Links for 2024-05-03
AI:
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, says that thanks to AI, new medical breakthroughs may one day move from years to mere months. https://www.ted.com/talks/demis_hassabis_how_ai_is_unlocking_the_secrets_of_nature_and_the_universe
“Meta spent almost as much as the Manhattan Project on GPUs in today’s dollars.” https://x.com/emollick/status/1786213463456448900
Ultra Inertial Poser: Scalable full-body tracking in the wild using sparse sensing https://siplab.org/projects/UltraInertialPoser
Sanctuary AI Announces Microsoft Collaboration to Accelerate AI Development for General Purpose Robots https://sanctuary.ai/resources/news/sanctuary-ai-announces-microsoft-collaboration-to-accelerate-ai-development-for-general-purpose-robots/
An internal email revealed that Microsoft invested in OpenAI partly because it was “very, very worried” about falling behind Google. https://x.com/StockMKTNewz/status/1785501882410258627
Waymo presents STT: Stateful Tracking with Transformers for Autonomous Driving https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.00236
Sensory Feedback for Visually Impaired using Large Language Models https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379890448_Sensory_Feedback_for_Visually_Impaired_using_Large_Language_Models
Q&A on Proposed SB 1047 to regulate AI. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qsGRKwTRQ5jyE5fKB/q-and-a-on-proposed-sb-1047
AI benchmarks:
“When evaluating leading open- and closed-source LLMs on GSM1k, we observe accuracy drops of up to 13%, with several families of models (e.g., Phi and Mistral) showing evidence of systematic overfitting across almost all model sizes. At the same time, many models, especially those on the frontier, (e.g., Gemini/GPT/Claude) show minimal signs of overfitting.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.00332 (“The most surprising finding of this report is hidden in the appendix. Under the best of two prompts the models don't overfit that much, unlike what the abstract claims.” https://x.com/DimitrisPapail/status/1786045418586972208)
“Can we use the reliability of scaling laws to predict the quality of our eval benchmarks? We tested out 39 different LLM benchmarks to see how they score a series of models with a progressively larger FLOP budgets.” https://www.databricks.com/blog/calibrating-mosaic-evaluation-gauntlet
Benchmarking Benchmark Leakage in Large Language Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.18824
Compute:
“Strangely, Matrix Multiplications on GPUs Run Faster When Given "Predictable" Data!” https://www.thonking.ai/p/strangely-matrix-multiplications
AMD Firing On All Compute Engine Cylinders https://www.nextplatform.com/2024/05/01/amd-firing-on-all-compute-engine-cylinders/
PsiQuantum received more than $600 million in new funding. https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/04/29/psiquantum-receives-940-million-aud-from-australian-government/ (They've been making progress on photonic quantum computing: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.17570)
Health:
A roadmap for implanting microelectrode arrays to evoke tactile sensations through intracortical microstimulation https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.04.26.24306239v1
mRNA Cancer Vaccine Reprograms Immune System to Tackle Glioblastoma https://www.insideprecisionmedicine.com/topics/oncology/mrna-cancer-vaccine-reprograms-immune-system-to-tackle-glioblastoma/
New antibiotic class effective against multidrug-resistant bacteria https://www.uu.se/en/press/press-releases/2024/2024-04-01-new-antibiotic-class-effective-against-multidrug-resistant-bacteria
EU surveillance:
“Europe is maybe two months from passing laws that end private communication as we know it...The plan, to repeat, is to mandate that every phone contains software that receives a list of illicit material (photos, keywords, AI models that can determine the sentiment of conversations) and scans your data for matches *before* it is encrypted, and alerts the police directly.” https://x.com/matthew_d_green/status/1785998817264906745
Bugs in our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.07450
"This does not break the end-to-end encryption cryptographically. But it open[s] a door between device & provider, which can be used without..owner’s knowledge" [PDF] https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2021-11/End-to-end%20Encryption%20Ciaran%20Martin%20Blavatnik%20School.pdf
Ukraine:
Ukraine’s deputy mil intel chief says Chasiv Yar will fall eventually, that Ukraine is far from stabilizing the front, and that Russia is “generating a division of reserves” and wants to strike at Sumy/Kharkiv. — “General Skibitsky says he does not see a way for Ukraine to win the war on the battlefield alone. Even if it were able to push Russian forces back to the borders—an increasingly distant prospect—it wouldn’t end the war. Such wars can only end with treaties, he says. Right now, both sides are jockeying for the 'the most favourable position' ahead of potential talks.” https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/05/02/ukraine-is-on-the-brink-says-a-senior-general [no paywall: https://archive.is/rWiDB]
Russia "has suffered heavy losses among its officer core, its ability to plan and synchronize large-scale attacks is limited.... attacks consist of successive assaults at platoon and company scale, resulting in slow advances w/heavy losses." https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/american-aid-alone-wont-save-ukraine [no paywall: https://archive.is/pvz8j]
“Kamikaze and strike drones now kill more soldiers on both sides than either artillery or aircraft. Drones kill more soldiers on both sides than anything else at present…They have also created a scenario whereby almost everything can be seen by drones, not just on the front line but to a depth of between 10km and 30km on either side.” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-russia-interview-ground-forces-chief-putin-fbtpbc9d5 [no paywall: https://archive.is/lHTbN]
“It is ridiculous how Ukraine ignores high-priority targets and attacks low priority targets in Russia, says an observer criticizing Ukrainian attack on Russian oil refinery in Ryazan...Let’s take this argument seriously and think about what Ru targets should Ukraine hit first...” https://x.com/Mylovanov/status/1786042782223610068
US has "surged" ATACMS production, no longer concerned about sending missiles to Ukraine, Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said. “A significant number of missiles that were ordered years ago … is now hitting at just the right time." https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2024/05/production-surge-eases-pentagon-worries-about-sending-long-range-missiles-to-ukraine-00155846
Italy is planning to supply Ukraine with a highly capable Samp-T SAM system. The system can provide ballistic missile and long-range air defense coverage. https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2024/05/02/news/meloni_sampt_ucraina_aiuti_g7-422806024/
“HENSOLDT was contracted to deliver six additional TRML-4D air surveillance radars to #Ukraine. The contract is worth over €100 million and will be fulfilled in full this year.” https://www.hensoldt.net/news/hensoldt-delivers-further-high-performance-radars-to-ukraine/
British Foreign Secretary Cameron said Ukraine had a right to use the weapons provided by the UK to strike targets inside Russia. "Ukraine has that right. Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it's defending itself." https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britains-cameron-kyiv-promises-ukraine-aid-as-long-it-takes-2024-05-02/
“NATO Allies are deeply concerned about recent malign activities on Allied territory, including…hostile state activity affecting Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, & the UK” https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_225230.htm
HIMARS strike on Russian TOR air defence system, Zaporizhzhia front. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1786351527386362357