Society's Backend
AI Video Editing, MLX vs PyTorch, AI in Space, and More [Comprehensive ML Resource List for 6/28/24]
Here is a comprehensive list of all machine learning resources and updates from the past week. Thank...
6 months ago
Here is a comprehensive list of all machine learning resources and updates from the past week. Thank you for supporting Society's Backend! Don't forget to also follow me on X. Claude 3.5 Sonnet Can Long-Context Language Models Subsume Retrieval, RAG, SQL, and More?
Sam Altman
Tech Workers' Values
For good and bad, technology has become a central force in all
our lives.
As members of the...
over a year ago
For good and bad, technology has become a central force in all
our lives.
As members of the community, we're interested in ways in which
tech companies can use their collective power to protect privacy, rule of law,
freedom of expression, and other fundamental American rights....
Society's Backend
The Attention Thief: Machine Learning as a Monetization Weapon
How your greatest asset is silently stolen by technology every day
a year ago
How your greatest asset is silently stolen by technology every day
Weighty Thoughts
Let's talk about AI power costs
It's important, but a lot of recent attention has been concern-trolling
5 months ago
It's important, but a lot of recent attention has been concern-trolling
One Useful Thing
On-boarding your AI Intern
There's a somewhat weird alien who wants to work for free for you. You should probably get started.
a year ago
There's a somewhat weird alien who wants to work for free for you. You should probably get started.
Matt Mazur
AOL Underground Podcast Interview about AOL-Files.com
Back in 1998 when I was 13 years old I got heavily involved in the AOL hacking scene, originally...
over a year ago
Back in 1998 when I was 13 years old I got heavily involved in the AOL hacking scene, originally building add-on software called progs (Revolution, Meridian), publishing code libraries called bas files (Alpha32), and later co-founding AOL-Files.com (where I went by the hacker...
AI Snake Oil
Evaluating LLMs is a minefield
Annotated slides from a recent talk
a year ago
Annotated slides from a recent talk
Society's Backend
MASSIVE New Model Releases from Google, OpenAI, and Meta Change the AI Landscape
Society's Backend Reading List 12-16-2024
3 weeks ago
Society's Backend Reading List 12-16-2024
Weighty Thoughts
Deep Tech Startups Are Not Software Startups
Or why AI and “Software/SaaS” are apples and oranges
11 months ago
Or why AI and “Software/SaaS” are apples and oranges
The Gradient
What's Missing From LLM Chatbots: A Sense of Purpose
LLM-based chatbots’ capabilities have been advancing every month. These improvements are mostly...
4 months ago
LLM-based chatbots’ capabilities have been advancing every month. These improvements are mostly measured by benchmarks like MMLU, HumanEval, and MATH (e.g. sonnet 3.5, gpt-4o). However, as these measures get more and more saturated, is user experience increasing in proportion to...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 084: Strawberry / o1
September 13, 2024.
3 months ago
One Useful Thing
It is starting to get strange.
Let's talk about ChatGPT with Code Interpreter & Microsoft Copilot
a year ago
Let's talk about ChatGPT with Code Interpreter & Microsoft Copilot
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 058: Devin and SIMA
March 15, 2023.
9 months ago
One Useful Thing
Almost an Agent: What GPTs can do
Also, my book has a cover (also I have a book coming out)
a year ago
Also, my book has a cover (also I have a book coming out)
AI Snake Oil
The LLaMA is out of the bag. Should we expect a tidal wave of disinformation?
The bottleneck isn't the cost of producing disinfo, which is already very low.
a year ago
The bottleneck isn't the cost of producing disinfo, which is already very low.
One Useful Thing
The future of education in a world of AI
A positive vision for the transformation to come
a year ago
A positive vision for the transformation to come
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Sleepy Robot Baby
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE...
6 days ago
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
RoboCup German Open: 12–16 March...
fast.ai
AI Safety and the Age of Dislightenment
Model licensing & surveillance will likely be counterproductive by concentrating power in...
a year ago
Model licensing & surveillance will likely be counterproductive by concentrating power in unsustainable ways
Rozado’s Visual...
Which is the Wokest AI?
A Wokeness Ranking of LLMs
10 months ago
A Wokeness Ranking of LLMs
One Useful Thing
Acceleration.
7 days of new AI technologies shows us that everything is happening very fast.
a year ago
7 days of new AI technologies shows us that everything is happening very fast.
AI Snake Oil
Does the UK’s liver transplant matching algorithm systematically exclude younger patients?
Seemingly minor technical decisions can have life-or-death effects
a month ago
Seemingly minor technical decisions can have life-or-death effects
Daniel Miessler
NO. 367 | Hive Ransom, Anti-Google, Software 2.0…
🎙️If you’re not subscribed to the podcast version of the newsletter, please add it using with your...
a year ago
🎙️If you’re not subscribed to the podcast version of the newsletter, please add it using with your favorite client! APPLE | SPOTIFY | OTHER SECURITY NEWS The FBI infiltrated the HIVE ransomware group, stopping over $130 million in ransomware attacks. HIVE is known for going...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 039: The governance issue
November 3, 2023.
a year ago
Society's Backend
Top 10 Machine Learning Resources and Updates 06/21/2024
The fastest way to get up to speed on ML fundamentals, Meta releases new models, NVIDIA releases...
6 months ago
The fastest way to get up to speed on ML fundamentals, Meta releases new models, NVIDIA releases open models, Google generates audio for video, and more
Rozado’s Visual...
Pessimism in News Media Headlines
In previous work, I documented the growing emotional negativity (anger, fear, sadness, etc) of...
a year ago
In previous work, I documented the growing emotional negativity (anger, fear, sadness, etc) of American news media headlines between the years 2000 and 2019. Here, I extend that work by examining the attitudinal tone (pessimism, optimism or neutrality
Rozado’s Visual...
The ‘Great Awokening' Preceded Trump. It May Continue Beyond Him
Newsweek opinion piece Follow-up: Prevalence of Prejudice-Denoting Words in News Media Discourse...
over a year ago
Newsweek opinion piece Follow-up: Prevalence of Prejudice-Denoting Words in News Media Discourse Over the last five years, poll after poll has found that the GOP base has grown warmer towards Blacks, Hispanics, immigrants and Muslims. They’ve simultaneously become
Daniel Miessler
Summary: Andrej Karpathy on Lex Fridman’s Podcast (Late 2022)
This is member content. Thank you for being a subscriber. This is UL Member Content Subscribe...
a year ago
This is member content. Thank you for being a subscriber. This is UL Member Content Subscribe Already a member? Login
Marcus on AI
Sam Altman thinks that AGI is basically a solved problem. I don’t. Here’s why.
Yesterday Sam Altman claimed in a new blog post that “We are now confident we how to build AGI as we...
3 days ago
Yesterday Sam Altman claimed in a new blog post that “We are now confident we how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it”, alleging that OpenAI (which has not demonstrated AGI) was now on to new and better things.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 062: Data is the new oil
April 12, 2024.
9 months ago
Artificial Ignorance
Small newsletters, big ideas
A subscriber showcase full of hidden gems on Substack.
3 weeks ago
A subscriber showcase full of hidden gems on Substack.
Society's Backend
Backend Biweekly #3: 97 Updates and Resources
Huge Nvidia Updates, Gemini Hackathon for Money, and more
9 months ago
Huge Nvidia Updates, Gemini Hackathon for Money, and more
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 071: How do you like them AIs
June 14, 2024.
6 months ago
Andrej Karpathy blog
Biohacking Lite
Throughout my life I never paid too much attention to health, exercise, diet or nutrition. I knew...
over a year ago
Throughout my life I never paid too much attention to health, exercise, diet or nutrition. I knew that you’re supposed to get some exercise and eat vegetables or something, but it stopped at that (“mom said”-) level of abstraction. I also knew that I can probably get away with...
Matt Mazur
Exploring ChatGPT’s Knowledge Cutoff
A recurring topic of discussion on the OpenAI forums, on Reddit, and on Twitter is about what...
a year ago
A recurring topic of discussion on the OpenAI forums, on Reddit, and on Twitter is about what ChatGPT’s knowledge cutoff date actually is. It seems like it should be straightforward enough to figure out (just ask it), but it can be confusing due to ChatGPT’s inconsistent answers...
