Links for 2025-01-09

AI:

1. Towards System 2 Reasoning in LLMs: Learning How to Think With Meta Chain-of-Thought https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.04682

2. Inference time MCTS can boost Qwen *1.5B* to o1-preview levels on MATH and AIME '24. Microsoft presents rStar-Math: Small LLMs Can Master Math Reasoning with Self-Evolved Deep Thinking https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.04519

3. Smaller, Weaker, Yet Better: “Our findings reveal that models fine-tuned on weaker & cheaper generated data consistently outperform those trained on stronger & more-expensive generated data across multiple benchmarks…” https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.16737

4. Agent Laboratory: Using LLM Agents as Research Assistants https://agentlaboratory.github.io/

5. AI unveils strange chip designs, while discovering new functionalities https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-54178-1

6. A foundation model of transcription across human cell types https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08391-z

7. AI helps doctors detect more breast cancer in the largest real-world study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03408-6

8. Ovarian cancer diagnosis improved by AI https://healthcare-in-europe.com/en/news/ovarian-cancer-diagnosis-ai.html

9. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: "we fundamentally believe the scaling laws are absolutely still great and will work and continue to work" https://www.youtube.com/live/bYgP-tC5BFU?si=kASx6DIOk6ioBpUl&t=932

10. François Chollet says OpenAI's o1 model is running a search process in the space of possible chain of thought, generating a natural language program and adapting to novelty in a "genuine breakthrough" showing progress "far beyond the classical deep learning paradigm" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9WE1aOPjHc

11. Beyond Sight Finetuning Generalist Robot Policies with Heterogeneous Sensors via Language Grounding https://fuse-model.github.io/

12. NVIDIA Redefines Game AI With ACE Autonomous Game Characters https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/nvidia-ace-autonomous-ai-companions-pubg-naraka-bladepoint/

13. While everyday users still encounter hallucinating chatbots and the media declares an AI slowdown, behind the scenes, AI is rapidly advancing in technical domains. https://time.com/7205359/why-ai-progress-is-increasingly-invisible/

14. Large language models for artificial general intelligence (AGI): A survey of foundational principles and approaches https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03151v1

15. Elon Musk says Tesla will build 500,000 humanoid robots in 3 years and there will eventually be 20-30 billion robots in the world, resulting in unbounded economic growth and a Universal High Income for everyone https://youtu.be/n7oBeVOpPJo?si=cVNQ_otIPwqbTlTy&t=401

16. Google is building its own ‘world modeling’ AI team for games and robot training https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/7/24338053/google-deepmind-world-modeling-ai-team-gaming-robot-training

17. Tyler Cowen - The #1 Bottleneck to AI progress Is Humans https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/tyler-cowen-4

18. John Carmack: This is the highest leverage moment for potentially a single individual in the history of the world. AGI is less than 6 key insights away, 10K lines of code, 1 person can conceivably write it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I845O57ZSy4&t=14582s

Biotech:

1. “What I saw would cause any biotech leader to sit up and take notice. I saw science parks many multiples larger than Kendall Square or South SF, filled with startups. Integrated biology, chemistry, biochem and structural biology, and vivarium labs were running at scale. Even smaller biotechs were running vivariums processing tens of thousands of in vivo mouse experiments monthly. Programs which went from standing start to registering for human clinical trials within 18 months(!) were not uncommon.” https://timmermanreport.com/2025/01/china-is-here-to-stay-as-a-leader-on-the-global-biotech-stage/

2. Sana Biotechnology Announces Positive Clinical Results from Type 1 Diabetes Study of Islet Cell Transplantation Without Immunosuppression https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/01/07/3005841/0/en/Sana-Biotechnology-Announces-Positive-Clinical-Results-from-Type-1-Diabetes-Study-of-Islet-Cell-Transplantation-Without-Immunosuppression.html

Miscellaneous:

1. Particle that only has mass when moving in one direction observed for first time https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/particle-only-has-mass-when-moving-one-direction-observed-first-time

2. On Eating the Sun https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6Fo8fjvpL7pwCTz3t/on-eating-the-sun

3. NVIDIA Announces World’s Smallest AI Supercomputer https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/project-digits/

4. New study says the Romans suffered "widespread cognitive decline including an estimated 2.5-to-3 point reduction" in IQ in their European territories because of industrialized silver mining releasing lead into the atmosphere https://pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2419630121