Links for 2023-10-24
How ‘A.I. Agents’ That Roam the Internet Could One Day Replace Workers https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/technology/ai-agents-workers-replace.html [https://archive.ph/QCqj7]
‘Video games are in for quite a trip’: How generative AI could radically reshape gaming https://edition.cnn.com/world/generative-ai-video-games-spc-intl-hnk
State of AI Report 2023: LLMs and diffusion models continue to drive real-world breakthroughs, especially in the life sciences, with meaningful steps forward in both molecular biology and drug discovery. https://www.stateof.ai/
Combining concepts from developmental psychology with LLMs in order to simulate more complex memory https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.06983
“This study uncovers the factor of general intelligence, or g, in language models, extending the psychometric theory traditionally applied to humans and certain animal species...The study also finds a moderate correlation of .48 between model size and g.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11616
OpenAI in Talks for Deal That Would Value Company at $80 Billion https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/technology/openai-artifical-intelligence-value.html [https://archive.ph/9YLLz]
Bionic hand integrates with Swedish woman's nerves, bones, muscles https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2023/10/13/bionic-hand-bone-nervous-system/6851697135586/
From a five-layer graphene sandwich, a rare electronic state emerges https://news.mit.edu/2023/five-layer-graphene-sandwich-rare-electronic-behavior-1018
How multiple cultural practices--consanguinity, polygyny and sexual concurrency--have shaped the genetic architecture of a bottlenecked indigenous community from Southern Africa. https://twitter.com/doctorveera/status/1714829133396541636 (paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2309552120)
We need to be mass manufacturing nuclear power plants on the scale of hundreds of gigawatts. The best time to build a vast, civil nuclear fleet was 50 years ago. The second best time is now. On scaling nuclear power. https://a16z.com/how-to-scale-nuclear-power/
Ask for what you want. You usually won't get it, and often the rejection will be painful. But when this works, it works surprisingly well.
Almost always, the people who say "I am going to keep going until this works, and no matter what the challenges are I'm going to figure them out", and mean it, go on to succeed. They are persistent long enough to give themselves a chance for luck to go their way.
— Sam Altman
For a very rough approximation of the difficulty of a ground invasion of Gaza, consider the Battle of Mosul.
The Iraqi army and Peshmerga together had ~110,000 fighters against 6,000-12,000 Islamic State fighters. The former were supported by a US-led multinational military formation, Pakistan, Hezbollah and Iran.
The battle lasted 9 months and created 10 million tons of detritus.
Read more: The Mosul Study Group and the Lessons of the Battle of Mosul https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/files/publications/LWP-130-The-Mosul-Study-Group-and-the-Lessons-of-the-Battle-of-Mosul.pdf
Ukraine links:
Avdiivka:
“Through visual analysis of satellite imagery, our team found Russian military vehicle losses in Avdiivka between October 10 and October 20. The total number exceeded 109, indicating a significant loss of approximately aligning to a brigade-sized force in just ten days…The Russian vehicle losses have now surpassed those incurred during the Siversky Donets crossing in 2022. It's likely that these losses have already exceeded or will surpass the vehicle losses sustained by the Russians in the Vuheldar area between November 2022 and April 2023.” https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/avdiivka-russian-losses-from-october
“This is quite a story from Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian filmmaker (formerly imprisoned by Russia), now in the UAF.” https://twitter.com/Danspiun/status/1716384974264205763
Report from Russian serviceman Dmitry Filatov known as Vozhak Z https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1716367618188194133
Report by the Ukrainian journalist Butusov https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1716361754546995456
More:
“At the Mearsheimer event in Brisbane Australia, I asked John Mearsheimer why anybody should ever listen to him about Ukraine ever again considering he has been wrong about Ukraine every single time and now quotes Russian military bloggers like “Big Serge,”…” https://twitter.com/DrewPavlou/status/1716388303006745064
"We record the movement of enemy infantry from the sky. We aim, adjust fire and shoot at the occupants with a 120-mm caliber. The enemy is destroyed on the spot." https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1716480064785686609
CIA “has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine as well as the US, built new HQs for departments in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, and shared intel… on a scale that would have been unimaginable” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/23/ukraine-cia-shadow-war-russia/ [https://archive.ph/6o8N3]
“Rare footage of a Norwegian/British-supplied Black Hornet Nano micro-drone in service with the Ukrainian Kraken SOF regiment.” https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1716645275136065768
Ukraine enters a new phase in its counteroffensive in the south. Russia has so far failed in a massive attack near Avdiivka, but continues to try. What is the situation and what is needed? https://cepa.org/article/ukraine-draws-breath-after-southern-successes/
No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We're rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that. I think it's wonderful that they're defending themselves- and also the notion that the Europeans are not doing enough. They've done almost 90 billion dollars, they're housing a bunch of refugees who escaped. I think that our NATO allies in Europe have done quite a lot.
— Mitch McConnell