AI:
“What is the performance limit when scaling LLM inference? Sky's the limit. We have mathematically proven that transformers can solve any problem, provided they are allowed to generate as many intermediate reasoning tokens as needed. Remarkably, constant depth is sufficient.” http://arxiv.org/abs/2402.12875
Diagram of Thought (DoT) enhances the reasoning capabilities of LLMs through mathematical rigor https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.10038
AI can't cross this line and we don't know why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eqRuVp65eY
Tamay Besiroglu on Explosive Growth from AI https://hearthisidea.com/episodes/besiroglu/
Scott Aaronson says the idea that while we have concepts that are totally inconceivable to a sea snail there should likewise be concepts that are equally inconceivable to us, may not be true as there may be a ceiling on computational universality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZS4Plmx4_o
Jeff Dean, chief scientist of Google DeepMind and Google Research discusses the past, present and future of AI, specially the long term potential of multi-modal models like Gemini. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH74gNeryhQ
Ensemble everything everywhere: Multi-scale aggregation for adversarial robustness https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.05446
Microsoft announced Copilot's ability to process data in Excel by generating Python code. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel-blog/python-in-excel-available-now/ba-p/4240212
AI-powered SAR satellites are now capable of detecting aircraft from space due to new radar tech. https://tech.marksblogg.com/ai-sar-satellites-umbra-aircraft-detection.html
“…the White House convened leaders from hyperscalers, artificial intelligence (AI) companies, datacenter operators, and utility companies to discuss steps to ensure the United States continues to lead the world in AI.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/12/readout-of-white-house-roundtable-on-u-s-leadership-in-ai-infrastructure/
Generative ML in chemistry is bottlenecked by synthesis https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K8vtpBvGzEyFEjhxK/generative-ml-in-chemistry-is-bottlenecked-by-synthesis
Heart disease is the world’s biggest killer — this Cambridge Uni spinout is using AI to find new treatments https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/09/heart-disease-is-the-worlds-biggest-killer-this-cambridge-uni-spinout-is-using-ai-to-find-new-treatments/
Salesforce just launched Agentforce, a suite of AI-powered agents designed to enhance human workers across various business functions, marking what they call the "third wave" of AI. https://venturebeat.com/ai/salesforces-agentforce-the-ai-assistants-that-want-to-run-your-entire-business/
Human drivers are to blame for most serious Waymo collisions https://www.understandingai.org/p/human-drivers-are-to-blame-for-most
Building Machines that Learn and Think with People https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03943
Seed-Music: A Unified Framework for High Quality and Controlled Music Generation https://team.doubao.com/en/special/seed-music
NVIDIA's Jim Fan says the future of video gaming involves generating virtual worlds on the fly and unique interactions with intelligent NPCs, giving games infinite replay value https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMGGpMyW_vw
A.I. Pioneers Call for Protections Against ‘Catastrophic Risks’ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/business/china-ai-safety.html [no paywall: https://archive.is/5gzYu]
A huge summary post of OpenAI’s o1 with a lot of links. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zuaaqjsN6BucbGhf5/gpt-4o1
“I finally got ChatGPT to sound like me” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2d5o75nmTpLiSP4WL/in-this-blog-post-i-summon-the-ai-simulation-of-myself
The question of whether Machines Can Think... is about as relevant as the question of whether Submarines Can Swim.
