Links for 2024-04-02
AI:
SWE-agent turns LMs (e.g. GPT-4) into software engineering agents that can fix bugs and issues in real GitHub repositories: “SWE-agent is our new system for autonomously solving issues in GitHub repos. It gets similar accuracy to Devin on SWE-bench, takes 93 seconds on average, and is open source! We designed a new agent-computer interface to make it easy for GPT-4 to edit and run code. SWE-agent works by interacting with a specialized terminal, which allows it to: 🔍 Open, scroll, and search through files✍️ Edit specific lines with automatic syntax check 🧪 Write and execute tests. This custom-built interface is critical for good performance! Our key insight is that LMs require carefully designed agent-computer interfaces (similar to how humans like good UI design).” https://github.com/princeton-nlp/SWE-agent
Notes on Dwarkesh Patel’s Podcast on how LLMs are trained, work and will work in the future. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dBueknepD4rhuEcmb/notes-on-dwarkesh-patel-s-podcast-with-sholto-douglas-and
AI has unblocked progress toward advanced nanotechnology https://aiprospects.substack.com/p/ai-has-unblocked-progress-toward
The U.S. Military’s Investments Into Artificial Intelligence Are Skyrocketing https://time.com/6961317/ai-artificial-intelligence-us-military-spending/
MaGRITTe: Manipulative and Generative 3D Realization from Image, Topview and Text https://hara012.github.io/MaGRITTe-project/
Chips:
Scientists Unveil Room Temperature Photonic Chips https://en.huji.ac.il/news/breakthrough-single-photon-integration
How We’ll Reach a 1 Trillion Transistor GPU https://spectrum.ieee.org/trillion-transistor-gpu
BREAKTHROUGH CMOS N-Type Diamond Transistors https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/03/breakthrough-cmos-n-type-diamond-transistors.html
Miscellaneous:
These Plants Could Mine Valuable Metals From the Soil With Their Roots https://singularityhub.com/2024/03/28/these-plants-could-mine-crucial-battery-materials-from-the-soil-with-their-roots/
Wei Dai: “While reading this, I got a flash-forward of what my life (our lives) may be like in a few years, i.e., desperately trying to understand and evaluate complex philosophical constructs presented to us by superintelligent AI, which may or may not be actually competent at philosophy.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pzmRDnoi4mNtqu6Ji/the-cognitive-theoretic-model-of-the-universe-a-partial
Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substrates https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06037-4
Politics:
Family-friendly policies have expanded but birth rates continue to drop. The most common number of kids for US and UK women in their mid-30s is now zero. https://www.ft.com/content/838eeb4e-3bff-4693-990f-ff3446cac9b2 [no paywall: https://archive.is/ElU0g]
The Dysgenics Objection to Longtermism https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4707204
Jonathan Haidt: “The skeptics’ skepticism would be more compelling if they had an alternative explanation for the multi-national decline in mental health that happened in the early 2010s, but they do not.” https://x.com/JonHaidt/status/1774571680511508601
Iran accuses Israel of killing generals in Syria strike https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68708923
Ukraine:
Early this morning, Ukrainian forces successfully conducted one of the deepest drone attacks of the war, striking multiple targets. 1200 km from the Ukrainian border: Drones attacked enterprises in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan. A Shahed drone factory and an oil refinery were reportedly hit. https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1775049233084641449
Insane! Identifiable Losses for 2024-04-01 by Andrew Perpetua: https://x.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1775061755737076160
“Bakhmut direction. An attempted Russian assault involving 6 armored vehicles, reportedly 2 were able to flee and the rest was destroyed.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1774853745014104534
Destroyed Russian AFV column on the Vuhledar front. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1774881006861926888
“The 🇺🇦Ukrainian Shadow unit repelled the 🇷🇺Russian attack in the Novomykhailivka area” https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1775097336584085893
The strike of a JDAM/AASM "Hammer" air bomb against a Russian position in the ruins of the village Tonen’ke, near Avdiivka. https://x.com/Tendar/status/1775077272417939645
“Ukraine’s AI-enabled drones are trying to disrupt Russia’s energy industry. So far, it’s working” https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/01/energy/ukrainian-drones-disrupting-russian-energy-industry-intl-cmd
Mayor: Russia destroys 'almost all' energy infrastructure in Kharkiv. https://kyivindependent.com/russia-destroys-almost-all-energy-infrastructure-in-kharkiv-mayor-says/