Links for 2024-01-23
AI:
Researcher Jim Fan presents the next grand challenge in the quest for AI: the "foundation agent," which would seamlessly operate across both the virtual and physical worlds. He explains how this technology could fundamentally change our lives — permeating everything from video games and metaverses to drones and humanoid robots — and explores how a single model could master skills across these different realities. https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_fan_the_next_grand_challenge_for_ai (slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NSY6MxMu3OPQ4U6hx0OxPq7EQB5XTcAG/view)
The market's valuation of LLM companies suggests low expectation of them making human-level AGI happen https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/19bd3kt/the_markets_valuation_of_llm_companies_suggests/
Speculative Decoding, as a novel decoding paradigm, accelerates LLM inference⚡️ (with a 2x~5x speedup) without compromising output quality📖. https://github.com/hemingkx/SpeculativeDecodingPapers
Nvidia presents ChatQA: Building GPT-4 Level Conversational QA Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.10225
InstantID: Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds https://huggingface.co/spaces/InstantX/InstantID
Science and Technology:
Self-powered sensor automatically harvests magnetic energy https://news.mit.edu/2024/self-powered-sensor-harvests-magnetic-energy-0118
Why woodpeckers don’t get concussions https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/77/1/54/2930559/Why-woodpeckers-don-t-get-concussionsContrary-to
Liquid metals shake up century-old chemical engineering processes https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/11/10/liquid-metals-shake-up-century-old-chemical-engineering-processes.html
Quantum-circuit black hole lasers https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98456-0
Miscellaneous:
How Gabriel Mays is (re)learning math as an adult. https://gmays.com/how-im-relearning-math-as-an-adult/
“According to Petronius, the inventor of flexible glass (vitrum flexile) brought a drinking bowl made of the material before Tiberius Caesar. The bowl was put through a test to break it, but it merely dented, rather than shattering. The inventor repaired the bowl very easily with a small hammer, which he pulled from a pocket in his toga, according to Petronius. After the inventor swore that he was the only man alive who knew the manufacturing technique, Tiberius had the man beheaded. He feared that the glass would devalue gold and silver, since the material might be more valuable.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_glass
Politics:
“When Reagan tried to undo affirmative action, corporations fought back. Now, amid political pushback against DEI initiatives, companies are once again holding onto their diversity practices.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/01/21/ronald-reagan-affirmative-action-dei/ [https://archive.is/JSAuS]
Ukraine:
“Ukraine’s ammo shortage becoming more difficult by the day. Around Bakhmut an M109 position we visited only got smoke rounds. The division commander says the current ratio is 10:1 in favor of the Russians.” https://twitter.com/fpleitgenCNN/status/1749519849074639180
The NATO Support and Procurement Organisation has awarded a contract worth 1.2 billion USD to Nexter and JUNGHANS Defence for the provision of 220.000 artillery shells with fuses and propellent charges. Delivery is expected to start in 2025. https://www.nspa.nato.int/news/2024/nspa-supports-a-coalition-of-nato-nations-with-11-beur-multinational-contracts-for-155mm-ammunition
Artem, a 20-year-old Ukrainian UAV pilot, suddenly sits up - Russians have launched drones from across the water. "It's from a location known to us. Our goal is to destroy the pilots. We have the coordinates, so we're flying there right now." The battle of the drones in southern #Ukraine. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67991772
"Kyiv has lost its advantages in the drone war. Russian forces have copied many of the tactics that Ukraine pioneered over the summer, including waging large coordinated attacks that use multiple types of drones. At the same time that the Orlan-Lancet team has become decisive in battle, Russia’s superior electronic warfare capabilities allow it to jam and spoof the signals between Ukrainian drones and their pilots." https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraine-losing-drone-war-eric-schmidt [https://archive.is/ayzeW]
“Today I contacted the manufacturer of Taurus. Of course not all questions could be answered, but here are the most important facts…” https://twitter.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1749468089178009971
“One of the ways long range strikes help Ukrainian war effort, is by shaping Russian air defenses, generally away from the front line. This is one aspect where Ukraine has a greater geographical advantage” https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1749750318018044366