— Edsger Dijkstra (1984)
Compute:
Unlocking 1000x Faster Computer Chips With Plasmonic Resonators https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/news-and-events/news/detail/news/modulated-light-antenna/
Beyond Moore’s Law: Revolutionary Hot Carrier Transistors Overcome Efficiency Challenges https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07785-3
The human brain:
Traveling waves form patterns that carry information. Horizontal cortical connections shape intrinsic traveling waves into feature-selective motifs that regulate perceptual sensitivity https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(24)01058-1
Synchron Announces First Use of Amazon’s Alexa with a Brain Computer Interface https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240916709941/en/Synchron-Announces-First-Use-of-Amazon%E2%80%99s-Alexa-with-a-Brain-Computer-Interface
When Do Geneticists Believe the Human Brain Evolved? https://www.vectorsofmind.com/p/when-do-geneticists-believe-the-human
Technology:
Engineers Gave a Mushroom a Robot Body And Let It Run Wild https://www.sciencealert.com/engineers-gave-a-mushroom-a-robot-body-and-let-it-run-wild
Dmitry Grinberg has managed to run Linux and Ultrix on a business card, turning it into a tiny computer. The project involves using a microcontroller with just 8KB of RAM and 32KB of flash storage. https://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=33.+LinuxCard
Miscellaneous:
That Alien Message (SF short story from 2008) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVN_5xsMDdg
Book: "What is Entropy?" (by John C. Baez) https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.09232
Was a lack of get-up-and-go the death of the Neanderthals? https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240911-was-a-lack-of-get-up-and-go-the-death-of-the-neanderthals
Evidence suggesting that earth had a ring in the Ordovician https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X24004230
Politics:
The pagers of thousands of Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon and possibly elsewhere exploded simultaneously. More than 1,200 Hezbollah members were reportedly wounded. Even the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon is said to be among them. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd7xnelvpepo (one of many videos [Warning: gore]: https://x.com/clashreport/status/1836044543973531839)
It’s worth reflecting on the fact that North Korea is both willing and able to offer greater military support to its allies than countries like Germany. All the freedoms and economic advantages of a capitalist society are meaningless if you're defeated in war.
If your society refrains from developing nuclear weapons on moral grounds, then your survival is more the result of luck and the goodwill of your enemies than of any ethical or technological superiority.
The ability to reject involuntary servitude, such as compulsory military service, is a historical anomaly. No libertarian society could withstand an assault from one that forces its people into aggressive warfare.
Ukraine:
Leaked docs from a Kremlin-controlled propaganda machine reveal a campaign backing far-right parties in EU elections and spreading disinformation to undermine Ukraine. https://vsquare.org/leaked-files-putin-troll-factory-russia-european-elections-factory-of-fakes/
Remember this meme about Zelensky that Elon Musk shared? Leaked internal documents from a Kremlin-controlled propaganda center reveal that it was produced by a Kremlin-lead Russian troll farm. https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/skhemy-kreml-dezinformatsiya-asd-hambashydze/33121898.html
"Budanov also noted that the Russians have made significant progress in Iskander missile production, which has become 'massive'. Quote from Budanov: 'Production [of guided aerial bombs] has increased – I don't want to scare anyone, but by several times, let's say.'" https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/09/14/7475117/
Accumulation of destroyed Russian Bukhanka UAZs on one of the Russian supply roads somewhere on the front. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1835689008501846522
HIMARS strike on Russian troops somewhere on the eastern front. By the 45th Brigade of Ukraine. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1835754281460490480
A HIMARS strike targeted a Russian military training ground in Donetsk Oblast, reportedly hitting the center of a Russian gathering. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1835944984593195472
⚡️Reconnaissance group of the 🇷🇺Russian 154th Reconnaissance Battalion was completely smashed by 🇺🇦Ukrainian artillery in Kherson region https://x.com/GloOouD/status/1836011495584346617
Russian BMP drops infantry in the middle of an open field just to be immediately destroyed on the spot. Kursk region. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1836007848272109585
The 61st Separate Mechanized Steppe Brigade of the Ground Forces captured 13 Russians, 4 of whom had serious injuries. https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1835992903316803771
Russians executed a Ukrainan soldier with a sword https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1835935769380196777
“A confidential Ukrainian estimate from earlier this year put the number of dead Ukrainian troops at 80,000 and the wounded at 400,000, according to people familiar with the matter. Western intelligence estimates of Russian casualties vary, with some putting the number of dead as high as nearly 200,000 and wounded at around 400,000...” https://www.wsj.com/world/one-million-are-now-dead-or-injured-in-the-russia-ukraine-war-b09d04e5 [no paywall: https://archive.is/XMKcO]
Relatedly: North Korea may be economically crippling itself by supporting Russia's war effort.
Project Icarus | How War in Ukraine is Destabilizing North Korea
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Wm517rYys