Frank’s Ramblings
a16z Blogs Are Just Glorified Marketing
… glorified marketing for portfolio companies, that is
I came across one of a16z’s blog posts on...
a year ago
… glorified marketing for portfolio companies, that is
I came across one of a16z’s blog posts on Hacker News today, titled Emerging Architectures for LLM Applications. For folks who didn’t catch it, here’s the tl;dr:
The emerging LLM stack is composed of several elements centered...
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Trick or Treat, Atlas
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...
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
Society's Backend
Backend Biweekly #3: 97 Updates and Resources
Huge Nvidia Updates, Gemini Hackathon for Money, and more
8 months ago
Huge Nvidia Updates, Gemini Hackathon for Money, and more
Artificial Ignorance
Small newsletters, big ideas
A subscriber showcase full of hidden gems on Substack.
6 days ago
A subscriber showcase full of hidden gems on Substack.
The Berkeley...
2024 BAIR Graduate Directory
Every year, the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab graduates some of the most...
9 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...
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
One Useful Thing
One sentence.
Prompting for maximum impact (and why that is a bad idea)
a year ago
Prompting for maximum impact (and why that is a bad idea)
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
Matt Mazur
Introducing Preceden’s new AI-Powered Timeline Generator
For the past few months I’ve been heads down building an AI-powered timeline generator tool for...
a year ago
For the past few months I’ve been heads down building an AI-powered timeline generator tool for Preceden, my SaaS timeline maker software: The tool – which is free to use and available on Preceden’s homepage – lets you type in a topic or detailed description of a timeline and it...
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...
Matt Mazur
Screw it, I’m Keeping Emergent Mind
A few months ago I announced I was going to try to sell Emergent Mind, my AI news aggregator, so I...
a year ago
A few months ago I announced I was going to try to sell Emergent Mind, my AI news aggregator, so I could focus on Preceden, my SaaS timeline maker. I wound up having a lot of discussions with potential buyers, but in the end the offers I received were either too low to be worth...
fast.ai
Mojo may be the biggest programming language advance in decades
Mojo is a new programming language, based on Python, which fixes Python’s performance and deployment...
a year ago
Mojo is a new programming language, based on Python, which fixes Python’s performance and deployment problems.
The Gradient
What Do LLMs Know About Linguistics? It Depends on How You Ask
On the phenomenon of LLM sensitivity to prompting choices through two core linguistic tasks and...
a year ago
On the phenomenon of LLM sensitivity to prompting choices through two core linguistic tasks and categorize how specific prompting choices can affect the model's behavior.
fast.ai
From Deep Learning Foundations to Stable Diffusion
Practical Deep Learning for Coders part 2, 2022
over a year ago
Practical Deep Learning for Coders part 2, 2022
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...
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...
a week 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
How to leverage long form content with AI
Specific tools and tactics for authors, podcasters, and videographers.
6 months ago
Specific tools and tactics for authors, podcasters, and videographers.
Society's Backend
All Machine Learning Resources and Updates 06/14/2024
Below are all machine learning resources and updates from the past week you don't want to miss. I’ve...
6 months ago
Below are all machine learning resources and updates from the past week you don't want to miss. I’ve decided to try out separating paid/free updates. I’m constantly trying new ways to make information consumption easier for you while working within the confines of the platforms...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 040: GPTs
November 10, 2023.
a year 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...
Society's Backend
Stop Obsessing Over the Product and Start Thinking About the Bigger Picture
The actual takeaways from the iPhone 15 event
a year ago
The actual takeaways from the iPhone 15 event
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 043: Happy birthday, ChatGPT
December 1, 2023.
a year ago
Daniel Miessler
Humiliation is Deadly
I’ve been thinking for a few years about the danger presented by humiliated people and groups. That...
over a year ago
I’ve been thinking for a few years about the danger presented by humiliated people and groups. That is, people who not only feel like they have no respect and no options to gain any respect, but who also feel that: They deserve those things, and… That someone else is the cause of...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 070: AI whistleblowers
June 7, 2024.
6 months ago
Rozado’s Visual...
Prevalence of Prejudice-Denoting Words in News Media Discourse
Summary of manuscript “Prevalence of Prejudice-Denoting Words in News Media Discourse: A...
over a year ago
Summary of manuscript “Prevalence of Prejudice-Denoting Words in News Media Discourse: A Chronological Analysis”
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...
Weighty Thoughts
When the AI Bubble Bursts
It’s when, not if, for these kinds of new technologies
5 months ago
It’s when, not if, for these kinds of new technologies
Daniel Miessler
The 2 Current Major AI Bottlenecks
I’ve been going hardcore on using GPT to create essays, reports, and other kinds of analysis. I’ve...
a year ago
I’ve been going hardcore on using GPT to create essays, reports, and other kinds of analysis. I’ve had tons of success with it, and it’s given me a clear view of current limitations with the current tech. I’m not complaining. This stuff is brand-new. Here are the current...
Society's Backend
OpenAI's o1, Model Merging, California Approves AI Regulation, and More
Machine learning resources and updates 2024-09-17
3 months ago
Machine learning resources and updates 2024-09-17
Daniel Miessler
NO. 355 | NEWS & ANALYSIS SERIES
SECURITY NEWS ⛔️ There is likely to be a critical TLS vulnerability released this week. Consider...
over a year ago
SECURITY NEWS ⛔️ There is likely to be a critical TLS vulnerability released this week. Consider getting your teams ready by looking for your instances before it drops. ZDNET | GLOBALSIGN | REDDIT DISCUSSION The US accused 13 Chinese nationals of committing espionage-related...
The Gradient
Do text embeddings perfectly encode text?
'Vec2text' can serve as a solution for accurately reverting embeddings back into text, thus...
9 months ago
'Vec2text' can serve as a solution for accurately reverting embeddings back into text, thus highlighting the urgent need for revisiting security protocols around embedded data.
