Links for 2024-06-03

AI:

1. Transformers are SSMs: Generalized Models and Efficient Algorithms Through Structured State Space Duality https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.21060

2. Can small language models determine high-quality subsets of large-scale text datasets that improve the performance of larger language models? Perplexed by Perplexity: Perplexity-Based Data Pruning With Small Reference Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.20541

3. LLMs can outperform existing methods for identifying causal genes in genome-wide association studies. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.05.30.24308179v1

4. By combining a 5,000 frame-per-second (FPS) event camera with a 20-FPS RGB camera, roboticists from the University of Zurich have developed a much more effective vision system that keeps autonomous cars from crashing into stuff, as described in the current issue of Nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwzGhMQCc4Y

5. A technique for more effective multipurpose robots https://news.mit.edu/2024/technique-for-more-effective-multipurpose-robots-0603

6. Why don't large models overfit? “A well-known rule in statistical machine learning is that a statistical model shouldn’t have more parameters than the number of samples that were used to train it. That’s because the model will have enough parameters to fit each of the samples exactly, and so it will be less likely to generalize to unseen data. But this rule is seemingly contradicted by modern deep neural networks…” https://learnandburn.ai/p/more-parameters-doesnt-have-to-overfit

7. FineWeb: decanting the web for the finest text data at scale https://huggingface.co/spaces/HuggingFaceFW/blogpost-fineweb-v1

8. “How to pick a good number of visual tokens? Too few, you have poor performance; too many, you need quadratically more compute. In this work, we introduce a model that works with an elastic number of tokens.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.19315

9. AI risk scepticism: Why "outer" AI safety might be easy and much more. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yfmKnyd3uThq9Dd2c/titotal-on-ai-risk-scepticism

10. Roman Yampolskiy: Dangers of Superintelligent AI (also discusses suffering risks where everyone is tortured until the heat death of the universe) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNr6gPelJ3E

Miscellaneous:

https://x.com/ashleevance/status/1796215350117441721

1. How to Win an Interstellar War: Planet-killing Relativistic Kinetic Strikes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybKnGZRwcU

2. World’s Thinnest Lens Is Just Three Atoms Thick https://iop.uva.nl/content/news/2024/05/the-thinnest-lens-on-earth.html

3. Halide perovskites. Why they are important and remarkable. https://nanoscale.blogspot.com/2024/06/materials-families-halide-perovskites.html

4. The solar industrial revolution is the biggest investment opportunity in history https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/the-solar-industrial-revolution-is-the-biggest-investment-opportunity-in-history/

5. “In patients with stage 3 lung cancer where a particular genetic mutation is present in the tumor, taking AstraZeneca’s cancer-fighting pill Tagrisso reduced the chance that disease would progress by 84%.” https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2024/tagrisso-reduced-the-risk-of-disease-progression-or-death-by-84-percent-in-patients-with-unresectable-stage-iii-egfr-mutated-lung-cancer-vs-placebo.html

6. The evolutionary mystery of the German cockroach: “There are many other names for it; the English call it Shiner or Steam Fly; in Russia it has been called the ‘Prussian,’ and in Prussia it was known as the ‘Russian.’”—James Rehn https://johnhawks.net/weblog/the-mystery-of-the-german-cockroach/

What Makes Life Meaningful? Views From 17 Advanced Economies https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/11/18/what-makes-life-meaningful-views-from-17-advanced-economies/

Ukraine:

1. Belgorod Oblast, Russia, Ukrainian forces successfully hit a Russian S-300/400 battery in a HIMARS strike, destroying at least two TELs and a command post. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1797569964288667850

2. “Ukrainian SSO units damaged a Russian Kasta-2E2 mobile radar station. This model is considered a state-of-the-art weapon designed to control airspace, determine coordinates and recognize air targets, including those flying at very low altitudes.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1797566771748114831

3. Kursk Oblast, Russia, Ukrainian forces conducted a highly successful ambush on a Russian column of 14 vehicles moving just over the border. https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1797533496795410836

4. “Two BTRs accidentally bumped into a Bradley. This video has it all. Clown cars. Soviet vehicles getting crushed by like 40 year old western technology, blapblapblap, etc.” https://x.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1797164517824016422

5. “Interview with English subtitles of 24 yo russian captured in North Karkhiv. Out of 300, only 9 of them remained after a few days. He speaks of colossal losses, confusion and blocking troops. There are told to move forward no matter what.” https://x.com/PStyle0ne1/status/1797263067308302483

6. “A Russian soldier revealed the true meaning of the offensive near Volchansk. According to him, this is nothing more than another meat grinder, where untrained Russian soldiers are sent under machine guns and drones and are not allowed to retreat. Result: one after another, groups are simply destroyed, and new ones come to replace them. In the company of this soldier, contract soldier Anton Andreev from the 5th company of the 1009th regiment, only 12 people out of 100 remained.” https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1797537971224080807

7. “Trouble in paradise? Russian propagandist and miliblogger Alexander Kots reports about the situation in the Kharkiv region for Russian forces. Confirming their progress has stalled.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1797250445804441901

8. "By the end of June, Russia will have lost 500,000 people: killed and wounded." Admiral Tony Radakin, chief of British Armed Forces. https://news.sky.com/story/uk-defence-chief-doubts-russia-wants-war-with-nato-as-he-marks-d-day-anniversary-13147087

9. In 1 year of fighting, Russia achieved a net territorial gain of 128.69 square kilometers. For comparison, Chicago has 607.44 square kilometers. https://x.com/War_Mapper/status/1797118738241646793

10. Russia-China gas pipeline deal stalls over Beijing’s price demands: “The people familiar with the matter said China had asked to pay close to Russia’s heavily subsidised domestic prices and would only commit to buying a small fraction of the pipeline’s planned annual capacity of 50bn cubic metres of gas.” https://www.ft.com/content/f7a34e3e-bce9-4db9-ac49-a092f382c526 [no paywall: https://archive.is/hTWnw]

11. Meanwhile in Russia: state TV host Vladimir Solovyov threatened Germany, promising that German cities will resemble the town of Vovchansk in Ukraine that has been largely destroyed by the Russians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVV7vwGtX_I