AI Snake Oil
ChatGPT is a bullshit generator. But it can still be amazingly useful
The philosopher Harry Frankfurt defined bullshit as speech that is intended to persuade without...
over a year ago
The philosopher Harry Frankfurt defined bullshit as speech that is intended to persuade without regard for the truth. By this measure, OpenAI’s new chatbot ChatGPT is the greatest bullshitter ever. Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained to produce
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.
IEEE Spectrum
Unlock the Power of Agile for Hardware Teams
The Modified Agile for Hardware Development (MAHD) Framework is the ultimate solution for hardware...
a month ago
The Modified Agile for Hardware Development (MAHD) Framework is the ultimate solution for hardware teams seeking the benefits of Agile without the pitfalls of applying software-centric methods. Traditional development approaches, like waterfall, often result in delayed timelines,...
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,...
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
YC is now 80% AI startups (S24)
Analyzing the latest companies out of "AI Combinator"
3 months ago
Analyzing the latest companies out of "AI Combinator"
Artificial Ignorance
Dealing with AI fatigue
Notes for myself, and maybe you too.
11 months ago
Notes for myself, and maybe you too.
One Useful Thing
Getting started with AI: Good enough prompting
Don't make this hard
a month ago
Society's Backend
Things Everyone Should Understand About the Stanford AI Index Report
And my notes on why they’re important
9 months ago
And my notes on why they’re important
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 043: Happy birthday, ChatGPT
December 1, 2023.
a year ago
One Useful Thing
Doing Stuff with AI: Opinionated Midyear Edition
AI systems have gotten more capable and easier to use
7 months ago
AI systems have gotten more capable and easier to use
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 029: Hug all the faces
August 25, 2023
a year ago
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?
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...
Artificial Ignorance
Funding a new generation of AI companies
Listen now | A conversation with Evan Stites-Clayton, partner at HF0 and CTO of Teespring.
12 months ago
Listen now | A conversation with Evan Stites-Clayton, partner at HF0 and CTO of Teespring.
Society's Backend
OpenAI’s Blunder is a Loss for the ML Community
The timeline and why OpenAI’s actions are a big deal
8 months ago
The timeline and why OpenAI’s actions are a big deal
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)
Society's Backend
All Machine Learning Resources and Updates 7/8/24
Everything I've been reading
6 months ago
Everything I've been reading
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...
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
AI Snake Oil
Starting reading the AI Snake Oil book online today
The book will be published on September 24
4 months ago
The book will be published on September 24
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
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)
Strange Loop Canon
No, LLMs are not "scheming"
a month ago
fast.ai
GPT 4 and the Uncharted Territories of Language
Language is a source of limitation and liberation. GPT 4 pushes this idea to the extreme by giving...
a year ago
Language is a source of limitation and liberation. GPT 4 pushes this idea to the extreme by giving us access to unlimited language.
Artificial Ignorance
The SearchGPT Paradigm
What people (still) fundamentally misunderstand about AI search.
5 months ago
What people (still) fundamentally misunderstand about AI search.
Made by Ollin
Priors for Autonomous Vehicle Development
over a year ago
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....
a month 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
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
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...
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?
The Gradient
Why transformative artificial intelligence is really, really hard to achieve
A collection of the best technical, social, and economic arguments
Humans have a good track record...
a year ago
A collection of the best technical, social, and economic arguments
Humans have a good track record of innovation. The mechanization of agriculture, steam engines, electricity, modern medicine, computers, and the internet—these technologies radically changed the world. Still, the...
IEEE Spectrum
Drones with Legs Can Walk, Hop, and Jump into the Air
“Whenever I encountered crows on the EPFL campus, I would observe how they walked, hopped over or...
a month ago
“Whenever I encountered crows on the EPFL campus, I would observe how they walked, hopped over or jumped on obstacles, and jumped for take-offs,” says Won Dong Shin, a doctoral student at EPFL’s Laboratory of Intelligent Systems. “What I consistently observed was that they always...
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...
Daniel Miessler
AI Art Will Push the Top 1% to Human Artists
One effect I think we’ll see from all this AI-generated art is magnified status for those who insist...
over a year ago
One effect I think we’ll see from all this AI-generated art is magnified status for those who insist on the opposite, i.e., manual, human art. The more manual the better. The more human the better. Ideally there’d only be one of whatever you have, and it’d only be yours. Why is...
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,...
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?
Weighty Thoughts
What is Defensibility?