Society's Backend
The FTC Cracks Down on Fake AI-Generated Reviews, Midjourney Available on the Web, AI Used to Farm...
Machine learning resources and updates 8/26/2024
3 months ago
Machine learning resources and updates 8/26/2024
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
Weighty Thoughts
What is Defensibility?
Back to basics for AI startups and others
8 months ago
Back to basics for AI startups and others
Stories by Andrej...
A Peek at Trends in Machine Learning
over a year ago
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...
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
Society's Backend
LLM-as-a-Judge, Instruction Pretraining, Solving Benchmarks Instead of Real-World ML Problems, and...
Weekly updates and resources 7/22/24
5 months ago
Weekly updates and resources 7/22/24
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Robot Dog Handstand
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...
Daniel Miessler
NO. 361 | GPT++, Apple Security, CISA Cuba…
SECURITY NEWS South Korean authorities are warning that North Koreans are disguising themselves and...
over a year ago
SECURITY NEWS South Korean authorities are warning that North Koreans are disguising themselves and getting jobs in South Korea. The saddest part is that it appears to be just another income generation scheme, meaning they use the salaries to fund the North Korean nuclear...
Strange Loop Canon
Evaluations are all we need
On analysing talent in LLMs
11 months ago
On analysing talent in LLMs
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...
Artificial Ignorance
Why Claude 3 is a big upgrade
On Monday, Anthropic released Claude 3, a family of models that hit new highs on various benchmarks,...
9 months ago
On Monday, Anthropic released Claude 3, a family of models that hit new highs on various benchmarks, add multi-modal capabilities, and are a real competitor to GPT-4.
Artificial Ignorance
Who in their right mind would do an AI hardware startup
From megaFLOPS to mega flops.
8 months ago
From megaFLOPS to mega flops.
One Useful Thing
The Lazy Tyranny of the Wait Calculation
Taking AI timelines seriously
11 months ago
Taking AI timelines seriously
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 068: The ScarJo thing
May 24, 2024.
7 months ago
Frank’s Ramblings
Vision Transformers are Overrated
Vision transformers (ViTs) have seen an incredible rise in the past four years. They have an obvious...
11 months 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...
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
Matt Mazur
The Kenya Quick Answer Goes Viral, Again
On Thursday evening Chris Ingraham, a journalist with 100k followers on Twitter, shared a screenshot...
a year ago
On Thursday evening Chris Ingraham, a journalist with 100k followers on Twitter, shared a screenshot of the now-famous “african country that starts with k” Google Quick Answer, which quickly went viral, garnering over 82k likes and 3 million views as of the time of this writing...
Sam Altman
Productivity
I think I am
at least somewhat more productive than average, and people sometimes ask me...
over a year ago
I think I am
at least somewhat more productive than average, and people sometimes ask me for
productivity tips. So I decided to just write them all down in one place.
Compound
growth gets discussed as a financial concept, but it works in careers as well,
and it is magic. A...
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
What Apple Intelligence Means for You
"We think you're gonna LOVE it"
6 months ago
"We think you're gonna LOVE it"
Frank’s Ramblings
My Experience Living and Working in China, Part I
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...
One Useful Thing
AI is not good software. It is pretty good people.
A pragmatic approach to thinking about AI
a year ago
A pragmatic approach to thinking about AI
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Happy Holidays!
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE...
2 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.
ICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA,...
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...
Society's Backend
Mastering the Art of Documentation
Documentation is really just glorified dog sitting
a year ago
Documentation is really just glorified dog sitting
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...
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!
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 031: Think of the children
September 8, 2023
a year ago
Daniel Miessler
Napkin Ideas Around What Changes to Expect Post-ChatGPT
Work Replacement Talent Magnification Solopreneuers AI Specialists Idea Dominance Use Cases Random...
over a year ago
Work Replacement Talent Magnification Solopreneuers AI Specialists Idea Dominance Use Cases Random Thoughts If you’re reading this you already know the internet is on fire over the new GPTChatBot from OpenAI. There are people using it to create full virtual machines, to be their...
Rozado’s Visual...
A brief response to a reader regarding prejudice denoting terms in Swedish media
Regarding when Swedish media started to increase mentions of prejudice denoting terminology and a...
a week ago
Regarding when Swedish media started to increase mentions of prejudice denoting terminology and a reader comments about it, several things to note:
Daniel Miessler
My Prediction For Twitter
I’m a bit Elon and Twittered out, but I want to capture a basic prediction about all the...
over a year ago
I’m a bit Elon and Twittered out, but I want to capture a basic prediction about all the shenanigans. As for my take on things, I will just say that Elon miscalculated a number of things in his handling of the transition. I think he thought his actions would be better received....
Society's Backend
I Beat Newsletter Fatigue With AI
And why direct forms of communication will always be super valuable
10 months ago
And why direct forms of communication will always be super valuable
Artificial Ignorance
AI and the workplace
How employees and CEOs alike can plan for the future.
7 months ago
How employees and CEOs alike can plan for the future.
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
Distributing the future
A reminder that things take time.
6 months ago
A reminder that things take time.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 063: Llama 3
April 19, 2024.
8 months ago
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!
Marcus on AI
Which CEO will be the last to see it?
What kept me going during the dark years of 2022 and 2023 when Generative AI was wildly overhyped...
2 weeks ago
What kept me going during the dark years of 2022 and 2023 when Generative AI was wildly overhyped and I was constantly ridiculed was the secure knowledge that the truth would eventually come out.
One Useful Thing
An AI Haunted World
Intelligence, everywhere.
a year ago
Intelligence, everywhere.
Made by Ollin
Acapella Extraction with ConvNets
A working prototype
over a year ago
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
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.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 059: In̶f̶l̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ Microsoft AI
March 22, 2023.
9 months ago
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
Daniel Miessler
News & Analysis | NO. 351
over a year ago
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
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...
