[synapsomorphy]

Not sarcasm at all.

There are some "AI thinkers" who are trying to make 8% faster CUDA kernels for attention, and there are some trying to save the world. These fields are called "capabilities" and "alignment". There is some overlap but not much.

LessWrong is mostly the latter, and labs and universities are mostly the former. That said, many LessWrongers work on AI at labs or universities or other places.