Links for 2024-05-04
DrEureka: Language Model Guided Sim-To-Real Transfer
Super impressive:
DrEureka, an LLM agent that writes code to train robot skills in simulation, and writes more code to bridge the difficult simulation-reality gap. It fully automates the pipeline from new skill learning to real-world deployment.
The Yoga ball task is particularly hard because it is not possible to accurately simulate the bouncy ball surface. Yet DrEureka has no trouble searching over a vast space of sim-to-real configurations, and enables the dog to steer the ball on various terrains, even walking sideways!
Traditionally, the sim-to-real transfer is achieved by domain randomization, a tedious process that requires expert human roboticists to stare at every parameter and adjust by hand. Frontier LLMs like GPT-4 have tons of built-in physical intuition for friction, damping, stiffness, gravity, etc. We are (mildly) surprised to find that DrEureka can tune these parameters competently and explain its reasoning well.
Project site: https://eureka-research.github.io/dr-eureka/
Code: https://github.com/eureka-research/DrEureka
X: https://x.com/DrJimFan/status/1786429467537088741
This again shows how LLMs can function as an important component of more advanced reasoning systems.
AI:
TUM professor uses ChatGPT for choreographies with flying robots https://www.tum.de/en/news-and-events/all-news/press-releases/details/tum-professor-uses-chatgpt-for-choreographies-with-flying-robots
When to Retrieve: Teaching LLMs to Utilize Information Retrieval Effectively https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.19705
AI Is Gathering a Growing Amount of Training Data Inside Virtual Worlds https://singularityhub.com/2024/05/01/ai-is-gathering-a-growing-amount-of-training-data-inside-virtual-worlds/
How Virtual Factories Are Making Industrial Digitalization a Reality https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/virtual-factories-industrial-digitalization/
Copilot Workspace is GitHub’s take on AI-powered software engineering https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/29/copilot-workspace-is-githubs-take-on-ai-powered-software-engineering/
Neurotech:
The utilization of EEG recordings from schizophrenic subjects in the design of information security primitives. The psychological perception of schizophrenic patients is a good source of true randomness. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/cin/2022/2532497/
Crypto company Tether invests $200 mln in brain-chip maker Blackrock Neurotech https://www.reuters.com/technology/crypto-company-tether-invests-200-mln-brain-chip-maker-blackrock-neurotech-2024-04-29/ [no paywall: https://archive.is/0KLmn]
Math:
Kevin Buzzard has launched his five-year project to formalize the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. The target is to be able to reduce the proof of FLT to "claims which were known to mathematicians by the end of the 1980s" https://leanprover-community.github.io/blog/posts/FLT-announcement/
Category theory is very useful for program synthesis and software modeling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSQKjcN8Ops
Category theory meets AI https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/112247466207265886
Rationality:
Coherent decisions imply consistent utilities https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RQpNHSiWaXTvDxt6R/coherent-decisions-imply-consistent-utilities
David Thorstad: Bounded Rationality and the Case Against Longtermism https://thegradientpub.substack.com/p/david-thorstad-bounded-rationality-longtermism
Ukraine:
Pokrovsk Raion offensive equipment loss numbers as of 03 May 2024: 1072 Russian losses vs. 173 Ukrainian losses https://x.com/naalsio26/status/1786511596707021235
“These charts detail the net change in occupied territory each month since the start of the war (left) and a zoomed-in view of just the past 12 months (right).” https://x.com/War_Mapper/status/1786376285574373643
Video that shows the importance of Mavic drones in defensive operations. https://x.com/Teoyaomiquu/status/1786561419598532978
JDAM-ER Winged Bombs With Seekers That Home In On GPS Jammers Headed To Ukraine https://www.twz.com/air/jdam-er-winged-bombs-with-seekers-that-home-in-on-gps-jammers-headed-to-ukraine