9 months ago
Details on Metas training clusters, analysis of ML competitions in 2023, AI's impact on water resources, and more
Made by Ollin
Priors for Autonomous Vehicle Development
over a year ago
Society's Backend
Machine Learning Infrastructure: The Bridge Between Software Engineering and AI
What makes machine learning infra so important and why I find it so interesting
a year ago
What makes machine learning infra so important and why I find it so interesting
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...
Society's Backend
Taking the AI to Consumers
The Google Pixel 8 Pro is a much bigger deal than you think
a year ago
The Google Pixel 8 Pro is a much bigger deal than you think
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.
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.
Artificial Ignorance
Tutorial: How to narrate video with Sora, GPT-Vision, and ElevenLabs
The future of entertainment is going to be a wild ride.
9 months ago
The future of entertainment is going to be a wild ride.
One Useful Thing
Which AI should I use? Superpowers and the State of Play
And then there were three...
9 months ago
And then there were three...
Matt Mazur
Turning Down $7k for a Side Project I Announced Two Weeks Ago I was Shutting Down
About two weeks ago I announced I was shutting down LearnGPT. After the announcement, I received a...
a year ago
About two weeks ago I announced I was shutting down LearnGPT. After the announcement, I received a lot of interest from people interested in taking it over, so I decided to try to sell it instead of shutting it down. I wound up receiving two offers, one for $6.5k and one for $7k,...
Marcus on AI
Update re: Microsoft and training data
Relevant to the post I sent earlier today,...
3 weeks ago
Relevant to the post I sent earlier today, https://www.howtogeek.com/is-microsoft-using-your-word-documents-to-train-ai/says that an unnamed spokesperson at Microsoft claims that “Microsoft does not use customer data from Microsoft 365 consumer and commercial applications to...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 058: Devin and SIMA
March 15, 2023.
9 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...
9 months ago
Updates on Apple, Mistral, and Microsoft and resources to build the GPT tokenizer, use MLX to train models, and benchmark LLMs
Society's Backend
Things Everyone Should Understand About the Stanford AI Index Report
And my notes on why they’re important
8 months ago
And my notes on why they’re important
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 077: A good week for open-source
July 26, 2024.
4 months ago
Artificial Ignorance
GPT-4o and the illusion of AGI
Why speed and multimodality is becoming the name of the game.
7 months ago
Why speed and multimodality is becoming the name of the game.
Daniel Miessler
NO. 357 | NEWS, ANALYSIS, & DISCOVERY SERIES
SECURITY NEWS Attackers have dumped nearly 8 million Australian health records on the dark web after...
over a year ago
SECURITY NEWS Attackers have dumped nearly 8 million Australian health records on the dark web after breaching a health insurance company with almost 10 million customers. MORE NSA has released guidance asking companies to switch to memory-safe languages like Rust, C#, Go, and...
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
Matt Mazur
Friday Updates: Smart Icons, Automatic Suggestions, Dealing with Spammers, Better Icon Colors
Preceden Lots of updates to Preceden this week: Improving the UX for the AI Suggestions When we...
a year ago
Preceden Lots of updates to Preceden this week: Improving the UX for the AI Suggestions When we rolled out the AI Suggestions feature last week, the typical experience for the user would go something like this: Lots of UX issues there though: To remedy this, I updated Preceden to...
Daniel Miessler
GPT and Search
There’s a lot of talk about how GPT is going to take over search. Meaning, compete with or take down...
over a year ago
There’s a lot of talk about how GPT is going to take over search. Meaning, compete with or take down Google. I get the excitement there, but there are some pretty serious barriers to having this happen immediately. First, GPT is non-deterministic, meaning you can ask it the same...
Weighty Thoughts
I'm writing a book!
Why I've been gone over a month, and how you can help
3 weeks ago
Why I've been gone over a month, and how you can help
Artificial Ignorance
The Industrial Content Revolution
A fundamental change in the structure the internet.
a year ago
A fundamental change in the structure the internet.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 084: Strawberry / o1
September 13, 2024.
3 months ago
Rozado’s Visual...
The Political Preferences of LLMs
Substantial political homogeneity in Large Language Models (LLMs) responses to questions with...
10 months ago
Substantial political homogeneity in Large Language Models (LLMs) responses to questions with political connotations
One Useful Thing
The Best Available Human Standard
What are the imperatives of the upside?
a year ago
What are the imperatives of the upside?
Weighty Thoughts
Most AI startups are doomed
Just because it matters doesn’t mean it’s defensible or profitable
a year ago
Just because it matters doesn’t mean it’s defensible or profitable
Daniel Miessler
NO. 363 | FrontView Mirror: 2023 Edition
New Content 💡FRONTVIEW MIRROR: 2023 EDITION 💡MY PHILOSOPHY AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE LASTPASS...
a year ago
New Content 💡FRONTVIEW MIRROR: 2023 EDITION 💡MY PHILOSOPHY AND RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE LASTPASS BREACHES SECURITY NEWS In a bit of Deja Vu from LastPass, Okta has now revealed that attackers have stolen source code from its GitHub repositories. This comes after it was hit by...
Artificial Ignorance
YC is now 80% AI startups (S24)
Analyzing the latest companies out of "AI Combinator"
2 months ago
Analyzing the latest companies out of "AI Combinator"
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 034: Meta Connect
September 29, 2023
a year ago
The Berkeley...
Rethinking the Role of PPO in RLHF
Rethinking the Role of PPO in RLHF
TL;DR: In RLHF, there’s tension between the reward learning...
a year ago
Rethinking the Role of PPO in RLHF
TL;DR: In RLHF, there’s tension between the reward learning phase, which uses human preference in the form of comparisons, and the RL fine-tuning phase, which optimizes a single, non-comparative reward. What if we performed RL in a comparative...
Artificial Ignorance
Who's winning the AI arms race?
It depends whether AI is a "disruptive" or "sustaining" technology.
a year ago
It depends whether AI is a "disruptive" or "sustaining" technology.