Matt Mazur
Going Full Time on My SaaS After 13 Years
In January 2010 I soft-launched launched Preceden, a web-based timeline maker tool, followed a few...
over a year ago
In January 2010 I soft-launched launched Preceden, a web-based timeline maker tool, followed a few weeks later by a larger launch on HackerNews: Today – almost 13 years to the day since the initial launch – I’m going full time on it and I couldn’t be more excited. A brief history...
Rozado’s Visual...
Northern Awokening: Social-justice and prejudice-signifying language in Canadian news media
I have recently published a report with Aaron Wudrick from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute about...
a year ago
I have recently published a report with Aaron Wudrick from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute about changes in the language that the news media in Canada use. I have documented previously how in American news media mentions of terms that signify distinct forms of prejudice have...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 077: A good week for open-source
July 26, 2024.
5 months ago
Society's Backend
Backend Biweekly #1: Important AI Developments and ML Learning Resources
Updates on Apple, Mistral, and Microsoft and resources to build the GPT tokenizer, use MLX to train...
10 months ago
Updates on Apple, Mistral, and Microsoft and resources to build the GPT tokenizer, use MLX to train models, and benchmark LLMs
Sam Altman
Keep the Internet Open
The FCC has announced plans to roll back policies on net neutrality, and its new head has indicated...
over a year ago
The FCC has announced plans to roll back policies on net neutrality, and its new head has indicated he has no plan to stop soon.
The internet is a public good, and I believe access should be a basic right. We've seen such great innovation in software because the internet has...
Sam Altman
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get...
a year ago
Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started.
Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are how things get finished. Long-term orientation is in short supply; try not to worry...
One Useful Thing
Automating creativity
There is now strong evidence that AI can help make us more innovative.
a year ago
There is now strong evidence that AI can help make us more innovative.
Artificial Ignorance
States are racing ahead of Congress to regulate deepfakes
Several states just banned deepfakes in political ads and porn.
9 months ago
Several states just banned deepfakes in political ads and porn.
IEEE Spectrum
Fish-Inspired Sensor "Touches" Using Electric Fields
The ability to detect a nearby presence without seeing or touching it may sound fantastical—but it’s...
4 weeks ago
The ability to detect a nearby presence without seeing or touching it may sound fantastical—but it’s a real ability that some creatures have. A family of African fish known as Mormyrids are weakly electric, and have special organs that can locate a nearby prey, whether it’s in...
Artificial Ignorance
The State of AI Engineering
Notes from the first AI Engineer Summit.
a year ago
Notes from the first AI Engineer Summit.
AI Snake Oil
ML is useful for many things, but not for predicting scientific replicability
How the veneer of AI is used to legitimize awful ideas
a year ago
How the veneer of AI is used to legitimize awful ideas
Weighty Thoughts
The Fall of Data Moats
AI actually makes most data moats weaker
a year ago
AI actually makes most data moats weaker
Rozado’s Visual...
The Political Biases of Google Bard
It is probably only a matter of time until a nation state purposely builds a biased AI system...
a year ago
It is probably only a matter of time until a nation state purposely builds a biased AI system designed to advance government interests
Daniel Miessler
OpenAI’s Purpose is to Build AGI, and What That Means
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has said multiple times that, He says it in this video as well. >...
a year ago
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has said multiple times that, He says it in this video as well. > We’re very much here to build AGI. Sam Altman I am not sure how many people realize this about the company. They’re not like playing with other AI-related tech and AGI might come out...
Daniel Miessler
Companies as Alaskan Fishing Boats
What if companies are supposed to be like Alaskan fishing boats? You know, the kind on The Deadliest...
over a year ago
What if companies are supposed to be like Alaskan fishing boats? You know, the kind on The Deadliest Catch. So you have this tiny crew of total badasses. Everyone is a superhero at their particular role because the crew needs to stay extremely small to protect profits. The...
Jascha’s blog
Too much efficiency makes everything worse: overfitting and the strong version of Goodhart’s law
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
...
over a year ago
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'G-1XJMTJ5KCK');
Increased efficiency can sometimes, counterintuitively, lead to worse outcomes.
This is true almost everywhere.
We will name...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 072: The new new Claude
June 21, 2024.
6 months ago
IEEE Spectrum
This Inventor Is Molding Tomorrow’s Inventors
This article is part of our special report, “Reinventing Invention: Stories from Innovation’s...
2 months ago
This article is part of our special report, “Reinventing Invention: Stories from Innovation’s Edge.”
Marina Umaschi Bers has long been at the forefront of technological innovation for kids. In the 2010s, while teaching at Tufts University, in Massachusetts, she codeveloped the...
Weighty Thoughts
From 6 Weeks to 600 Seconds (or Less)
The revolutionary potential of utilizing AI for electronic hardware design
a week ago
The revolutionary potential of utilizing AI for electronic hardware design
One Useful Thing
Secret Cyborgs: The Present Disruption in Three Papers
The future is already here, we just need to figure out a few details.
a year ago
The future is already here, we just need to figure out a few details.
Made by Ollin
Singing Style Transfer
Initial Experiments
over a year ago
One Useful Thing
"Do not fear AI, puny humans... that is not meant as a threat."
What we can learn from a completely AI written & illustrated lecture
a year ago
What we can learn from a completely AI written & illustrated lecture
AI Snake Oil
Will AI transform law?
The hype is not supported by current evidence
11 months ago
The hype is not supported by current evidence
AI Snake Oil
People keep anthropomorphizing AI. Here’s why
Companies and journalists both contribute to the confusion
a year ago
Companies and journalists both contribute to the confusion
Artificial Ignorance
How to reverse engineer the Substack (or any!) web API
Building an unauthorized Substack client with Claude.
4 months ago
Building an unauthorized Substack client with Claude.
One Useful Thing
Democratizing the future of education
We are all EdTech designers, now
a year ago
We are all EdTech designers, now
One Useful Thing
Embracing weirdness: What it means to use AI as a (writing) tool
AI is strange. We need to learn to use it.
a year ago
AI is strange. We need to learn to use it.
Society's Backend
Backend Biweekly #2: 112 Total Updates and Resources
Details on Metas training clusters, analysis of ML competitions in 2023, AI's impact on water...
10 months ago
Details on Metas training clusters, analysis of ML competitions in 2023, AI's impact on water resources, and more
Marcus on AI
On hype, and the unbearable banality of ChatGPT’s poetry
A new AI study is making the rounds, claiming that ChatGPT can write poetry that is...
a month ago
A new AI study is making the rounds, claiming that ChatGPT can write poetry that is “indistinguishable” from William Shakespeare.
One Useful Thing
Superhuman?
What does it mean for AI to be better than a human? And how can we tell?
8 months ago
What does it mean for AI to be better than a human? And how can we tell?
AI Snake Oil
AI scaling myths
Scaling will run out. The question is when.
6 months ago
Scaling will run out. The question is when.
AI Snake Oil
AI companies are pivoting from creating gods to building products. Good.
Turning models into products runs into five challenges
4 months ago
Turning models into products runs into five challenges
The Berkeley...
Designing Societally Beneficial Reinforcement Learning Systems
Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is transitioning from a research field focused on game playing to...
over a year ago
Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is transitioning from a research field focused on game playing to a technology with real-world applications. Notable examples include DeepMind’s work on controlling a nuclear reactor or on improving Youtube video compression, or Tesla attempting...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 098: Flash Thinking
December 20, 2024.
2 weeks ago
IEEE Spectrum
This Mobile 3D Printer Can Print Directly on Your Floor
Waiting for each part of a 3D-printed project to finish, taking it out of the printer, and then...
a month ago
Waiting for each part of a 3D-printed project to finish, taking it out of the printer, and then installing it on location can be tedious for multi-part projects. What if there was a way for your printer to print its creation exactly where you needed it? That’s the promise of...
Frank’s Ramblings
My Experience Living and Working in China, Part II: COVID Stories
In this four-part article, I’ll go over some of the lessons I learned living and doing business in...
over a year ago
In this four-part article, I’ll go over some of the lessons I learned living and doing business in China’s tech industry. During my time in China, I’ve led a team of 10+ engineers to develop a location-based IoT and sensing platform, co-founded an open-source project called...
Marcus on AI
ChatGPT, at Age Two
The bullshit just keeps on coming.
a month ago
The bullshit just keeps on coming.
