Links for 2023-12-27
Will scaling work? Data bottlenecks, generalization benchmarks, primate evolution, intelligence as compression, world modelers, and other considerations https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/will-scaling-work
EPFL researchers have developed an algorithm to train an analog neural network just as accurately as a digital one, enabling the development of more efficient alternatives to power-hungry deep learning hardware. https://actu.epfl.ch/news/training-algorithm-breaks-barriers-to-deep-physi-4/
SemiVL - a semi-supervised semantic segmentation method exploiting priors from vision-language models https://github.com/google-research/semivl
Google announces Zero-Shot Metric Depth with a Field-of-View Conditioned Diffusion Model https://diffusion-vision.github.io/dmd/
University of Oxford announces Splatter Image: Ultra-Fast Single-View 3D Reconstruction https://szymanowiczs.github.io/splatter-image.html
Text-to-4D with Dynamic 3D Gaussians and Composed Diffusion Models https://research.nvidia.com/labs/toronto-ai/AlignYourGaussians/
StreamDiffusion: A Pipeline-level Solution for Real-time Interactive Generation https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.12491
Watch gravity pull two metal balls together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70-_GBymrck
Here's a quick update if you haven't been following the Ukraine theater lately:
The amount of losses Russia has suffered since October is simply insane. Just in the last few days, Ukraine has shot down 5 advanced Russian jets. On Tuesday, yet another warship was destroyed (over the past 4 months 20% of Russia's Black Sea Fleet has been destroyed). Especially the area around Avdiivka, where Russia launched an offensive in October, is littered with Russian bodies and equipment. The videos are sometimes insanely gruesome, with literal piles of Russian bodies.
Yet they are advancing. Their Soviet-style mentality of sending endless waves of expendable human flesh allows them to advance a few hundred meters a month.
Because the West has slept on producing enough ammunition, 2024 will be incredibly difficult for Ukraine. But by 2025, European artillery production should be sufficiently ramped up.
From reliable Russian sources such as obituaries, graves, memorial plaques, etc., we know that at least 3328 Russian officers have died in Ukraine since February 2022. Extrapolating from this number based on data from other wars, Russia has possibly suffered about 320,000 casualties (KIA+WIA).
Political links:
The first group of six Ukrainian pilots completed the basic training program in the UK and began training on F-16 fighters in Denmark. Another 10 pilots remain in the UK to continue with practical basic flight training. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ukrainian-pilots-learn-to-fly-f-16-fighter-jets-after-completing-basic-training-in-the-uk
Parts of the Ropucha-class landing ship Novocherkask were found in different parts of Feodosia. https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1739615329301549484
Russian T-90 hit by an FPV drone in the Avdiivka direction. The crew abandons ship once they are hit https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1739665801832026250
Ukrainian soldiers of the 3rd Brigade of Operational Assignment 'Spartan' in close combat with Russian assault forces. https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1739575062095634522