AI Snake Oil
Quantifying ChatGPT’s gender bias
Benchmarks allow us to dig deeper into what causes biases and what can be done about it
a year ago
Benchmarks allow us to dig deeper into what causes biases and what can be done about it
Society's Backend
Why Machine Learning Systems Misbehave
And what makes them so difficult to work with
5 months ago
And what makes them so difficult to work with
The Gradient
Mamba Explained
Is Attention all you need? Mamba, a novel AI model based on State Space Models (SSMs), emerges as a...
8 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.
Daniel Miessler
Custom Models Are AI’s Killer App
The killer app for AI right now is the universal “custom AI model”. Consume your whole business. Or...
a year ago
The killer app for AI right now is the universal “custom AI model”. Consume your whole business. Or your whole life experience. Every text. Every Slack. Every journal entry. Every blog post. Everything you’ve said or written publicly. All your logs. All your documentation. Turn...
The Berkeley...
How to Evaluate Jailbreak Methods: A Case Study with the StrongREJECT Benchmark
When we began studying jailbreak evaluations, we found a fascinating paper claiming that you could...
3 months ago
When we began studying jailbreak evaluations, we found a fascinating paper claiming that you could jailbreak frontier LLMs simply by translating forbidden prompts into obscure languages. Excited by this result, we attempted to reproduce it and found something unexpected.
The...
The Berkeley...
Linguistic Bias in ChatGPT: Language Models Reinforce Dialect Discrimination
Sample language model responses to different varieties of English and native speaker...
3 months ago
Sample language model responses to different varieties of English and native speaker reactions.
ChatGPT does amazingly well at communicating with people in English. But whose English?
Only 15% of ChatGPT users are from the US, where Standard American English is the default. But...
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
Rozado’s Visual...
ChatGPT no longer displays a clear left-leaning political bias
Update (20/01/2023): Results of administering 15 political orientation tests to ChatGPT Twitter...
a year ago
Update (20/01/2023): Results of administering 15 political orientation tests to ChatGPT Twitter Thread Summary Between December 5-6, I applied 4 political orientation tests to ChatGPT. Results were consistent across the tests. All 4 tests diagnosed ChatGPT answers to their...
Strange Loop Canon
Whither Utopia?
The mystery of why we don't dream of building perfect societies anymore
6 months ago
The mystery of why we don't dream of building perfect societies anymore
One Useful Thing
Working with AI: Two paths to prompting
Don't overcomplicate things
a year ago
Don't overcomplicate things
Weighty Thoughts
Commentary on Technology, Startups, and Investing
Welcome to Weighty Thoughts by me, James Wang. General Partner at Creative Ventures. Ex-Bridgewater...
over a year ago
Welcome to Weighty Thoughts by me, James Wang. General Partner at Creative Ventures. Ex-Bridgewater and Google X. Co-Founder Lioness. Sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue. In the meantime, tell your friends!
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.
Sam Altman
Project Covalence
Almost every company and non-profit working on COVID-19 that I offered to help asked for support...
over a year ago
Almost every company and non-profit working on COVID-19 that I offered to help asked for support with clinical trials—for companies focusing on developing novel drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics, rapidly spinning up trials is one of their biggest bottlenecks.
Science remains the...
One Useful Thing
Detecting the Secret Cyborgs
The AI Trap for Organizations
a year ago
The AI Trap for Organizations
Made by Ollin
NVIDIA Internship (2017)
Notes on my internship at NVIDIA Redmond.
over a year ago
Notes on my internship at NVIDIA Redmond.
Artificial Ignorance
The subscriptionization of AI
Navigating the paid AI landscape.
9 months ago
Navigating the paid AI landscape.
Sam Altman
American Equity
I’d like feedback on the following idea.
I think that every adult US citizen should get an annual...
over a year ago
I’d like feedback on the following idea.
I think that every adult US citizen should get an annual share of the US GDP.
I believe that owning something like a share in America would align all of us in making the country as successful as possible—the better the country does, the...
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...
9 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?
Weighty Thoughts
Deep Tech Startups Are Not Software Startups
Or why AI and “Software/SaaS” are apples and oranges
10 months ago
Or why AI and “Software/SaaS” are apples and oranges
Marcus on AI
An epidemic of weirdly precise AI butt facts
The parade of made-up numbers never stops
a month ago
The parade of made-up numbers never stops
Artificial Ignorance
The AI research tool that saves me hours every week
And why it might revolutionize the search industry.
11 months ago
And why it might revolutionize the search industry.
Artificial Ignorance
Milestones, motivations, and miscellany
Some thoughts on the future of this newsletter.
5 months ago
Some thoughts on the future of this newsletter.
One Useful Thing
Everyone is above average
Is AI a Leveler, King Maker, or Escalator?
a year ago
Is AI a Leveler, King Maker, or Escalator?
Jascha’s blog
Too much efficiency makes everything worse: overfitting and the strong version of Goodhart’s law
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
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...
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...
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
Weighty Thoughts
Open AI's Valuation and a Favor to Ask
A guest post and an in-person panel
4 months ago
A guest post and an in-person panel
Weighty Thoughts
The Mystical Q
OpenAI Q*, Primer on Reinforcement Learning, and Implications
a year ago
OpenAI Q*, Primer on Reinforcement Learning, and Implications
The Berkeley...
Goal Representations for Instruction Following
Goal Representations for Instruction Following
Figure title. Figure caption. This image is...
a year ago
Goal Representations for Instruction Following
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page width. -->
A longstanding goal of the field of robot learning has been to create generalist agents that can perform tasks for humans. Natural language has...
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).
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.
Frank’s Ramblings
A Gentle Introduction to Vector Databases
Update: An earlier version of this post was cross-published to the Zilliz learning center, Medium,...
over a year ago
Update: An earlier version of this post was cross-published to the Zilliz learning center, Medium, and DZone.
If you have any feedback, feel free to connect with me on Twitter or Linkedin. If you enjoyed this post and want to learn a bit more about vector databases and embeddings...