Strange Loop Canon
Strange Loop Canon Commencement Address
5 months ago
Strange Loop Canon
Disruption starts at the margins, but doesn't stop there
Contra Hoel on AI and its supply paradox
a year ago
Contra Hoel on AI and its supply paradox
IEEE Spectrum
Boston Dynamics and Toyota Research Team Up on Robots
Today, Boston Dynamics and the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) announced a new partnership “to...
2 months ago
Today, Boston Dynamics and the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) announced a new partnership “to accelerate the development of general-purpose humanoid robots utilizing TRI’s Large Behavior Models and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot.” Committing to working towards a general purpose...
fast.ai
AI Harms are Societal, Not Just Individual
In the west, our ideas of harm are largely anchored to an individual being harmed by a particular...
over a year ago
In the west, our ideas of harm are largely anchored to an individual being harmed by a particular action at a discrete moment in time. Yet the harms caused by algorithmic systems are often collective and communal.
Artificial Ignorance
10 AI predictions for 2024
Hey Siri, set a reminder for 365 days.
a year ago
Hey Siri, set a reminder for 365 days.
The Berkeley...
Interactive Fleet Learning
Figure 1: “Interactive Fleet Learning” (IFL) refers to robot fleets in industry and academia that...
a year ago
Figure 1: “Interactive Fleet Learning” (IFL) refers to robot fleets in industry and academia that fall back on human teleoperators when necessary and continually learn from them over time.
In the last few years we have seen an exciting development in robotics and artificial...
Society's Backend
Digitizing Smell, Automatic Prompt Optimization, Targeted AI Regulation, an Intro to AI Agents, and...
Society's Backend Reading List 11-04-2024
2 months ago
Society's Backend Reading List 11-04-2024
One Useful Thing
Thinking companion, companion for thinking
Some simple ways to use AI to break you out of biases
a year ago
Some simple ways to use AI to break you out of biases
AI Snake Oil
What is algorithmic amplification and why should we care?
A symposium and a primer on social media recommendation algorithms
a year ago
A symposium and a primer on social media recommendation algorithms
fast.ai
A new old kind of R&D lab
Answer.AI is a new kind of AI R&D lab which creates practical end-user products based on...
a year ago
Answer.AI is a new kind of AI R&D lab which creates practical end-user products based on foundational research breakthroughs.
Made by Ollin
Priors for Autonomous Vehicle Development
over a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 069: Project Greymatter
May 31, 2024.
7 months ago
One Useful Thing
I hope you weren't getting too comfortable.
I just got access to the new Bing AI. My initial thoughts are that our assumptions about the limits...
a year ago
I just got access to the new Bing AI. My initial thoughts are that our assumptions about the limits of AI were wrong.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 099: Apocalypse Not
January 3, 2025.
6 days ago
Sam Altman
Funding for COVID-19 Projects
I’m trying to fund startups/projects helping with COVID-19, because it’s basically the one thing I...
over a year ago
I’m trying to fund startups/projects helping with COVID-19, because it’s basically the one thing I know how to do that can help. I think we will soon have enough testing capacity, so now I’d like to start funding more startups working on:
Producing a lot of ventilators or...
Society's Backend
3 Key Principles for AI at Scale [Part 2]
The key to how large AI companies outcompete
6 days ago
The key to how large AI companies outcompete
Society's Backend
Weekly Backend #6: 59 Resources and Updates, AI is Taking Off in Medicine
Google DeepMind releases AlphaFold 3, KANs, LLM Benchmarks are being looked at more critically,...
8 months ago
Google DeepMind releases AlphaFold 3, KANs, LLM Benchmarks are being looked at more critically, Apple is bringing their AI chips to data centers, StackOverflow partners with OpenAI, and more
Society's Backend
Why Machine Learning Terminology is So Confusing
And definitions for the most important terms you should know
10 months ago
And definitions for the most important terms you should know
Society's Backend
A Technical Perspective: Has Google Search Gotten Worse?
Providing a technical perspective for a more educated assessment of a complaint I hear quite...
2 months ago
Providing a technical perspective for a more educated assessment of a complaint I hear quite frequently
IEEE Spectrum
SwitchBot S10 Review: “This Is the Future of Home Robots”
I’ve been reviewing robot vacuums for more than a decade, and robot mops for just as long. It’s been...
3 months ago
I’ve been reviewing robot vacuums for more than a decade, and robot mops for just as long. It’s been astonishing how the technology has evolved, from the original iRobot Roomba bouncing off of walls and furniture to robots that use lidar and vision to map your entire house and...
Artificial Ignorance
How Intercom is transforming customer support with AI
A conversation with Fergal Reid, VP of AI at Intercom.
9 months ago
A conversation with Fergal Reid, VP of AI at Intercom.
Society's Backend
How to Use Benchmarks to Build Successful Machine Learning Systems
And what benchmarks mean for real-world applications
5 months ago
And what benchmarks mean for real-world applications
Artificial Ignorance
Honey, I joined a cabal
Or: Mainstream media still isn't great at covering tech and AI ideologies
6 months ago
Or: Mainstream media still isn't great at covering tech and AI ideologies
Sam Altman
PG and Jessica
A lot of people want to replicate YC in some other industry or some other place or with some other...
over a year ago
A lot of people want to replicate YC in some other industry or some other place or with some other strategy. In general, people seem to assume that: 1) although there was some degree of mystery or luck about how YC got going, it can’t be that hard, and 2) if you can get it off...
AI Snake Oil
Model alignment protects against accidental harms, not intentional ones
The hand wringing about failures of model alignment is misguided
a year ago
The hand wringing about failures of model alignment is misguided
Artificial Ignorance
Workshop: Midjourney Masterclass with Daniel Nest
“This is one of the only webinars where I've actually been glued to my screen for the entire time,...
4 months ago
“This is one of the only webinars where I've actually been glued to my screen for the entire time, not distracted by passing whimsies...
Society's Backend
Why Gemini's Struggles Aren't Straightforward
And an overview of LLM security issues
9 months ago
And an overview of LLM security issues
The Gradient
We Need Positive Visions for AI Grounded in Wellbeing
Introduction
Imagine yourself a decade ago, jumping directly into the present shock of conversing...
5 months ago
Introduction
Imagine yourself a decade ago, jumping directly into the present shock of conversing naturally with an encyclopedic AI that crafts images, writes code, and debates philosophy. Won’t this technology almost certainly transform society — and hasn’t AI’s impact on us so...
Andrej Karpathy blog
A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python
.wrap {
max-width: 900px;
}
p {
font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 15px;
...
over a year ago
.wrap {
max-width: 900px;
}
p {
font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 15px;
font-weight: 300;
overflow-wrap: break-word; /* allow wrapping of very very long strings, like txids */
}
.post pre,
.post code {
background-color: #fafafa;
font-size: 13px; /*...
IEEE Spectrum
How Amazon Is Changing the Future of Robotics and Logistics
This is a sponsored article brought to you by Amazon.
“Innovation doesn’t just happen because you...
3 weeks ago
This is a sponsored article brought to you by Amazon.
“Innovation doesn’t just happen because you have a good idea,” said Valerie Samzun, a leader in Amazon’s Fulfillment Technologies and Robotics (FTR) division. “It happens because you have the right team, the right...
Strange Loop Canon
LLMs breach a threshold
Open Source models get more powerful, and an AI system scores silver in Maths Olympiad
5 months ago
Open Source models get more powerful, and an AI system scores silver in Maths Olympiad
AI Snake Oil
Does ChatGPT have a liberal bias?
A new paper making this claim has many flaws. But the question merits research
a year ago
A new paper making this claim has many flaws. But the question merits research
Daniel Miessler
NO. 369 | Reddit Hack, Deepfake Scams, Embracing Change…
✅ Please subscribe to and give a 17-star review to this show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank...
a year ago
✅ Please subscribe to and give a 17-star review to this show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you! SECURITY Reddit has confirmed it was hacked, and it’s recommending users add 2FA. The attack started by phishing Reddit employees and stealing credentials and 2FA codes. After...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 032: The Insight Forum
September 15, 2023.
a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
Workshop: Enough GPT To Be Dangerous with Sairam Sundaresan
Have you ever wondered what’s actually happening inside ChatGPT and Claude, but found “explainers”...
a month ago
Have you ever wondered what’s actually happening inside ChatGPT and Claude, but found “explainers” too complex or technical?
The Gradient
Car-GPT: Could LLMs finally make self-driving cars happen?
Exploring the utility of large language models in autonomous driving: Can they be trusted for...
