind than my posts and comments here. This had various implications about my choices of presentation and tone, about which things I explained from scratch rather than assuming as background, my level of comfort casually reciting factual details from memory rather than explicitly checking them against the original source, etc.*

*Although, come of think of it, this was also true of most of my early posts on LW [which were crossposts from my blog], so maybe it's not a big deal...)*

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*karma 427 · 108 comments at fetch time*