AI:
Hugging Face and Google partner for open AI collaboration https://huggingface.co/blog/gcp-partnership
Introducing Spatial VLM, a Vision-Language Model with 3D Spatial Reasoning Capabilities https://spatial-vlm.github.io/
Toward A Mathematical Framework for Computation in Superposition — “Superposition is a mechanism that might allow neural networks to represent the values of many more features than they have neurons, provided that those features are present sparsely in the dataset.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2roZtSr5TGmLjXMnT/toward-a-mathematical-framework-for-computation-in
With just a few lines, **anyone** can now run decent atomic scale simulations. A foundation model for atomistic materials chemistry. https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00096
Surya: a multilingual document OCR toolkit. https://github.com/VikParuchuri/surya
The median superforecaster thought there was a 1% chance that this would happen by 2030, a 21% chance by 2050, and a 75% chance by 2100.
Miscellaneous:
Superforecasters are generally optimistic about x-risk, estimating a 10x lower chance of extinction from AI and natural pandemics vs x-risk experts. But they’re particularly unconcerned with engineered pandemics, with a 100x difference in expected odds of extinction (1% vs 0.01%). https://forecastingresearch.org/news/results-from-the-2022-existential-risk-persuasion-tournament
Science:
How do you even come up with a new artificial sweetener? https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/oA23zoEjPnzqfHiCt/there-is-way-too-much-serendipity
A Child Born Deaf Can Hear for the First Time Thanks to Pioneering Gene Therapy https://singularityhub.com/2024/01/25/a-child-born-deaf-can-hear-for-the-first-time-thanks-to-pioneering-gene-therapy/
NASA’s Hubble Finds Water Vapor in Small Exoplanet’s Atmosphere https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-finds-water-vapor-in-small-exoplanets-atmosphere/
Nobel laureates call on EU to relax rules on genetic modification https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/19/nobel-laureates-call-on-eu-to-relax-rules-on-genetic-modification
“Can happiness be reliably increased? Thousands of studies speak to this question. However, many of them were conducted during a period in which researchers commonly “p-hacked,” creating uncertainty about how many discoveries might be false positives.” https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-psych-022423-030818
Politics:
"Massachusetts began temporarily letting anyone with a bachelor’s degree teach..their students saw about the same rate of growth in math & reading as children taught by regularly licensed educators" https://www.the74million.org/article/emergency-hired-teachers-do-just-as-well-as-those-who-go-through-normal-training/
Ukraine:
“New interview with "Karl," the Estonian military analyst whose insights on the war in Ukraine have proved remarkably acute.” https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1750535060413993032
German drone maker helps Ukrainian forces own the night https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/01/23/german-drone-maker-helps-ukrainian-forces-own-the-night/
German Minister of Defense Pistorius announced the following planned support from Germany for Ukraine for 2024: ➡️IRIS-T SLM air defense systems ➡️GEPARD anti air guns ➡️additional artillery systems with more than 230.000 rounds of ammo ➡️80+ Leopard 1A5 tanks ➡️additional APC's ➡️additional engineering machines and bridge-layers ➡️450 armored vehicles ➡️Mine clearance systems ➡️drones ➡️radar systems and recon systems https://www.bmvg.de/de/aktuelles/sechs-sea-king-hubschrauber-der-bundeswehr-fuer-die-ukraine-5729832
Getting ahead: Ukraine Defense Contact Group forms 2 coalitions https://breakingdefense.com/2024/01/getting-ahead-ukraine-defense-contact-group-forms-2-coalitions/
With Norway's recently announced $191 million investment in munitions production, Nammo plans to add another 155mm shell production line. This will allow them to increase production by 400%, per CEO Morten Brandtzaeg. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/norwegian-factory-gears-supply-ammunition-013256202.html
The Italian Senate gave the green light to a decree extending the authorisation to transfer military assets to Ukraine until 31 December 2024. https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2024/01/24/ukraine-senate-approves-arms-decree-by-113-votes-to-18_27bce796-b1e9-4514-8ac1-25dcc240be7d.html
How the West Can Match Russia in Drone Innovation https://warontherocks.com/2024/01/how-the-west-can-match-russia-in-drone-innovation/
“Footage emerged apparently showing the HIMARS strike carried out against the Russian UAV training centre in Ilovaisk, Donetsk Oblast.” https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1750626186600824955
“Frontelligence Insight tracked logistical routes between Russia and North Korea, calculated delivery numbers, and identified storage points. We are disclosing North Korea’s ammo transport ecosystem – and revealing some of its crucial nodes for the first time.” https://frontelligence.substack.com/p/mapping-north-koreas-discreet-artillery
On differing estimates of existential risk between domain experts and superforecasters: it is well known in petroleum engineering that the worst person to ask "how much oil can we get out of this hydrocarbon field?" is a petroleum geologist. The geologists know enormous amounts about the nature of how oil forms, is deposited, and the conditions that make a field accessible or inaccessible. Engineers know some of that, but only insofar as it helps them develop a solution. An engineer brings to bear a wider, if not as deep, body of knowledge to inventing solutions, whereas the geologist has only a single dimension on which to consider the problem.
I suspect something similar is happening with domain experts: looking at a problem that is hard because you are approaching it with a single set of tools, versus non-specialists like engineers who are trained to figure out how to get things done, not to know exactly how they are difficult. Superforecasters may be more alert to outside of domain factors like: laws, regulations, social forces, the availability of GPUs, the fact that universally across human endeavors improvement eventually adopts a logarithmic return on investment (we generate thermal electric power using the same steam turbine designs that were developed in the 1890s...)