10 months ago
Exploring the utility of large language models in autonomous driving: Can they be trusted for self-driving cars, and what are the key challenges?
Daniel Miessler
Your Experience is Your Creativity
Creativity is usually described as an external force that graces you with inspiration. Something...
a year ago
Creativity is usually described as an external force that graces you with inspiration. Something that you have to open yourself to—that you have to allow in. But creativity is more like an inner forge of your past, perspectives, and passions. It’s not something you let in; it’s...
Daniel Miessler
News & Analysis | NO. 351
over a year ago
Marcus on AI
Two visions of AI’s future
It’s not looking good
a month ago
Made by Ollin
Maple Diffusion
I ported Stable Diffusion to my phone
over a year ago
I ported Stable Diffusion to my phone
One Useful Thing
Confronting Impossible Futures
We shouldn't be certain about what is next, but we should plan for it
5 months ago
We shouldn't be certain about what is next, but we should plan for it
Society's Backend
You Are What You Eat: Digital Edition
Why who you follow is more important than who follows you
a year ago
Why who you follow is more important than who follows you
Society's Backend
Run Your Own Race
What Bluey can teach us about machine learning
9 months ago
What Bluey can teach us about machine learning
Rozado’s Visual...
The Political Biases of GPT-4
Things are not always what they seem
a year ago
Things are not always what they seem
Daniel Miessler
Frontview Mirror: 2023 Edition
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over a year ago
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AI Snake Oil
Is AI progress slowing down?
Making sense of recent technology trends and claims
3 weeks ago
Making sense of recent technology trends and claims
Artificial Ignorance
The intern and the coach
A recent post from Wharton professor Ethan Mollick shared an impressive new study. In a nutshell, it...
a year ago
A recent post from Wharton professor Ethan Mollick shared an impressive new study. In a nutshell, it found that BCG consultants who used GPT-4 were up to 43% more effective at tasks vs. employees who didn’t.
Marcus on AI
Don’t Ride This Bike! Generative AI’s persistent trouble with compositionality and parts
When the text-to-image AI generation system DALL-E2 was released in April 2022, the two of us,...
a month ago
When the text-to-image AI generation system DALL-E2 was released in April 2022, the two of us, together with Scott Aaronson, ran some informal experiments to probe its abilities.
One Useful Thing
Assigning AI: Seven Ways of Using AI in Class
Also prompts! And things to watch out for!
a year ago
Also prompts! And things to watch out for!
One Useful Thing
Signs and Portents
Some hints about what the next year of AI looks like
a year ago
Some hints about what the next year of AI looks like
AI Snake Oil
Generative AI’s end-run around copyright won’t be resolved by the courts
Output similarity is a distraction
11 months ago
Output similarity is a distraction
Daniel Miessler
What Made the 90’s So Awesome?
I just read a brilliant essay about the 90’s by Freddie de Boer, and it got me thinking. What made...
a year ago
I just read a brilliant essay about the 90’s by Freddie de Boer, and it got me thinking. What made the 90’s so great? Here’s GPT’s answer: Give a 90’s lover’s view of what made the 90’s awesome. Include everything from parenting, art, entertainment, games, childhood, movies, TV,...
The Gradient
Financial Market Applications of LLMs
The AI revolution drove frenzied investment in both private and public companies and captured the...
8 months ago
The AI revolution drove frenzied investment in both private and public companies and captured the public’s imagination in 2023. Transformational consumer products like ChatGPT are powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) that excel at modeling sequences of tokens that represent...
Artificial Ignorance
Looking a gift llama in the mouth
How Llama 3.1 uniquely leverages Meta's business model (and why we should be a little bit cynical...
5 months ago
How Llama 3.1 uniquely leverages Meta's business model (and why we should be a little bit cynical about it)
Made by Ollin
Game Emulation via Neural Network
over a year ago
IEEE Spectrum
SwitchBot Introduces Modular Mobile Home Robot
Earlier this year, we reviewed the SwitchBot S10, a vacuuming and wet mopping robot that uses a...
4 days ago
Earlier this year, we reviewed the SwitchBot S10, a vacuuming and wet mopping robot that uses a water-integrated docking system to autonomously manage both clean and dirty water for you. It’s a pretty clever solution, and we appreciated that SwitchBot was willing to try something...
Strange Loop Canon
What can LLMs never do?
On goal drift and lower reliability. Or, why can't LLMs play Conway's Game Of Life?
8 months ago
On goal drift and lower reliability. Or, why can't LLMs play Conway's Game Of Life?
One Useful Thing
Superhuman: What can AI do in 30 minutes?
AI multiplies your efforts. I found out by how much...
a year ago
AI multiplies your efforts. I found out by how much...
Strange Loop Canon
AI embraces its product arc
fuzzy processors are entering mass production
7 months ago
fuzzy processors are entering mass production
Marcus on AI
An epidemic of weirdly precise AI butt facts
The parade of made-up numbers never stops
2 months ago
The parade of made-up numbers never stops
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 095: QwQ
November 29, 2024.
a month ago
Rozado’s Visual...
Mentions of Political Extremism in English Wikipedia
A data-driven exploration uncovers disparities. Are they shaped by editorial choices or broader...
3 weeks ago
A data-driven exploration uncovers disparities. Are they shaped by editorial choices or broader societal/historical dynamics?
Weighty Thoughts
One Definite Sign of a Bad Startup Idea
If you can’t tell anyone about your startup idea, it's not a good idea
over a year ago
If you can’t tell anyone about your startup idea, it's not a good idea
Artificial Ignorance
AI Zoology: Why are there so many animal models?
Inside the emerging model menagerie.
a year ago
Inside the emerging model menagerie.
IEEE Spectrum
How a Robot Is Grabbing Fuel From a Fukushima Reactor
Thirteen years since a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power...
3 months ago
Thirteen years since a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in northern Japan, causing a loss of power, meltdowns and a major release of radioactive material, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) finally seems to be close to...
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Extreme Off-Road
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE...
a month ago
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
Humanoids 2024: 22–24 November...
AI Snake Oil
Is Avoiding Extinction from AI Really an Urgent Priority?
The history of technology suggests that the greatest risks come not from the tech, but from the...
a year ago
The history of technology suggests that the greatest risks come not from the tech, but from the people who control it
Sam Altman
The Strength of Being Misunderstood
A founder recently asked me how to stop caring what other people think. I didn’t have an answer, and...
over a year ago
A founder recently asked me how to stop caring what other people think. I didn’t have an answer, and after reflecting on it more, I think it's the wrong question.
Almost everyone cares what someone thinks (though caring what everyone thinks is definitely a mistake), and it's...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 044: Google Gemini
December 8, 2023.
a year ago
Matt Mazur
Reflecting on My First Year as a Full Time Indie Founder
At the beginning of 2023 I went full time on Preceden, my SaaS timeline maker business, after 13...
a year ago
At the beginning of 2023 I went full time on Preceden, my SaaS timeline maker business, after 13 years of working on it on the side. A year has passed, so I wanted to share an update on how things are going and some lessons learned. Preceden My main focus in 2023 was building AI...
One Useful Thing
The practical guide to using AI to do stuff
A resource for students in my classes (and other interested people).
a year ago
A resource for students in my classes (and other interested people).
Society's Backend
MatMul-free Machine Learning Can Improve Efficiency, Excellent Foundational Learning Resources, SSMs...
The top 10 most important updates of last week: 7/8/24
6 months ago
The top 10 most important updates of last week: 7/8/24
Society's Backend
Why Rust Isn't Killing C++
And a consideration for choosing a language
8 months ago
And a consideration for choosing a language
Artificial Ignorance
The ideologies fighting for the soul (and future) of AI
EAs, e/accs, decels, and doomers.
a year ago
EAs, e/accs, decels, and doomers.
Rozado’s Visual...
El desproporcionado número de referencias al machismo en los medios de comunicación españoles
Los medios de comunicación españoles constituyen una anomalía en comparación con sus homólogos...
a year ago
Los medios de comunicación españoles constituyen una anomalía en comparación con sus homólogos internacionales por su alto número de referencias al machismo que triplican a las de cualquier otro país
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 030: OpenAI's $1B revenue
September 1, 2023
a year ago
Rozado’s Visual...
The Political Preferences of LLMs
Substantial political homogeneity in Large Language Models (LLMs) responses to questions with...
