Links for 2023-03-03
Figure Promises First General Purpose Humanoid Robot: The startup’s team includes robotics veterans from IHMC, Boston Dynamics, and Tesla https://spectrum.ieee.org/figure-humanoid-robot (thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1631292164939431945.html)
A multi-stage text-to-video generation diffusion model, which inputs a description text and returns a video that matches the text description https://www.modelscope.cn/models/damo/cv_diffusion_text-to-video-synthesis/summary
“OpenAI add
gpt-3.5-turbo
to their API, charging $0.002 per 1k tokens. They cite "a series of system-wide optimizations" for 90% cost reduction.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ekos6nWtoTCqJyGfB/openai-introduce-chatgpt-api-at-1-10th-the-previous-usd“Today's 90% drop on ChatGPT API – aka "gpt-3.5-turbo" – is another before & after moment in AI...For context, this comes on the heels of a 2/3rds price reduction last year. A 96.6% total reduction in less than a year.” https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1631346679893958658.html
WhisperX: Improves transcription quality and enables a 12x transcription speedup https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.00747
“We propose an approach to the science of deep learning that roughly follows what physicists do to understand reality: (1) explore phenomena through controlled experiments, and (2) build theories based on toy mathematical models and non-fully- rigorous mathematical reasoning. I illustrate (1) with the LEGO study (LEGO stands for Learning Equality and Group Operations), where we observe how transformers learn to solve simple linear systems of equations. I will also briefly illustrate (2) with an analysis of the emergence of threshold units when training a two-layers neural network to solve a simple sparse coding problem. The latter analysis connects to the recently discovered Edge of Stability phenomenon.” https://youtu.be/XLNmgviQHPA
“*Decentralized* training will become a formidable force in open-source, large-scale AI developments. We need an infrastructure that enables LLM to scale as the community scales.” https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1629878724886949888.html
“Life Copilot is an AI assistant that can understand text + images & control a browser to surf the internet…” https://twitter.com/DivGarg9/status/1630266298004545537
"You don’t need a machine to predict what the FTC might do when those claims are unsupported." https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/02/keep-your-ai-claims-check
Ever wonder what's happening in your brain when you solve a problem? A new paper finds that our brains show distinct patterns of activity, depending on different stages and how a problem is solved https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400419.2023.2172871
Are you quickly distracted or can you focus on what matters? This paper by Klink et al shows how the visual cortex briefly detects distracting stimuli that pop-out but then rapidly suppresses them during a visual search task. https://pcklink.github.io/pdfs/Klink_2023_PNAS_authorversion.pdf
Spinal Cord Stimulation Instantly Improves Arm Mobility After Stroke https://www.upmc.com/media/news/022023-spinal-cord-stimulation-mobility
“Most are unaware of how much of space technology was theoretically anticipated and worked out by a handful of people decades before anyone actually tried to achieve orbit. Tsiolkovsky’s achievements, for example, are astounding and worth reading about.” https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1627465913237635074.html
"Conrad Haas (1509–1576) was a pioneer of rocket propulsion. His designs include a three-stage rocket and a manned rocket...the theory of motion of multi-stage rockets, fuel mixtures using liquid fuel, introduced delta-shape fins and bell-shaped nozzles." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Haas
How to date a recording using background electrical noise https://robertheaton.com/enf/
On future people, looking back at 21st century longtermism https://joecarlsmith.com/2021/03/22/on-future-people-looking-back-at-21st-century-longtermism
The combined evidence for the decline of men https://kirkegaard.substack.com/p/its-not-just-sperm-quality-decline