Society's Backend
Meet Devansh: Lessons Learned While Building a Community of 193,000 Subscribers
Content creation and networking lessons from a wildly successful freelance tech writer
a year ago
Content creation and networking lessons from a wildly successful freelance tech writer
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...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 071: How do you like them AIs
June 14, 2024.
6 months ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 057: Claude 3
March 8, 2024.
9 months ago
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?
One Useful Thing
The future, soon: what I learned from Bing's AI
We had a brief glimpse of two different types of AI. Both are significant
a year ago
We had a brief glimpse of two different types of AI. Both are significant
Daniel Miessler
News & Analysis | NO. 350
over a year ago
One Useful Thing
Scaling: The State of Play in AI
A brief intergenerational pause...
3 months ago
A brief intergenerational pause...
Artificial Ignorance
Tutorial: How to make and share custom GPTs
They're not going to disrupt everything (yet), but they're a ton of fun.
a year ago
They're not going to disrupt everything (yet), but they're a ton of fun.
Society's Backend
Should You Get a PhD?
The one good reason to do a PhD and two others that fall flat
2 months ago
The one good reason to do a PhD and two others that fall flat
Rozado’s Visual...
An Analysis of AI Political Preferences from a European Perspective
Introduction
a month ago
AI Snake Oil
Is the future of AI open or closed? Watch today’s Princeton-Stanford workshop
By Sayash Kapoor, Rishi Bommasani, Percy Liang, Arvind Narayanan Perhaps the biggest tech policy...
a year ago
By Sayash Kapoor, Rishi Bommasani, Percy Liang, Arvind Narayanan Perhaps the biggest tech policy debate today is about the future of AI, especially foundation models and generative AI. Will AI be open or closed? Will we be able to download and modify these models, or will a few...
AI Snake Oil
Artists can now opt out of generative AI. It’s not enough.
Opting out is the latest example of generative AI developers externalizing costs.
a year ago
Opting out is the latest example of generative AI developers externalizing costs.
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...
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...
Artificial Ignorance
Workshop: Prompt Engineering for Claude
Watch now | If you’ve ever wanted to level up your AI prompting skills, this is the workshop for...
2 months ago
Watch now | If you’ve ever wanted to level up your AI prompting skills, this is the workshop for you.
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
Run Your Own Race
What Bluey can teach us about machine learning
8 months ago
What Bluey can teach us about machine learning
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 097: Model Mayhem
December 13, 2024.
a week ago
Sam Altman
How To Be Successful
I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of...
over a year ago
I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter.
Here are 13 thoughts about how to achieve such outlier...
fast.ai
In defense of screen time
Pundits say my husband and I are parenting wrong.
a month ago
Pundits say my husband and I are parenting wrong.
Artificial Ignorance
Stop begging for JSON
How OpenAI's Structured Outputs makes building with AI much more reliable.
a week ago
How OpenAI's Structured Outputs makes building with AI much more reliable.
fast.ai
A New Chapter for fast.ai: How To Solve It With Code
fast.ai is joining Answer.AI, and we’re announcing a new kind of educational experience, ‘How To...
a month ago
fast.ai is joining Answer.AI, and we’re announcing a new kind of educational experience, ‘How To Solve It With Code’
Society's Backend
The Unfortunate Truth Regarding AI Regulation
And the impact it'll have for decades to come
6 months ago
And the impact it'll have for decades to come
Society's Backend
Would You Build the Manhattan Project in the UAE?
Thoughts on AI national security threats
6 months ago
Thoughts on AI national security threats
The Berkeley...
Why do Policy Gradient Methods work so well in Cooperative MARL? Evidence from Policy Representation
In cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), due to its on-policy nature, policy...
over a year ago
In cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), due to its on-policy nature, policy gradient (PG) methods are typically believed to be less sample efficient than value decomposition (VD) methods, which are off-policy. However, some recent empirical studies demonstrate...
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...
Weighty Thoughts
What’s coming next for AI in 2024
A long overdue VC apocalypse and the birth of the first real AI companies
11 months ago
A long overdue VC apocalypse and the birth of the first real AI companies
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 091: Search wars
November 1, 2024.
a month ago
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...
2 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...
Stories by Andrej...
Yes you should understand backprop
over a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
The State of AI Engineering
Notes from the first AI Engineer Summit.
a year ago
Notes from the first AI Engineer Summit.
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
Sam Altman
Reinforcement Learning Progress
Today, OpenAI released a new result. We used PPO (Proximal Policy Optimization), a general...
over a year ago
Today, OpenAI released a new result. We used PPO (Proximal Policy Optimization), a general reinforcement learning algorithm invented by OpenAI, to train a team of 5 agents to play Dota and beat semi-pros.
This is the game that to me feels closest to the real world and complex...
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
I gave ChatGPT access to my Gmail
I'm sure this will end well.
a year ago
I'm sure this will end well.
The Berkeley...
GPT-4 + Stable-Diffusion = ?: Enhancing Prompt Understanding of Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with...
TL;DR: Text Prompt -> LLM -> Intermediate Representation (such as an image layout) -> Stable...
a year ago
TL;DR: Text Prompt -> LLM -> Intermediate Representation (such as an image layout) -> Stable Diffusion -> Image.
Recent advancements in text-to-image generation with diffusion models have yielded remarkable results synthesizing highly realistic and diverse images. However,...
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...
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
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 076: Grand theft audio
July 19, 2024.
5 months ago
Weighty Thoughts
AI's Future in Lung Disease and Medicine
A conversation with two radiologists—who are also experts in AI—about how AI can shape clinical...
a week ago
A conversation with two radiologists—who are also experts in AI—about how AI can shape clinical practice and patient experiences
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...
Society's Backend
Google AI Essentials, A New LLM Benchmark, Washington's AI Task Force, and More [Top 10 ML Resource...
Top 10 Machine Learning Resources and Updates Below are the top 10 machine learning resources and...