11 months ago
Substantial political homogeneity in Large Language Models (LLMs) responses to questions with political connotations
Daniel Miessler
Summary: Andrej Kaparthy on Lex Fridman’s Podcast (Late 2022)
9/10 This is a summary of Andrej Kaparthy’s appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast in late 2022. My...
a year ago
9/10 This is a summary of Andrej Kaparthy’s appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast in late 2022. My One-Sentence Summary/Highlight The future of programming is not humans writing code, but neural nets creating weights. Capture Neural networks are mathematical expressions with many...
Society's Backend
How to Know if Your Data is Being Used Maliciously
The information you should know about a company before gifting them your data
a year ago
The information you should know about a company before gifting them your data
Marcus on AI
Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus says AI must be regulated. He has a plan.
Fantastic writeup of my views today at The Wall Street Journal:
a month ago
Fantastic writeup of my views today at The Wall Street Journal:
Frank’s Ramblings
Hierarchical Navigable Small Worlds (HNSW)
(Note: A version of this post has been cross-published to the Zilliz blog)
In a previous blog, we...
a year ago
(Note: A version of this post has been cross-published to the Zilliz blog)
In a previous blog, we took a look at scalar quantization and product quantization - two indexing strategies which are used to reduce the overall size of the database without reducing the scope of a...
Frank’s Ramblings
Vision Transformers are Overrated
Vision transformers (ViTs) have seen an incredible rise in the past four years. They have an obvious...
a year ago
Vision transformers (ViTs) have seen an incredible rise in the past four years. They have an obvious upside: in a visual recognition setting, the receptive field of a pure ViT is effectively the entire image 1. In particular, vanilla ViTs maintain the quadratic time complexity...
The Berkeley...
2024 BAIR Graduate Directory
Every year, the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab graduates some of the most...
10 months ago
Every year, the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab graduates some of the most talented and innovative minds in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Our Ph.D. graduates have each expanded the frontiers of AI research and are now ready to embark on new...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 057: Claude 3
March 8, 2024.
10 months ago
One Useful Thing
Gradually, then Suddenly: Upon the Threshold
Small improvements can lead to big changes
6 months ago
Small improvements can lead to big changes
Daniel Miessler
NO. 362 | Dependency Scanner, Citrix Attacks, AI Analysis…
SECURITY NEWS Google released an open-source scanner for vulnerabilities in project dependencies....
over a year ago
SECURITY NEWS Google released an open-source scanner for vulnerabilities in project dependencies. It's a front-end to the OSV database that links a dependency list to its vulnerabilities. MORE The latest updates for Apple software fixed a new zero-day that could be used to hack...
Society's Backend
OpenAI's Strawberry May Enhance AI Reasoning, Optimization of Vision Language Models, Info on...
Weekly updates and resources 7/15/24
5 months ago
Weekly updates and resources 7/15/24
One Useful Thing
Power and Weirdness: How to Use Bing AI
Bing AI is a huge leap over ChatGPT, but you have to learn its quirks
a year ago
Bing AI is a huge leap over ChatGPT, but you have to learn its quirks
Sam Altman
Researchers and Founders
I spent many years working with founders and now I work with researchers.
Although there are always...
over a year ago
I spent many years working with founders and now I work with researchers.
Although there are always individual exceptions, on average it’s surprising to me how different the best people in these groups are (including in some qualities that I had assumed were present in great...
One Useful Thing
When you give a Claude a mouse
Some quick impressions of an actual agent
2 months ago
Some quick impressions of an actual agent
Strange Loop Canon
Slouching Towards Utopia
by Brad DeLong
a year ago
Weighty Thoughts
China's AI Journey
Talking to Jordan Schneider from ChinaTalk about China's technological ascent
7 months ago
Talking to Jordan Schneider from ChinaTalk about China's technological ascent
Daniel Miessler
Scott Kuffer of Nucleus Security | SPONSORED INTERVIEW SERIES
In this standalone episode we’re doing a sponsored interview with Scott Kuffer, co-founder and COO...
over a year ago
In this standalone episode we’re doing a sponsored interview with Scott Kuffer, co-founder and COO of Nucleus Security. I was already excited by this vendor just based on the research I did to allow them to be a sponsor, but the conversation with them really made me think they’re...
Society's Backend
Updates to Society's Backend
New benefits for paid subscribers, support Society's Backend for just $1/mo, a referral program, and...
10 months ago
New benefits for paid subscribers, support Society's Backend for just $1/mo, a referral program, and more
IEEE Spectrum
5 Questions for Robotics Legend Ruzena Bajcsy
Ruzena Bajcsy is one of the founders of the modern field of robotics. With an education in...
a month ago
Ruzena Bajcsy is one of the founders of the modern field of robotics. With an education in electrical engineering in Slovakia, followed by a Ph.D. at Stanford, Bajcsy was the first woman to join the engineering faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. She was the first, she...
The Gradient
An Introduction to the Problems of AI Consciousness
Once considered a forbidden topic in the AI community, discussions around the concept of AI...
a year ago
Once considered a forbidden topic in the AI community, discussions around the concept of AI consciousness are now taking center stage, marking a significant shift since the current AI resurgence began over a decade ago.
Daniel Miessler
Podcast Audio Quality: AI-based Post-processing vs. Hardware
I’ve been podcasting since 2015 and got really into audio when the plague started. Like…too much....
over a year ago
I’ve been podcasting since 2015 and got really into audio when the plague started. Like…too much. Anyway. I’ve been obsessed with podcast audio quality for years, and have been through so…many…iterations of my setup. I started with a Yeti (still a great mic). Did the...
One Useful Thing
My class required AI. Here's what I've learned so far.
(Spoiler alert: it has been very successful, but there are some lessons to be learned)
a year ago
(Spoiler alert: it has been very successful, but there are some lessons to be learned)
IEEE Spectrum
Detachable Robotic Hand Crawls Around on Finger-Legs
When we think of grasping robots, we think of manipulators of some sort on the ends of arms of some...
3 months ago
When we think of grasping robots, we think of manipulators of some sort on the ends of arms of some sort. Because of course we do—that’s how (most of us) are built, and that’s the mindset with which we have consequently optimized the world around us. But one of the great things...
Sam Altman
E Pur Si Muove
Earlier
this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I
realized I felt more...
over a year ago
Earlier
this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I
realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than
in San Francisco. I didn’t feel completely comfortable—this was China,
after all—just more comfortable than at home.
That...
Artificial Ignorance
How Shopify is making AI Magic
A case study on turning competitive advantages into useful AI.
a year ago
A case study on turning competitive advantages into useful AI.
The Gradient
Interpretability Creationism
On “interpretability creationism” – interpretability methods that only look at the final state of...
a year ago
On “interpretability creationism” – interpretability methods that only look at the final state of the model and ignore its evolution over the course of training
Society's Backend
Pelosi opposes SB 1047, New LLM Training Paradigms, Prompt Caching to Save 90% of API Costs, and...
Machine learning resources and updates 8/19/2024
4 months ago
Machine learning resources and updates 8/19/2024
The Berkeley...
The Shift from Models to Compound AI Systems
AI caught everyone’s attention in 2023 with Large Language Models (LLMs) that can be instructed to...
10 months ago
AI caught everyone’s attention in 2023 with Large Language Models (LLMs) that can be instructed to perform general tasks, such as translation or coding, just by prompting. This naturally led to an intense focus on models as the primary ingredient in AI application development,...
Andrej Karpathy blog
Self-driving as a case study for AGI
Sparked by progress in Large Language Models (LLMs), there’s a lot of chatter recently about AGI,...
11 months ago
Sparked by progress in Large Language Models (LLMs), there’s a lot of chatter recently about AGI, its timelines, and what it might look like. Some of it is hopeful and optimistic, but a lot of it is fearful and doomy, to put it mildly. Unfortunately, a lot of it is also very...
Strange Loop Canon
Symposium: On Building God
a year ago
Sam Altman
Helion Needs You
Helion has been progressing even faster than I expected and is on pace in 2024 to 1) demonstrate Q >...
over a year ago
Helion has been progressing even faster than I expected and is on pace in 2024 to 1) demonstrate Q > 1 fusion and 2) resolve all questions needed to design a mass-producible fusion generator.
The goals of the company are quite ambitious—clean, continuous energy for 1...
