Links for 2024-06-23

AI:

1. Grokfast: Accelerated Grokking by Amplifying Slow Gradients — “This analysis allows us to accelerate the grokking phenomenon more than ×50 with only a few lines of code” https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.20233

2. Whiteboard-of-Thought: Thinking Step-by-Step Across Modalities https://whiteboard.cs.columbia.edu/

3. Self-play with Execution Feedback: Improving Instruction-following Capabilities of Large Language Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.13542

4. VoCo-LLaMA: Towards Vision Compression with Large Language Models — achieves minimal performance loss with a compression ratio of 576×, resulting in up to 94.8% fewer FLOPs and 69.6% acceleration in inference time. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12275

5. Engineering Biology: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Design / Build / Test https://www.digitalisventures.com/blog/engineering-biology-the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-design-build-test

6. “These 94 lines of code are everything that is needed to train a neural network. Everything else is just efficiency.” https://x.com/karpathy/status/1803963383018066272

7. Otherness and control in the age of AGI — how agents with different values should relate to each other and the ethics of seeking and sharing power. https://joecarlsmith.com/2024/01/02/otherness-and-control-in-the-age-of-agi

https://x.com/EpochAIResearch/status/1804242346583683307

https://x.com/tamaybes/status/1804295734696776112

Neuropsychotechnology:

1. “Time Cells” in the Brain are Critical for Complex Learning, Study Shows https://healthcare.utah.edu/newsroom/news/2024/06/time-cells-brain-are-critical-complex-learning-study-shows

2. Towards a Less Bullshit Model of Semantics https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RrQftNoRHd5ya54cb/towards-a-less-bullshit-model-of-semantics

3. Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40756176

Technology:

1. “The Rolls-Royce Micro-Reactor will provide reliable, autonomous energy solutions to multiple markets. Providing zero-emission power, our advanced nuclear technologies support many global Net Zero targets, solving energy dependence across many industries.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiP4wocRp3g

2. The cost to fix the Y2K problem in the US alone vary from $100 billion to $200 billion. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160791X00000154

Space:

1. A black hole of inexplicable mass. The black hole already weighed a billion solar masses when the universe was still in its infancy. https://www.mpg.de/22005299/massive-black-holes-earliest-quasars

A 'selfie' from the CIVA camera on Rosetta’s Philae lander, merely 16 km from comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, taken over the shoulder of one of its 14m long solar panels. https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2014/10/Rosetta_mission_selfie_at_16_km

Psychology:

1. "In an incentivized experiment … we ask whether participants would like to change their predictions if the (vast) majority of experts (or peers) made the other choice. Very few participants are willing to change their predictions" [PDF] https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/research-files/repec/cam/pdf/cwpe2423.pdf

2. "larger groups lie more, all-male groups stand out in their proclivity to lie, already the first female in a group causes an honesty shift" [PDF] https://docs.iza.org/dp16954.pdf

3. “[C]itizens' policy opinions changed immediately and substantially when their party switched its policy position – even when the new position went against citizens' previously held views.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajps.12550

4. “We knew an autistic adult who had an intense interest in medieval church law and, due to his reading of obscure religious texts, made the logical decision that the current Pope was illegitimate…he was admitted to a secure psychiatric hospital and discharged when he discovered a replacement interest in computer games.” https://attwoodandgarnettevents.com/can-autism-be-confused-with-schizophrenia/

https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/5-new-findings-on-sex-differences

Israel:

1. Will Israel attack Hezbollah? Israel Katz: “Israel cannot allow the Hezbollah terror organization to continue attacking its territory and citizens, and soon we will make the necessary decisions.” https://x.com/Israel_katz/status/1804180246800834610

2. “public opinion is pushing for a military response, with 60% of Israelis calling for an attack on Hezbollah “with full force”, according to a recent poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/21/israel-northern-border-war-hezbollah-looms

3. “Senior US officials reassured a delegation of top Israeli officials…that if a full-out war were to break out on Israel’s northern border between Israel & Hezbollah, the Biden admin is fully prepared to back its ally” https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/21/politics/us-israel-hezbollah-assurances

Ukraine:

1. The aftermath of Ukraine's strike on the air defense training center near Yeysk air base in Russia is visible in new satellite imagery https://x.com/bradyafr/status/1804500837173182745

2. “A strike on the Russian air defense training center near Yeysk, where Shahed UAV operators were based, caused significant damage and destruction. The attack was carried out using a Neptune long-range missile and a group of UAVs.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1804831058895974463

3. Ukrainian drone operators of the “Birds of Magyar” unit found the base of Russian FPV drone operators, investigated the house with FPV drone from the inside and destroyed it. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1804572147014082636

4. Video filmed by Russians, a trip along the Russian supply road on the Avdiivka front. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1804828876889047466

5. Russian soldier, at the request of his comrade, kills him with a shot to the head after he was wounded by a FPV drone. https://x.com/GloOouD/status/1804553373858873442

6. Analysis of Russian soldiers committing suіcide on the battlefield https://x.com/GloOouD/status/1803526655241232463