5 months ago
Top 10 Machine Learning Resources and Updates Below are the top 10 machine learning resources and updates from the past week you don't want to miss. I share more frequent ML updates on X so don’t forget to follow me there. Support Society's Backend for just $1/mo
One Useful Thing
Strategies for an Accelerating Future
Four questions to ask your organization.
10 months ago
Four questions to ask your organization.
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.
Society's Backend
Why everyone loves Spider-Man
Lessons anyone can learn from our friendly neighborhood web-crawler
a year ago
Lessons anyone can learn from our friendly neighborhood web-crawler
The Berkeley...
Virtual Personas for Language Models via an Anthology of Backstories
Anthology, a method for conditioning LLMs to representative, consistent, and diverse virtual...
a month ago
Anthology, a method for conditioning LLMs to representative, consistent, and diverse virtual personas by generating and utilizing naturalistic backstories with rich details of individual values and experience.
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We introduce Anthology, a method for conditioning LLMs to...
Strange Loop Canon
Google had a very bad week
Gemini's paradox
9 months ago
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
I fell for a deepfake Elon Musk’s cryptocurrency scam bait
A lesson in deepfakes, Ponzi schemes, and YouTube algorithm manipulation.
6 months ago
A lesson in deepfakes, Ponzi schemes, and YouTube algorithm manipulation.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 041: Lyria
November 17, 2023.
a year ago
One Useful Thing
Reshaping the tree: rebuilding organizations for AI
Technological change brings organizational change.
a year ago
Technological change brings organizational change.
Artificial Ignorance
Tutorial: How to build an AI agent (Part 2)
Part 2: Giving our agent internet access.
a year ago
Part 2: Giving our agent internet access.
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...
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
Society's Backend
I Enjoy Technical Interviews and You Can Too
A simple change in mindset that completely changed the way I interview
a year ago
A simple change in mindset that completely changed the way I interview
One Useful Thing
Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier
I think we have an answer on whether AIs will reshape work....
a year ago
I think we have an answer on whether AIs will reshape work....
Andrej Karpathy blog
Short Story on AI: A Cognitive Discontinuity.
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The idea of writing a collection of short stories has been on my mind...
over a year ago
p {
text-align: justify;
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The idea of writing a collection of short stories has been on my mind for a while. This post is my first ever half-serious attempt at a story, and what better way to kick things off than with a story on AI and what that might look like if you...
One Useful Thing
On speaking to AI
Voice changes a lot of things
4 months ago
Voice changes a lot of things
Daniel Miessler
5 Things I’m Still Waiting for With the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods
I just camped for the new lineup of Apple products, as I have every year since 2007, and I am pretty...
over a year ago
I just camped for the new lineup of Apple products, as I have every year since 2007, and I am pretty impressed. As many have said, this year was an incremental update. The iPhones look nearly identical. And so do the AirPods Pro 2. The exception was the Apple Watch Ultra, which...
Matt Mazur
“Monthly Billed Annually” is Cursed Copy
There was a great discussion on Twitter recently that began with Daniel Vassallo calling out a SaaS...
a year ago
There was a great discussion on Twitter recently that began with Daniel Vassallo calling out a SaaS for not refunding an accidental annual payment he made on their service. He intended to purchase the monthly plan, but due to an unclear UI and poor copy, he unintentionally...
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
Daniel Miessler
Frontview Mirror: 2023 Edition
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
Society's Backend
Clarifying DEI
What makes DEI important and where it fails
11 months ago
What makes DEI important and where it fails
Artificial Ignorance
Funding a new generation of AI companies
Listen now | A conversation with Evan Stites-Clayton, partner at HF0 and CTO of Teespring.
11 months ago
Listen now | A conversation with Evan Stites-Clayton, partner at HF0 and CTO of Teespring.
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
Matt Mazur
Friday Updates: Prepping TimelineGPT for Launch, Viva la EmergentMind
Preceden This week consisted of Milan (Preceden’s designer) and I getting TimelineGPT (the AI...
a year ago
Preceden This week consisted of Milan (Preceden’s designer) and I getting TimelineGPT (the AI content generator we’re working on) from 80% ready to ship to 98%. Lots of small, boring tasks like: Hopefully can launch the v1 early next week, rolling it out to 25% of users and then...
One Useful Thing
Thinking Like an AI
A little intuition can help
2 months ago
A little intuition can help
Stories by Andrej...
ICLR 2017 vs arxiv-sanity
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
One Useful Thing
How to... use AI to unstick yourself
We often lose momentum because of something small. AI can help.
a year ago
We often lose momentum because of something small. AI can help.
Marcus on AI
Two visions of AI’s future
It’s not looking good
2 weeks ago
Rozado’s Visual...
Define Wokeness! Or how you shall know a word by the company it keeps
Visualizing what words often appear in the vicinity of woke/wokeness in news media content...
a year ago
Visualizing what words often appear in the vicinity of woke/wokeness in news media content illustrates why communication is almost impossible between red and blue America
IEEE Spectrum
Boston Dynamics’ Latest Vids Show Atlas Going Hands On
Boston Dynamics is the master of dropping amazing robot videos with no warning, and last week, we...
a month ago
Boston Dynamics is the master of dropping amazing robot videos with no warning, and last week, we got a surprise look at the new electric Atlas going “hands on” with a practical factory task.
This video is notable because it’s the first real look we’ve had at the new Atlas doing...
Daniel Miessler
Reverse Transcription
There are dozens of reasons to be bullish on AI right now, especially in the GPT space where we have...
over a year ago
There are dozens of reasons to be bullish on AI right now, especially in the GPT space where we have AIs producing so much extraordinary art. But I’m excited about something else that we’re naturally evolving GPT into, which I’m calling Reverse Transcription. A bit of background...
AI Snake Oil
AI existential risk probabilities are too unreliable to inform policy
How speculation gets laundered through pseudo-quantification
4 months ago
How speculation gets laundered through pseudo-quantification
Society's Backend
The State of AI in China
Is China winning the race to AGI?
