Links for 2024-03-24
AI:
PRIME: Scaffolding Manipulation Tasks with Behavior Primitives for Data-efficient Imitation Learning — PRIME can learn robust policies using only 30 human demonstrations! https://ut-austin-rpl.github.io/PRIME/
Google releases PERL: Parameter Efficient Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.10704
Google releases DiPaCo, a new kind of mixture of experts, that can scale engineering-wise to data centers across the entire world https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.10616
LLMs Are More Persuasive Than Humans: A Randomized Controlled Trial https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14380
“Language model scaling laws appear to be sensitive to data complexity (modulated by syntactic properties of a PCFG), and gzip effectively predicts the impact of these dataset-specific scaling properties.” https://x.com/khoomeik/status/1769333863401107602
8 Google Employees Invented Modern AI. Here’s the Inside Story — “They met by chance, got hooked on an idea, and wrote the ‘Transformers’ paper—the most consequential tech breakthrough in recent history. …Approaching its seventh anniversary, the ‘Attention’ paper has attained legendary status. The authors started with a thriving and improving technology—a variety of AI called neural networks—and made it into something else: a digital system so powerful that its output can feel like the product of an alien intelligence.” https://wired.com/story/eight-google-employees-invented-modern-ai-transformers-paper/ [no paywall: https://archive.is/aJby2]
Nvidia CEO: Soon There'll Be Games Where AI Generates "Every Pixel" https://futurism.com/the-byte/nvidia-ceo-ai-games
Miscellaneous:
“Your effectiveness as a rationalist is determined by whichever algorithm actually writes the bottom line of your thoughts.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw/the-bottom-line
Giant Leap Towards Neuromorphic Devices: High-performance Spin-wave Reservoir Computing https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/en/press/giant_leap_towards_neuromorphic_devices.html
Long-term memory: Bonn researchers find connection between autobiographical memory and aphantasia https://idw-online.de/de/news829328
Saved by the Dark Forest: How a Multitude of Extraterrestrial Civilizations Can Prevent a Hobbesian Trap https://academic.oup.com/monist/article/107/2/176/7629691
14,000 years ago, illuminated by animal fat lamps, two bison were expertly modeled in wet clay in the dark recesses of Le Tuc d'Audoubert cave in southwest France. The bison still show the markings traced by the sculptor’s fingernails. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Trois-Fr%C3%A8res
4K FPV fixed wing beach relax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScxSM2wAanQ
Ukraine:
Massive Ukrainian attacks against Sevastopol yesterday. The Ukrainian General Staff: "The defence forces of Ukraine successfully hit the (Ropucha class landing ships) "Yamal", and "Azov", a communications centre, as well as several infrastructure facilities of the Russian Federation in temporarily occupied Sevastopol". https://x.com/Tendar/status/1771646520590262563
Politics:
Why Taiwan Is Building a Satellite Network Without Elon Musk: “SpaceX dominates the satellite internet industry, and Mr. Musk has long done business in China (…). Officials in Taiwan decided it would be best to build a satellite network they could control. The Ukraine-Russia war gave us a profound reflection, …. Even if the cost to build it is high, in a special scenario, the value of having our own constellation is unlimited.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/business/taiwan-starlink-satellite.html [no paywall: https://archive.is/mzfD7]