One Useful Thing
The Machines of Mastery
"Anyone can learn anything they want..." and how technology can help
a year ago
"Anyone can learn anything they want..." and how technology can help
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 036: The money pit
October 13, 2023.
a year ago
The Berkeley...
FIGS: Attaining XGBoost-level performance with the interpretability and speed of CART
FIGS (Fast Interpretable Greedy-tree Sums): A method for building interpretable models by...
over a year ago
FIGS (Fast Interpretable Greedy-tree Sums): A method for building interpretable models by simultaneously growing an ensemble of decision trees in competition with one another.
Recent machine-learning advances have led to increasingly complex predictive models, often at the cost...
Rozado’s Visual...
Is climate change 100 times more threatening than gain-of-function research?
Mentions of climate change in news media vastly outnumber other existential threats
a year ago
Mentions of climate change in news media vastly outnumber other existential threats
Marcus on AI
AI still lacks “common” sense, 70 years later
What’s obvious to people still isn’t always obvious to machines
4 days ago
What’s obvious to people still isn’t always obvious to machines
Rozado’s Visual...
Mentions of Prejudice in Academic Papers: A Declining Trend Amidst Ongoing DEI Growth?
Prejudice-denoting terms in academic research have recently decreased while some DEI-related terms...
4 months ago
Prejudice-denoting terms in academic research have recently decreased while some DEI-related terms continue to rise—what does this shift reveal?
Society's Backend
What it's Like to Work in AI and Advice from 10 AI Professionals
I asked 10 AI professionals 4 questions about their work in AI and the qualifications required for...
a month ago
I asked 10 AI professionals 4 questions about their work in AI and the qualifications required for their job
Artificial Ignorance
Tutorial: How to chat with your documents
A step-by-step guide to doing Q&A with your data, using LlamaIndex and OpenAI.
a year ago
A step-by-step guide to doing Q&A with your data, using LlamaIndex and OpenAI.
Society's Backend
The Unfortunate Truth Regarding AI Regulation
And the impact it'll have for decades to come
7 months ago
And the impact it'll have for decades to come
Matt Mazur
Running Mistral 8x7Bs Mixture of Experts on a Macbook
Below are the steps I used to get Mistral 8x7Bs Mixture of Experts (MOE) model running locally on my...
a year ago
Below are the steps I used to get Mistral 8x7Bs Mixture of Experts (MOE) model running locally on my Macbook (with its Apple M2 chip and 24 GB of memory). Here’s a great overview of the model for anyone interested in learning more. Short version: The Mistral “Mixtral” 8x7B 32k...
Marcus on AI
Sora still appears to have trouble with physics
Exactly as I warned in February
a month ago
Exactly as I warned in February
Artificial Ignorance
Pitfalls of building with large language models
Dealing with more than just hallucinations.
a year ago
Dealing with more than just hallucinations.
One Useful Thing
Catastrophe / Eucatastrophe
We have more agency over the future of AI than we think.
a year ago
We have more agency over the future of AI than we think.
AI Snake Oil
Is AI-generated disinformation a threat to democracy?
An essay on the future of generative AI on social media
a year ago
An essay on the future of generative AI on social media
Rozado’s Visual...
DepolarizingGPT
A Political Chatbot that Gives 3 Politically Diverse Answers to Every Prompt
a year ago
A Political Chatbot that Gives 3 Politically Diverse Answers to Every Prompt
Matt Mazur
Is the ChatGPT API Refusing to Summarize Academic Papers? Not so fast.
Yesterday on X, I shared a post about some responses I was getting from the ChatGPT 3.5 API...
a year ago
Yesterday on X, I shared a post about some responses I was getting from the ChatGPT 3.5 API indicating that it was refusing to summarize arXiv papers: There has been a lot of discussion recently about the perceived decrease in the quality of ChatGPT’s responses and seeing...
One Useful Thing
Google's Gemini Advanced: Tasting Notes and Implications
And then there were two.
11 months ago
Weighty Thoughts
Today’s AI critics don’t understand the history of technology
But is AI different than other technologies?
10 months ago
But is AI different than other technologies?
fast.ai
Is Avoiding Extinction from AI Really an Urgent Priority?
The history of technology suggests that the greatest risks come not from the tech, but from the...
a year ago
The history of technology suggests that the greatest risks come not from the tech, but from the people who control it
Artificial Ignorance
From Stable Diffusion to Stable Everything
Inside Stability AI's roster of AI models.
7 months ago
Inside Stability AI's roster of AI models.
fast.ai
Masks for COVID: Updating the evidence
Notes taken whilst preparing a paper on mask efficacy from Nov to Jan 2022. My previous paper on...
over a year ago
Notes taken whilst preparing a paper on mask efficacy from Nov to Jan 2022. My previous paper on this was written in April 2020 and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Artificial Ignorance
What are logprobs?
Something to do with logs and probabilities.
12 months ago
Something to do with logs and probabilities.
Society's Backend
Devin Has Exposed a Major Issue with Software Engineering
And isn't that we're all going to lose our jobs
9 months ago
And isn't that we're all going to lose our jobs
Society's Backend
LLM Research Recap of 2024, Fine-tuning LLM Judges, Amazon's Nova Models, Google's Genie 2, and More
Society's Backend Reading List 12-10-2024
4 weeks ago
Society's Backend Reading List 12-10-2024
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 042: sama drama
November 24, 2023.
a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 079: Don't call it an acquisition
August 9, 2024.
5 months ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 067: GPT-4o and Google I/O
May 17, 2024.
7 months ago
Society's Backend
Ask Stupid Questions
I’m convinced that after having a fourth or fifth child exhaustion kicks in and a person’s long-term...
a year ago
I’m convinced that after having a fourth or fifth child exhaustion kicks in and a person’s long-term memory ceases to function properly. I’ve become victim to this and I’ve started taking very detailed notes during meetings. If my brain won’t store the information, something else...
IEEE Spectrum
In 2025, People Will Try Living in This Underwater Habitat
The future of human habitation in the sea is taking shape in an abandoned quarry on the border of...
a week ago
The future of human habitation in the sea is taking shape in an abandoned quarry on the border of Wales and England. There, the ocean-exploration organization Deep has embarked on a multiyear quest to enable scientists to live on the seafloor at depths up to 200 meters for weeks,...
One Useful Thing
Magic for English Majors
Programming in prose in an AI-haunted world
a year ago
Programming in prose in an AI-haunted world
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 073: Music make you lose control
June 28, 2024.
6 months ago
The Gradient
A Brief Overview of Gender Bias in AI
A brief overview and discussion on gender bias in AI
9 months ago
A brief overview and discussion on gender bias in AI
The Berkeley...
Reverse engineering the NTK: towards first-principles architecture design
Deep neural networks have enabled technological wonders ranging from voice recognition to machine...
over a year ago
Deep neural networks have enabled technological wonders ranging from voice recognition to machine transition to protein engineering, but their design and application is nonetheless notoriously unprincipled.
The development of tools and methods to guide this process is one of the...
Weighty Thoughts
News Roundup: May 15, 2024
Open AI announcements, DeepSeek-v2, and TSMC Arizona
7 months ago
Open AI announcements, DeepSeek-v2, and TSMC Arizona
fast.ai
I was an AI researcher. Now, I am an immunology student.
Last year, I became captivated by a new topic in a way that I hadn’t felt since I first discovered...
a year ago
Last year, I became captivated by a new topic in a way that I hadn’t felt since I first discovered machine learning
One Useful Thing
A guide to prompting AI (for what it is worth)
A little bit of magic, but mostly just practice
a year ago
A little bit of magic, but mostly just practice
One Useful Thing
Latent Expertise: Everyone is in R&D
Ideas come from the edges, not the center
6 months ago
Ideas come from the edges, not the center
Stories by Andrej...
Virtual Reality: still not quite there, again.
over a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI's invisible instructions
What meme prompts can teach us about better interface design.
2 months ago
What meme prompts can teach us about better interface design.
AI Snake Oil
Eighteen pitfalls to beware of in AI journalism
A checklist for avoiding hype
over a year ago
A checklist for avoiding hype
Marcus on AI
o3, AGI, the art of the demo, and what you can expect in 2025
OpenAI’s new model was revealed yesterday; its most fervent believers think AGI has already arrived....
2 weeks ago
OpenAI’s new model was revealed yesterday; its most fervent believers think AGI has already arrived. Here’s what you should pay attention to in the coming year.