5 months ago
Is China winning the race to AGI?
Strange Loop Canon
Discovery is the original sin of the modern age
technology, living post scarcity, and how to find what you want
a year ago
technology, living post scarcity, and how to find what you want
fast.ai
My family’s unlikely homeschooling journey
Prior to 2020, we never expected to homeschool, and now we have committed to it long-term.
over a year ago
Prior to 2020, we never expected to homeschool, and now we have committed to it long-term.
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.
Artificial Ignorance
How to build an AI search engine (Part 2)
VC funding, here we come.
2 months ago
VC funding, here we come.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 052: AI, EO, DPA
February 2, 2024.
10 months ago
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...
PromptArmor Blog
Data Exfiltration from Slack AI via indirect prompt injection
Authors: PromptArmor
4 months ago
Rozado’s Visual...
The Academic Literature and its Increasing Emphasis on Prejudice and Social Justice
Published article Twitter thread In previous scholarly work (here and here), I documented a marked...
over a year ago
Published article Twitter thread In previous scholarly work (here and here), I documented a marked increase of references to prejudice in US, UK and Spanish news media content. The work summarized here investigates the prevalence dynamics of prejudice-denoting terms in 175...
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?
IEEE Spectrum
Forums, Competitions, Challenges: Inspiring Creativity in Robotics
This is a sponsored article brought to you by Khalifa University of Science and Technology.
A total...
2 months ago
This is a sponsored article brought to you by Khalifa University of Science and Technology.
A total of eight intense competitions to inspire creativity and innovation along with 13 forums dedicated to diverse segments of robotics and artificial intelligence will be part of the...
One Useful Thing
Superhuman?
What does it mean for AI to be better than a human? And how can we tell?
7 months ago
What does it mean for AI to be better than a human? And how can we tell?
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
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
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...
One Useful Thing
15 Times to use AI, and 5 Not to
Notes on the Practical Wisdom of AI Use
a week ago
Notes on the Practical Wisdom of AI Use
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)
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 050: Synthetic Geometry
January 19, 2024.
11 months ago
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.
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
One Useful Thing
How to Get an AI to Lie to You in Three Simple Steps
I keep getting fooled by AI, and it seems like others are, too.
a year ago
I keep getting fooled by AI, and it seems like others are, too.
One Useful Thing
Blinded by Analogies
What is this AI thing? The wrong model can lead us astray
a year ago
What is this AI thing? The wrong model can lead us astray
fast.ai
From Deep Learning Foundations to Stable Diffusion
We’ve released our new course with over 30 hours of video content.
a year ago
We’ve released our new course with over 30 hours of video content.
Strange Loop Canon
Slouching Towards Utopia
by Brad DeLong
a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 094: Pixtral et Le Chat
November 22, 2024.
4 weeks ago
Sam Altman
Quora
I'm a strong believer in the importance of the internet in helping people to share knowledge and...
over a year ago
I'm a strong believer in the importance of the internet in helping people to share knowledge and learn from each other. So I’m delighted to share, on behalf of YC Continuity, that we’re investing alongside Collaborative Fund in Quora.
Quora is doing extremely well. They now...
Strange Loop Canon
Power, money and human nature
Thoughts on OpenAI, a tragedy
a year ago
Thoughts on OpenAI, a tragedy
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...
2 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
AI Roundup 093: Diminishing returns
November 15, 2024.
a month ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 086: Llama 3.2
September 27, 2024.
2 months ago
Society's Backend
One Year of Society's Backend
The lessons I've learned along the way
4 months ago
The lessons I've learned along the way
The Gradient
Shape, Symmetries, and Structure: The Changing Role of Mathematics in Machine Learning Research
What is the Role of Mathematics in Modern Machine Learning?
The past decade has witnessed a shift in...
a month ago
What is the Role of Mathematics in Modern Machine Learning?
The past decade has witnessed a shift in how progress is made in machine learning. Research involving carefully designed and mathematically principled architectures result in only marginal improvements while...
Made by Ollin
Game Emulation via Neural Network
over a year ago
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
Society's Backend
AI Reading List 1: Understand Transformers, Reflection-70B Update, and LLMs Still Cannot Reason
Society's Backend Reading List 10-07-2024
2 months ago
Society's Backend Reading List 10-07-2024
Daniel Miessler
News, Analysis, and Discovery | NO. 356
SECURITY NEWS TikTok has now admitted, after denying last week, that Chinese staff can in fact read...
over a year ago
SECURITY NEWS TikTok has now admitted, after denying last week, that Chinese staff can in fact read European TikTok data. Pressure is increasing across the US government to outright ban the app, but it's quickly becoming national infrastructure so many young people. MORE |...
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
Marcus on AI
ChatGPT, at Age Two
The bullshit just keeps on coming.
3 weeks ago
The bullshit just keeps on coming.
IEEE Spectrum
Remote Sub Sustains Science Kilometers Underwater
The water column is hazy as an unusual remotely operated vehicle glides over the seafloor in search...
2 months ago
The water column is hazy as an unusual remotely operated vehicle glides over the seafloor in search of a delicate tilt meter deployed three years ago off the west side of Vancouver Island. The sensor measures shaking and shifting in continental plates that will eventually unleash...
AI Snake Oil
Tech policy is only frustrating 90% of the time
That’s what makes it worthwhile
8 months ago
That’s what makes it worthwhile
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 098: Flash Thinking
December 20, 2024.
2 days ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 062: Data is the new oil
April 12, 2024.
8 months ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 090: Computer Use
October 25, 2024.
a month ago
Society's Backend
Godmother of AI Warns Against Regulation, Apple Intelligence System Prompts, Faster and Cheaper AI,...
Machine learning resources and updates 8/12/2024
4 months ago
Machine learning resources and updates 8/12/2024
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...
