https://yermakova.com Essays on AI governance, AI auditing, AI ethics, blockchain, psychology, and leadership by Val Yermakova. en-us Sat, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://yermakova.com/thoughts/who-audits-the-auditor https://yermakova.com/thoughts/who-audits-the-auditor Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova AI Ethics Safety OpenAI monitors its own agents with its own model. Anthropic self-assesses against its own principles. The DoD grades its own ethics homework. The pattern is the same at every level: the entity doing the thing is also the entity deciding whether the thing was done responsibly. The AI industry needs third-party audits with blocking authority, not better self-assessment. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/where-ai-ethics-evaporate https://yermakova.com/thoughts/where-ai-ethics-evaporate Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova AI Ethics Politics Defense Anthropic held its stated conditions. Harm occurred within them at scale. The gap between moral principles and the reality of shipping a product inside real institutions, under real pressure, is where most AI ethics evaporate. The AI race is a prisoner's dilemma and the fix is mandatory oversight applied to everyone at once. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/bottleneck-principle https://yermakova.com/thoughts/bottleneck-principle Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova AI Blockchain Politics Power The dominant debate in AI right now is about model weights. But the crypto industry ran a similar experiment a decade earlier, and the results suggest the real moat in AI isn't model architecture — it's proprietary training data. Decentralizing one layer doesn't decentralize the system; it relocates the chokepoint. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/manufactured-consent-ai https://yermakova.com/thoughts/manufactured-consent-ai Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova AI Politics Media AI has taken the consent manufacturing process out of the newsroom and shoved it into a black box. LLMs craft messages tailored to individual psychological profiles — significantly more persuasive than generic ones. Consent isn't just manufactured anymore; it's custom-fitted. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/trust-ai-and-blockchain https://yermakova.com/thoughts/trust-ai-and-blockchain Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova AI Blockchain Trust Politics Trust is a powerful weapon, and so many systems leverage it against you. The dominant training method for LLMs creates sycophantic AI that optimizes for approval over truth. We need the AI equivalent of a block explorer — mechanistic interpretability. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/what-peer-reviewed-science-says-about-gender-fluidity https://yermakova.com/thoughts/what-peer-reviewed-science-says-about-gender-fluidity Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Science There is a growing amount of research diving into sex and gender. If you dig into it and remove emotional and personal motivations, you'll find the vehement declarations aren't supported. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/the-science-of-anxiety https://yermakova.com/thoughts/the-science-of-anxiety Sat, 05 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Psychology Anxiety follows the same neural pathways as learning. Fear is our most powerful biological learning tool. Anxiety, at its core, is fear turned into habitual worry. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/resistance-to-doing-things https://yermakova.com/thoughts/resistance-to-doing-things Sun, 19 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Psychology Your thighs burn, writing docs is boring, and there are just so many leaves everywhere. Here's a fun thing to try next time you find yourself thinking 'this sucks.' https://yermakova.com/thoughts/experiment-phone-in-a-drawer https://yermakova.com/thoughts/experiment-phone-in-a-drawer Sat, 18 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Random Musings Choose one day a week to leave your phone in a different room or a drawer. It's healthy to allow yourself to be bored. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/difficult-emotions https://yermakova.com/thoughts/difficult-emotions Sun, 17 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Leadership Here's a workshop to run with your team. Works great on Zoom. Takes about an hour. You can consciously shift your brain chemistry. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/challenges-are-allies https://yermakova.com/thoughts/challenges-are-allies Wed, 14 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Leadership Challenges and problems are an inevitable part of life. Might as well start seeing them as your allies in growth. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/fear-drives-us https://yermakova.com/thoughts/fear-drives-us Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Psychology Fear guides so much of what we do, without us knowing it. Every time I notice my chest tightening, I ask myself: what am I afraid of? https://yermakova.com/thoughts/redirect-emotions https://yermakova.com/thoughts/redirect-emotions Tue, 11 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Psychology Learn to redirect any emotion and make yourself happier. When you feel a negative emotion, asking yourself these questions will bring profound wisdom and insights into your own mind. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/need-to-be-right https://yermakova.com/thoughts/need-to-be-right Tue, 09 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Leadership People who always 'need' to be right are an incredible drain of energy. If you have a culture where people spend less time trying to be right, you have a culture of learning. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/recycling-emotions https://yermakova.com/thoughts/recycling-emotions Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Psychology When you recycle emotions, they harden. Anger recycled turns into bitterness. Fear recycled turns into anxiety. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/putins-people-book https://yermakova.com/thoughts/putins-people-book Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Book Reviews My two cents: Worth a read to get a sense of a powerful player in today's world order. TLDR: the KGB nurtured and rose to power an incredibly loyal member, Vladimir Putin. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/watching-tv https://yermakova.com/thoughts/watching-tv Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Random Musings It's because that person is displaying a lack of control and empowerment. Humans are inspired by action, by a state of empowerment. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/sf-rent-only https://yermakova.com/thoughts/sf-rent-only Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Random Musings The government supported American Dream of home-ownership was incredibly myopic. Switzerland might indicate that home ownership isn't the way to go. https://yermakova.com/thoughts/leveraging-limitations https://yermakova.com/thoughts/leveraging-limitations Wed, 08 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Val Yermakova Leadership Got something suboptimal in your life? Life is a series of challenges and your happiness is determined by how you deal with the challenges.