Weighty Thoughts
CUDA is Still a Giant Moat for NVIDIA
Despite everyone’s focus on hardware, the software of AI is what protects NVIDIA
9 months ago
Despite everyone’s focus on hardware, the software of AI is what protects NVIDIA
AI Snake Oil
Generative AI companies must publish transparency reports
The debate about the harms of AI is happening in a data vacuum
a year ago
The debate about the harms of AI is happening in a data vacuum
Society's Backend
Bridging the Gap from Simple Algebra to Machine Learning
You probably know more about machine learning math than you think
11 months ago
You probably know more about machine learning math than you think
Artificial Ignorance
How to talk to your family about AI this Thanksgiving
A handy guide for your uncle's burning questions.
a year ago
A handy guide for your uncle's burning questions.
Weighty Thoughts
What is Defensibility?
Back to basics for AI startups and others
9 months ago
Back to basics for AI startups and others
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 092: Watermarking the AI wave
November 8, 2024.
2 months ago
Society's Backend
Artificial Intelligence: A New Paradigm Emerges
A realistic perspective of the advantages and pitfalls of artificial intelligence
a year ago
A realistic perspective of the advantages and pitfalls of artificial intelligence
Rozado’s Visual...
An Analysis of AI Political Preferences from a European Perspective
Introduction
2 months ago
Weighty Thoughts
What’s coming next for AI in 2024
A long overdue VC apocalypse and the birth of the first real AI companies
a year ago
A long overdue VC apocalypse and the birth of the first real AI companies
Rozado’s Visual...
The political orientation of the ChatGPT AI system
Applying the Pew Research Political Typology Quiz to a state-of-the-art AI Language model
over a year ago
Applying the Pew Research Political Typology Quiz to a state-of-the-art AI Language model
One Useful Thing
The Present Future: AI's Impact Long Before Superintelligence
You can start to see the outlines of an AI future, for better and worse
2 months ago
You can start to see the outlines of an AI future, for better and worse
Strange Loop Canon
People want competence, seemingly over everything else
All elections are about state capacity
a month ago
All elections are about state capacity
Society's Backend
Side Projects to Get a Job in ML, a Survey of Small Language Models, How to Build ML Pipelines, and...
Society's Backend Reading List 11-11-2024
a month ago
Society's Backend Reading List 11-11-2024
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: ICRA Turns 40
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE...
3 months ago
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
IROS 2024: 14–18 October 2024, ABU...
Society's Backend
Coming soon!
Weekly publications to teach you about the technology that governs our society and how it impacts...
a year ago
Weekly publications to teach you about the technology that governs our society and how it impacts you. Coming in August!
Strange Loop Canon
The age of access
the great polarisation theory, and the death of professions
a year ago
the great polarisation theory, and the death of professions
PromptArmor Blog
Announcing LASEC: LLM Application Security Executive Certification
Including a never before seen exploit from PromptArmor's cutting edge threat intelligence team.
9 months ago
Including a never before seen exploit from PromptArmor's cutting edge threat intelligence team.
Artificial Ignorance
Bridging AI and human creativity
A conversation with Harrison Telyan, co-founder of NUMI.
10 months ago
A conversation with Harrison Telyan, co-founder of NUMI.
One Useful Thing
Change blindness
21 months later
5 months ago
Matt Mazur
Running Mistral 7B Instruct on a Macbook
Similar to yesterday’s post on running Mistral 8x7Bs Mixture of Experts (MOE) model, I wanted to...
a year ago
Similar to yesterday’s post on running Mistral 8x7Bs Mixture of Experts (MOE) model, I wanted to document the steps I took to run Mistral’s 7B-Instruct-v0.2 model on a Mac for anyone else interested in playing around with it. Unlike yesterday’s post though, this 7B Instruct...
The Berkeley...
Asymmetric Certified Robustness via Feature-Convex Neural Networks
Asymmetric Certified Robustness via Feature-Convex Neural Networks
TLDR: We propose the asymmetric...
a year ago
Asymmetric Certified Robustness via Feature-Convex Neural Networks
TLDR: We propose the asymmetric certified robustness problem, which requires certified robustness for only one class and reflects real-world adversarial scenarios. This focused setting allows us to introduce...
AI Snake Oil
AI safety is not a model property
Trying to make an AI model that can’t be misused is like trying to make a computer that can’t be...
10 months ago
Trying to make an AI model that can’t be misused is like trying to make a computer that can’t be used for bad things
Artificial Ignorance
The subscriptionization of AI
Navigating the paid AI landscape.
10 months ago
Navigating the paid AI landscape.
Rozado’s Visual...
The unequal treatment of demographic groups by ChatGPT/OpenAI content moderation system
Should AI systems treat different demographic groups unequally?
a year ago
Should AI systems treat different demographic groups unequally?
Society's Backend
5 Highlights From Society's Backend in 2024
The top 5 articles and resources
a week ago
The top 5 articles and resources
Sam Altman
2017 YC Annual Letter
Dear YC Community:
In response to a comment on Hacker News, I’m going to try writing an annual...
over a year ago
Dear YC Community:
In response to a comment on Hacker News, I’m going to try writing an annual letter to the YC community with an update on our progress.
Our mission is to enable the most innovation of any company in the world in order to make the future great for everyone. We...
Daniel Miessler
Something is Up With Meritocracy
I’ve been thinking a lot about meritocracy lately, and I’ve come to believe that opportunity...
over a year ago
I’ve been thinking a lot about meritocracy lately, and I’ve come to believe that opportunity magnifies inequality. Here’s one way I’ve seen it explained: If there are two main reasons for outcome differences: innate talent and environment, and if you equalize environment you will...
PromptArmor Blog
Data exfiltration from Writer.com with indirect prompt injection
Authors: PromptArmor and Kai Greshake
a year ago
Authors: PromptArmor and Kai Greshake
Strange Loop Canon
Progress
when benefits are worth tallying the human cost of technological leaps
a year ago
when benefits are worth tallying the human cost of technological leaps
Daniel Miessler
News & Analysis | NO. 353
over a year ago
Matt Mazur
It’s Time to Build
It’s been a few months so I wanted to say hey to the 7 of you who follow this blog and share a few...
8 months ago
It’s been a few months so I wanted to say hey to the 7 of you who follow this blog and share a few updates about what I’ve been up to. Quick recap At the start of 2023 I quit consulting to go full time on Preceden, my SaaS timeline maker, after growing it on … Continue reading...
AI Snake Oil
Three Ideas for Regulating Generative AI
Policy input to the federal government from a Stanford-Princeton team
a year ago
Policy input to the federal government from a Stanford-Princeton team
Society's Backend
AI and Software Reading List 4: State of the Job Market, Apple's Private Cloud Compute Released for...
Society's Backend Reading List 10-28-2024
2 months ago
Society's Backend Reading List 10-28-2024
Artificial Ignorance
The hidden side of Apple Intelligence
More than just another keynote recap.
7 months ago
More than just another keynote recap.
Weighty Thoughts
Why ChatGPT Strawberry o1 (and other LLMs) will Never be Good at Diagnosis
“Connectionist” vs. Knowledge-Based AI
3 months ago
“Connectionist” vs. Knowledge-Based AI
Artificial Ignorance
Groq, Gemini, and 10x improvements
As a programmer and CTO, I've developed a rough rule of thumb when it comes to scaling systems. When...
10 months ago
As a programmer and CTO, I've developed a rough rule of thumb when it comes to scaling systems. When you scale your inputs (users, page views, messages, etc) by 10x, something breaks. Usually, it's something pretty fundamental. And the end result is that you need to replace a...
Artificial Ignorance
Tutorial: How to streamline your writing process with Whisper and GPT-4
These Python scripts help me write 3x faster and go from loose ideas to first draft in minutes.
8 months ago
These Python scripts help me write 3x faster and go from loose ideas to first draft in minutes.
Made by Ollin
Acapella Extraction with ConvNets
A working prototype
over a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 087: DevDay SF
October 4, 2024.
3 months ago
Society's Backend
If You Understand Bananas, You Can Understand Machine Learning
A simplified high-level overview of primary machine learning algorithms for anyone to understand
11 months ago
A simplified high-level overview of primary machine learning algorithms for anyone to understand
The Berkeley...