Weighty Thoughts
The AI Executive Order
AKA: “We’ll do something about it later”
a year ago
AKA: “We’ll do something about it later”
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 085: You win some, you Newsom
September 20, 2024.
3 months ago
Strange Loop Canon
OpenAI's Strawberry models can reason like an expert
When models can think
3 months ago
Strange Loop Canon
I wrote a book!
AI enables us to, finally, get "soft" APIs
a year ago
AI enables us to, finally, get "soft" APIs
Strange Loop Canon
LLMs have special intelligence, not general, and that's plenty.
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
9 months ago
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
Daniel Miessler
Unsupervised Learning NO. 364 | Reality Headset, BingPT, AI+Cyber
If you're not subscribed to the podcast version of the newsletter, please add it with your favorite...
a year ago
If you're not subscribed to the podcast version of the newsletter, please add it with your favorite client. APPLE | SPOTIFY | OTHER SECURITY NEWS The FBI is warning people to block online ads due to imposters poisoning search results. They advise users to 1) check ad URLs, 2) go...
IEEE Spectrum
Robot Photographer Takes the Perfect Picture
Finding it hard to get the perfect angle for your shot? PhotoBot can take the picture for you. Tell...
4 weeks ago
Finding it hard to get the perfect angle for your shot? PhotoBot can take the picture for you. Tell it what you want the photo to look like, and your robot photographer will present you with references to mimic. Pick your favorite, and PhotoBot—a robot arm with a camera—will...
Daniel Miessler
AI Art Hack: Combining Abstract Designs with Objects
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
Artificial Ignorance
Lies, damned lies, and benchmarks
While benchmarks (and leaderboards) are useful tools, they are but a small facet when it comes to...
10 months ago
While benchmarks (and leaderboards) are useful tools, they are but a small facet when it comes to evaluating large language models. Often, they're not the best indicators of real-world utility - and I want to dig into why (and what other approaches exist).
Artificial Ignorance
Pitfalls of building with large language models
Dealing with more than just hallucinations.
a year ago
Dealing with more than just hallucinations.
Society's Backend
Bridging the Gap from Simple Algebra to Machine Learning
You probably know more about machine learning math than you think
10 months ago
You probably know more about machine learning math than you think
One Useful Thing
Democratizing the future of education
We are all EdTech designers, now
a year ago
We are all EdTech designers, now
Rozado’s Visual...
What is the IQ of ChatGPT?
Making an AI model take an IQ test
over a year ago
Making an AI model take an IQ test
The Gradient
Neural algorithmic reasoning
In this article, we will talk about classical computation: the kind of computation typically found...
a year ago
In this article, we will talk about classical computation: the kind of computation typically found in an undergraduate Computer Science course on Algorithms and Data Structures [1]. Think shortest path-finding, sorting, clever ways to break problems down into simpler problems,...
Weighty Thoughts
China's AI Journey
Talking to Jordan Schneider from ChinaTalk about China's technological ascent
6 months ago
Talking to Jordan Schneider from ChinaTalk about China's technological ascent
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 033: DALL·E 3
September 22, 2023.
a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
Jevons Paradox and the future of programming
Supply and demand in the Age of AI.
8 months ago
Supply and demand in the Age of AI.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 088: Movie magic
October 11, 2024.
2 months ago
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...
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...
3 weeks 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...
Artificial Ignorance
A stroll through Google's Model Garden
What generative AI capabilities does Google offer to developers?
a year ago
What generative AI capabilities does Google offer to developers?
Daniel Miessler
Using Custom Searches in Safari (in 2022)
I’ve just started using Safari again after being on Chrome for a while, and one of the things I miss...
over a year ago
I’ve just started using Safari again after being on Chrome for a while, and one of the things I miss most from Chrome is custom searches. There you can search Amazon directly from the address bar by doing: You can change the search prompts to be single letters like ‘a’ for...
Artificial Ignorance
How a $2000/hour escort uses AI to automate sex work
Listen now | A conversation with Adelyn Moore, an independent escort and adult content creator.
4 months ago
Listen now | A conversation with Adelyn Moore, an independent escort and adult content creator.
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...
9 months ago
New benefits for paid subscribers, support Society's Backend for just $1/mo, a referral program, and more
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...
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....
AI Snake Oil
Introducing the REFORMS checklist for ML-based science
ML-based science is in trouble. Clear reporting standards for researchers could help.
a year ago
ML-based science is in trouble. Clear reporting standards for researchers could help.
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
Can LLMs learn from a single example?
We’ve noticed an unusual training pattern in fine-tuning LLMs. At first we thought it’s a bug, but...
a year ago
We’ve noticed an unusual training pattern in fine-tuning LLMs. At first we thought it’s a bug, but now we think it shows LLMs can learn effectively from a single example.
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
a month ago
Society's Backend Reading List 11-04-2024
The Berkeley...
Training Diffusion Models with <br> Reinforcement Learning
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a year ago
function reveal() {
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IEEE Spectrum
Zen and the Art of Aibo Engineering
Sony’s team made that happen. And since Aibo’s debut, the company has sold
more than 170,000 of...
a week ago
Sony’s team made that happen. And since Aibo’s debut, the company has sold
more than 170,000 of the cute little quadrupeds—a huge number considering their price of several thousand dollars each. From the start, Aibo could express a range of simulated emotions and learn through...
Sam Altman
DALL•E 2
Today we did a research launch of DALL•E 2, a new AI tool that can create and edit images from...
over a year ago
Today we did a research launch of DALL•E 2, a new AI tool that can create and edit images from natural language instructions.
Most importantly, we hope people love the tool and find it useful. For me, it’s the most delightful thing to play with we’ve created so far. I find it to...
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
Society's Backend
Weekly Backend #7: 39 Resources and Updates
GPT-4o, Google I/O, Fugaku LLM, Prep for Machine Learning Interviews, and more
7 months ago
GPT-4o, Google I/O, Fugaku LLM, Prep for Machine Learning Interviews, and more