AI:
ReFT: A fine-tuning method that is 10x-50x more parameter-efficient than prior state-of-the-art methods https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.03592
“Training LLMs over Neurally Compressed Text…outperforms byte-level baselines by a wide margin on perplexity and inference speed benchmarks.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.03626
Visualization-of-Thought Elicits Spatial Reasoning in Large Language Models — “VoT enables LLMs to "visualize" their reasoning traces, creating internal mental images, that help to guide subsequent reasoning steps. Think of this prompting approach as a way of eliciting the "mind's eye" of LLMs.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.03622
Brief conversations with GPT-4 can reduce conspiracy beliefs. Participants reduced their conspiracy beliefs by more than 20 percentage points. The effect was undiminished after 2 months. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/xcwdn [If this checks out, it probably also works with rational/true beliefs. That is, as a propaganda weapon to influence populations. Now fast-forward to GPT-N.]
Transformer-Lite: High-efficiency Deployment of Large Language Models on Mobile Phone GPUs https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.20041
You can now edit DALL·E images in ChatGPT across web, iOS, and Android. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJirMpbvBrM
Cohere launches Command R+, a powerful enterprise LLM that beats GPT-4 Turbo https://txt.cohere.com/command-r-plus-microsoft-azure/
Tool use with the Claude 3 model family https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wkFb2_cUik
Physics:
“Applied physics and mathematics: This page aims to highlight the most interesting papers published in Nature Communications in the interdisciplinary areas where diverse approaches at the boundaries of physics, mathematics, materials science and engineering take place to create new research opportunities.” https://www.nature.com/collections/hjhbgijcei
Quantum Gravity Breaks Causality -- And You Can Compute With It https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEHVffCtM9Q
Climate:
“The discrepancy between observations and models indicates a major gap in our understanding and modeling capabilities which could have severe implications for hydroclimate projections, including fire hazard, moving forward. Resolving this discrepancy is an urgent priority.” https://climatemodeling.science.energy.gov/research-highlights/observed-humidity-trends-dry-regions-contradict-climate-models
Our reduction in particulate pollution has increased warming rates. We basically did an accidental solar geoengineering experiment! If anything this should motivate more research into geoengineering. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01324-8
Miscellaneous:
Around 1% of people have extreme aphantasia: They can’t visualise anything in their mind’s eye. Around 6% have some degree of aphantasia. Around 3% have hyperphantasia: They see mental images so vividly they can’t tell if they’re real or imagined. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68675976
“We are exploring if we can restore my joints to that of an 18 year old...I had 300 million bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) injected into six joints over two days...” https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1775889576583909539
Caral–Supe was a complex pre-Columbian era society that included as many as thirty major population centers in modern-day Peru. The civilization flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC, with the formation of the first city generally dated to around 3500 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral%E2%80%93Supe_civilization
Ukraine:
The petrochemical plant of Nevinnomyssk Azot in the Stavropol Region, Russia, is burning. It seems that the water circulation towers are compromised. https://x.com/Tendar/status/1775908256403120349
Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station at the moment of destruction - video of a Russian military man. Footage June 6, 2023 https://x.com/InformNapalm/status/1776202467971101091
Speculative and needs satellite image verification: According to sources within the GUR, Ukrainian drone attacks likely caused serious damage to at least 3 Tu-95MS strategic bombers at the Engels-2 airfield, resulting in the death of seven Russian servicemen, including potential bomber pilots. Another target, the military airfield in Yeisk, also suffered damage, with at least four Russian servicemen killed and two Su-25 aircraft completely destroyed. Additionally, an airfield in Kursk was reportedly damaged, but further details about the extent of the damage are still forthcoming, RBC reports. https://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/gur-ta-zsu-organizuvali-ataku-tri-rosiyski-1712325303.html
Second on Andriy Haydash's hope. Given that it is essentially impossible for a US president to be impeached for breaking the law, I'm deeply disappointed Biden isn't pulling an Iran-Contra scheme to get the Ukrainians what they need right now.