Rethinking Human-in-the-Loop for Artificial Augmented Intelligence
How do we build and evaluate an AI system for real-world applications? In most AI research, the...
over a year ago
How do we build and evaluate an AI system for real-world applications? In most AI research, the evaluation of AI methods involves a training-validation-testing process. The experiments usually stop when the models have good testing performance on the reported datasets because...
One Useful Thing
How to use AI to do practical stuff: A new guide
People often ask me how to use AI. Here's an overview with lots of links.
a year ago
People often ask me how to use AI. Here's an overview with lots of links.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 026: AudioCraft
August 4, 2023
a year ago
Society's Backend
Meta's New Segmentation Model, A New Open-Source Image Generation Model, Apple Intelligence Model...
Machine learning resources and updates 8/5/2024
5 months ago
Machine learning resources and updates 8/5/2024
Society's Backend
A Privacy Review: TikTok
You should stick to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts
a year ago
You should stick to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts
Artificial Ignorance
What President Biden's AI executive order actually means
I read all 111 pages so you don't have to.
a year ago
I read all 111 pages so you don't have to.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 093: Diminishing returns
November 15, 2024.
a month ago
Matt Mazur
Updates: Preceden Trends, Training Help Scout’s New Analytics Engineer, Don’t Look Up, and Ray...
Preceden Recurring Revenue: In January 2021 I introduced automatically recurring annual plans to...
over a year ago
Preceden Recurring Revenue: In January 2021 I introduced automatically recurring annual plans to Preceden. Prior to that the annual plans did not renew automatically which was an intentional (but bad) choice I had made because most users did not user Preceden for more than a...
Society's Backend
Open Models Catching Up, SearchGPT Release, Deepfake Victims Protected by Regulation, and More
Weekly updates and resources 7/29/24
5 months ago
Weekly updates and resources 7/29/24
fast.ai
AI and Power: The Ethical Challenges of Automation, Centralization, and Scale
Moving AI ethics beyond explainability and fairness to empowerment and justice
a year ago
Moving AI ethics beyond explainability and fairness to empowerment and justice
Matt Mazur
Emergent Mind finally went viral
Last week, the Twitter account Everything Out of Context posted a screenshot showing Google’s...
a year ago
Last week, the Twitter account Everything Out of Context posted a screenshot showing Google’s incorrect response to the search query “country in africa that starts with k”: The tweet went viral, garnering over 133k likes, 6k retweets, and 1k replies. Someone eventually tagged me...
One Useful Thing
How to Use AI to Do Stuff: An Opinionated Guide
Covering the state of play as of Summer, 2023
a year ago
Covering the state of play as of Summer, 2023
AI Snake Oil
The bait and switch behind AI risk prediction tools
Toronto recently used an AI tool to predict when a public beach will be safe. It went horribly awry....
over a year ago
Toronto recently used an AI tool to predict when a public beach will be safe. It went horribly awry. The developer claimed the tool achieved over 90% accuracy in predicting when beaches would be safe to swim in. But the tool did much worse: on a majority of the days when the...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 075: Levels of AGI
July 12, 2024.
6 months ago
fast.ai
Deep Learning Foundations Signup, Open Source Scholarships, & More
Signups are now open for Practical Deep Learning for Coders Part 2, 2022. Scholarships are available...
over a year ago
Signups are now open for Practical Deep Learning for Coders Part 2, 2022. Scholarships are available for fast.ai community contributors, open source developers, and diversity scholars.
One Useful Thing
What Can be Done in 59 Seconds: An Opportunity (and a Crisis)
Five analytical tasks in under a minute
11 months ago
Five analytical tasks in under a minute
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 064: Big Tech's small models
April 26, 2024.
8 months ago
Rozado’s Visual...
The Political Bias of ChatGPT – Extended Analysis
On December 6th I published a preliminary analysis showing a left-leaning political bias embedded in...
a year ago
On December 6th I published a preliminary analysis showing a left-leaning political bias embedded in the first release of ChatGPT from November 30. After the December 15th update of ChatGPT, I replicated my analysis and it appeared as if the political bias had been partially...
AI Snake Oil
Are open foundation models actually more risky than closed ones?
A policy brief on open foundation models
a year ago
A policy brief on open foundation models
The Gradient
Mamba Explained
Is Attention all you need? Mamba, a novel AI model based on State Space Models (SSMs), emerges as a...
9 months ago
Is Attention all you need? Mamba, a novel AI model based on State Space Models (SSMs), emerges as a formidable alternative to the widely used Transformer models, addressing their inefficiency in processing long sequences.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 029: Hug all the faces
August 25, 2023
a year ago
AI Snake Oil
AI cannot predict the future. But companies keep trying (and failing).
A new paper on how AI companies make false promises and how we can challenge them
a year ago
A new paper on how AI companies make false promises and how we can challenge them
Artificial Ignorance
AI predictions for 2025
And a review of last year's predictions.
yesterday
And a review of last year's predictions.
Artificial Ignorance
I fell for a deepfake Elon Musk’s cryptocurrency scam bait
A lesson in deepfakes, Ponzi schemes, and YouTube algorithm manipulation.
7 months ago
A lesson in deepfakes, Ponzi schemes, and YouTube algorithm manipulation.
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Trick or Treat, Atlas
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE...
2 months ago
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
Humanoids 2024: 22–24 November...
fast.ai
The Jupyter+git problem is now solved
Previously, using git with Jupyter could create conflicts and break notebooks. With nbdev2, the...
over a year ago
Previously, using git with Jupyter could create conflicts and break notebooks. With nbdev2, the problem has been totally solved.
Matt Mazur
Friday Updates: Shipping AI Suggestions in Preceden, EmergentMind Growth and Brainstorming
Preceden On Tuesday I shipped the v1 of Preceden’s new AI suggestions feature to 10% of new users: I...
a year ago
Preceden On Tuesday I shipped the v1 of Preceden’s new AI suggestions feature to 10% of new users: I had planned on slowly rolling it out to 100% of users over the course of a week or two, but my OpenAI costs were minimal on Tuesday so on Wednesday I said screw it and just […]
Matt Mazur
Sharing small, incremental updates with users
I use a service called Headway to keep Preceden users informed about updates to the product. Headway...
a year ago
I use a service called Headway to keep Preceden users informed about updates to the product. Headway provides a widget I have installed on Preceden to let users know when there have been updates. Users will see a bell with a count of unread items (which Headway keeps track of in...
Matt Mazur
Full Time Indie Hacking: Month 5 Update
At the beginning of the year I quit consulting to focus full time on Preceden, my SaaS timeline...
a year ago
At the beginning of the year I quit consulting to focus full time on Preceden, my SaaS timeline maker tool. I also started working on a new side project, Emergent Mind, an AI-powered AI news site. My last update on how things were going was after 3 months which provides more...
Society's Backend
The Method Google Used to Reduce LLM Size by 66%
A brief overview of knowledge distillation and its capabilities
6 months ago
A brief overview of knowledge distillation and its capabilities
Society's Backend
Always Be Networking
The things you should know about effective networking
a year ago
The things you should know about effective networking
Artificial Ignorance
OpenAI’s DevDay: The biggest announcements
New models, new products, and new pricing.
a year ago
New models, new products, and new pricing.
Weighty Thoughts
Fear and Loathing in 7nm
How much does Huawei and SMIC's new chip matter? And what should the US do?
a year ago
How much does Huawei and SMIC's new chip matter? And what should the US do?
Artificial Ignorance
Stop begging for JSON
How OpenAI's Structured Outputs makes building with AI much more reliable.
4 weeks ago
How OpenAI's Structured Outputs makes building with AI much more reliable.
One Useful Thing
Something New: On OpenAI's "Strawberry" and Reasoning
Solving hard problems in new ways
3 months ago
Solving hard problems in new ways
AI Snake Oil
AI leaderboards are no longer useful. It's time to switch to Pareto curves.
What spending $2,000 can tell us about evaluating AI agents
8 months ago
What spending $2,000 can tell us about evaluating AI agents
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 055: Race conditions
February 23, 2023.
10 months ago
Strange Loop Canon
Google had a very bad week
Gemini's paradox
10 months ago
fast.ai
Qualitative humanities research is crucial to AI
Following the thread of any seemingly quantitative issue in AI ethics (such as determining if...
over a year ago
Following the thread of any seemingly quantitative issue in AI ethics (such as determining if software to rate loan applicants is racially biased or evaluating YouTube’s recommendation system) quickly leads to a host of qualitative questions. Unfortunately, there is often a large...
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