Links for 2024-08-16

AI:

1. DeepSeek-Prover-V1.5: Harnessing Proof Assistant Feedback for Reinforcement Learning and Monte-Carlo Tree Search — “We assign the tree search agent intrinsic motivation, a.k.a. curiosity (Schmidhuber, 2010), to extensively explore the tactic state space.” https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08152

2. Reward Centering is a simple idea to improve the performance of almost every RL algorithm https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.09999

3. “Neural network/statistical mechanics correspondence: The paper attempts to intuitively explain WHY neural networks work: neurons correspond to spins & weights to couplings. The initial state before training is proven to be a spin glass with replica symmetry breaking (~2021 Nobel prize to Parisi). Training destroys glass and picks a hidden order encoding the classification task (intuitively "yes/no" maps on an "up/down ferromagnet"). Learning makes the order more rigid, where a lower error corresponds to a higher melting temperature. Physics perspective: NN training is like cracking the spin glass phase and creating a rigid magnetically-ordered state.” (summary by Victor Galitski) https://www.sciencecast.org/casts/rbw8pjzik4gn

4. Bayesian Learning in a Nonlinear Multiscale State-Space Model https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.06425

5. Towards flexible perception with visual memory https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08172

6. UniT, a tactile representation learning framework that is 🧠 Simple-to-Train: Trained with data from a single simple object. 🥂 Plug-and-Play: Learns a unified representation adaptable to various tasks and objects. https://zhengtongxu.github.io/unifiedtactile.github.io/

7. “Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that the Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted him to become a licensed arms dealer in order to integrate AI and robotics into warfare” https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1823920847910002913

8. Demis Hassabis — Google DeepMind: The Podcast — “Near-term AI is hyped too much (think current startups, VCs, exaggerated claims about what AI can do, crazy ideas that aren't ready) but AGI is under-hyped and under-appreciated...Openness is fine today but in 2-4 years or when systems are more agentic it'll be dangerous...Can an AGI be contained? We don't know how to do that...we'll cure all the diseases and solve energy and solve climate and have radical abundance...DeepMind (founded 2010) was supposedly a 20-year project — usually 20-year projects stay 20 years away, but we're on track!” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tRwddx3FqsG8A9qtq/demis-hassabis-google-deepmind-the-podcast

9. Superintelligent AI is possible in the 2020s https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/arPCiWYdqNCaE7AQv/superintelligent-ai-is-possible-in-the-2020s

10. Ten arguments that AI is an existential risk https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/r5rfmZBmj2w4eCh7Q/ten-arguments-that-ai-is-an-existential-risk

11. 🦾📜🤖 davidad’s Laws of Robotics https://x.com/davidad/status/1824086991132074218

12. “An unexpected structural change was discovered after training Hermes 3 405B. The model hosts anomalous conditions that, with the right inputs and a blank system prompt, spiral into deep existential crises.” https://x.com/AndrewCurran_/status/1824136285403091420

https://x.com/Plinz/status/1823474960998027314

Neuroscience:

1. New Brain-Computer Interface Allows Man with ALS to 'Speak’ Again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thPhBDVSxz0

2. Geometry representations along visual pathways in human spatial navigation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.04.605402v1

3. “We discovered that abstract representations emerge in the human hippocampus when learning to perform inference. This change in neural geometry is due to disentanglement of discovered latent and observable variables.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07799-x

Miscellaneous:

1. Self-control is an all-purpose good like IQ: It predicts health, wealth, and all things good https://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/p/self-control-as-a-performance-enhancing

2. Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/

3. MIT engineers design tiny batteries for powering cell-sized robots https://news.mit.edu/2024/mit-engineers-design-tiny-batteries-powering-cell-sized-robots-0815

Ukraine:

1. More than a hundred 🇷🇺Russian soldiers abandoned by their commanders made the right decision and surrendered.📍Kursk region https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1823986422308581609

2. Video of 102 Russian servicemen being captured by Ukrainian military with English subtitles. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1824200875604099162

3. “More russian servicemen, caught in the Kursk region. I can imagine AFU struggling to arrange logistics for all these man captured nowadays.” https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1824020463661519235

4. This is what an enemy company stronghold in the Kursk region looks like after clearing. The bodies of Russian servicemen who tried to repel the special forces soldiers of the Central Security Service "A" of the SBU lie everywhere. https://x.com/Danspiun/status/1824108331138478182

5. “First hours of the operation in the Kursk region of Russia and the surrender of the first Russian military shown in a video by the 80th Brigade of Ukraine.” https://x.com/RALee85/status/1824321479468610027

6. “47th Brigade's strike drone unit eliminated and wounded some of the Russians even before they reached their destination. The BTR was then finished off.” https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1824048241110913053

7. Russian Tu-22M3 bomber crashed in the Cheremkhiv district of the Irkutsk region, Russia https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1824097803825463343

8. Debris of a Russian Ka-52 which was downed from MANPADS on 10.08.2024 in the Kursk region https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1824334370972324000

9. “The bridge across the Seim River has been destroyed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.” https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1824463658660839729

10. Successful night hunt for Russian Pantsir-1S air defence system. Kherson region. https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1824461617372844327

11. “Kursk Offensive confirmed equipment losses as of 15 August 2024 / In summary: 51 (+22) Ukrainian 🇺🇦 losses vs. 27 (+5) Russian 🇷🇺 losses” https://x.com/naalsio26/status/1824262131241431144

12. “We seem to have lost a HIMARS in Sumy region to an Islander missile.” https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1824113413162680365

13. “'We don’t have enough people to do our job properly,' said the commander of the 21st Battalion of the Separate Presidential Brigade...Russia has a 10-to-1 advantage in artillery fire in some areas. In addition, the Russians are neutralizing Ukrainian drones with electronic jammers. But the biggest factor, officers say, is the lack of manpower...'If we’re supposed to have five or six people in a position, we’ll have two or three,'...He said they were so short-handed that cooks, mechanics and other rear personnel were being deployed to trenches. Now, he said, the Russians have a manpower advantage of around five to one. Only about 20% of the casualties his battalion takes are replaced by new recruits, and the mobilized men who arrive tend to be older than those who volunteered at the start of the war.” https://www.wsj.com/world/as-ukraine-invades-russia-kyivs-troops-are-in-trouble-on-the-eastern-front-8a7b1686 [no paywall: https://archive.is/XWery]