Back to basics for AI startups and others
9 months ago
Back to basics for AI startups and others
Strange Loop Canon
Mind the Gap
from empire to umpire
a year ago
Rozado’s Visual...
Sentiment Associations of Politically Loaded Terms in News Media
Summary of manuscript “Using Word Embeddings to Probe Sentiment Associations of Politically Loaded...
over a year ago
Summary of manuscript “Using Word Embeddings to Probe Sentiment Associations of Politically Loaded Terms in News and Opinion Articles from News Media Outlets”
Sam Altman
GPT-4o
There are two things from our announcement today I wanted to highlight.
First, a key part of our...
8 months ago
There are two things from our announcement today I wanted to highlight.
First, a key part of our mission is to put very capable AI tools in the hands of people for free (or at a great price). I am very proud that we’ve made the best model in the world available for free in...
One Useful Thing
Something New: On OpenAI's "Strawberry" and Reasoning
Solving hard problems in new ways
4 months ago
Solving hard problems in new ways
Daniel Miessler
NO. 366 | T-Breach, Siri++, Conception Ages…
🎙️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 Another T-Mobile Breach T-Mobile has had another security breach, this one affecting at least 37 million accounts. They...
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.
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
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.
Rozado’s Visual...
An Analysis of AI Political Preferences from a European Perspective
Introduction
2 months ago
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
Strange Loop Canon
Google had a very bad week
Gemini's paradox
10 months ago
fast.ai
1st Two Lessons of From Deep Learning Foundations to Stable Diffusion
4 videos from Practical Deep Learning for Coders Part 2, 2022 have been released as a special early...
over a year ago
4 videos from Practical Deep Learning for Coders Part 2, 2022 have been released as a special early preview of the new course.
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...
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...
2 months 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...
One Useful Thing
What Apple's AI Tells Us: Experimental Models⁴
Siri versus the machine god?
7 months ago
Siri versus the machine god?
Strange Loop Canon
Symposium: On Building God
a year ago
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...
Society's Backend
Positioning Myself: The Greatest Piece of Career Advice I've Ever Received
And how it changed my personal life too
a year ago
And how it changed my personal life too
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
AI Snake Oil
Is GPT-4 getting worse over time?
A new paper going viral has been widely misinterpreted
a year ago
A new paper going viral has been widely misinterpreted
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 078: Voice mode
August 2, 2024.
5 months ago
AI Snake Oil
Students are acing their homework by turning in machine-generated essays. Good.
Teachers adapted to the calculator. They can certainly adapt to language models.
over a year ago
Teachers adapted to the calculator. They can certainly adapt to language models.
Rozado’s Visual...
Frecuencia de términos en el periódico generalista más leído de España
Frecuencia de términos en el periódico generalista más leído de España: El País Twitter post...
over a year ago
Frecuencia de términos en el periódico generalista más leído de España: El País Twitter post Verification of integrity of frequency counts: https://zenodo.org/record/5674590
AI Snake Oil
Scientists should use AI as a tool, not an oracle
How AI hype leads to flawed research that fuels more hype
7 months ago
How AI hype leads to flawed research that fuels more hype
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...
over 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,...
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...
Weighty Thoughts
Is AI a Winner-Take-All Market?
A critical question for investors in AI
5 months ago
A critical question for investors in AI
Andrej Karpathy blog
Deep Reinforcement Learning: Pong from Pixels
-->
This is a long overdue blog post on Reinforcement Learning (RL). RL is hot! You may have...
over a year ago
-->
This is a long overdue blog post on Reinforcement Learning (RL). RL is hot! You may have noticed that computers can now automatically learn to play ATARI games (from raw game pixels!), they are beating world champions at Go, simulated quadrupeds are learning to run and leap,...
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.
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...
Matt Mazur
Full Time Indie Hacking: First 3 Months in Review
At the end of 2022 I stopped contracting at Help Scout to focus full time on Preceden, a SaaS...
a year ago
At the end of 2022 I stopped contracting at Help Scout to focus full time on Preceden, a SaaS timeline maker tool that I had been running mostly as a side project since 2010. It’s April now so I figured I’d share an update on how things are going. My periodic Friday updates cover...
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...
Daniel Miessler
Unsupervised Learning NO. 365 | China’s Decline, MicrosoftAI, Creativity Ratio…
🎙️If you're not subscribed to the podcast version of the newsletter, please add it using with your...
over 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 NYC Surveillance Amnesty International has revealed new research showing that the NYPD has over 15,000 cameras that can do...
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...
IEEE Spectrum
Asimov's Laws of Robotics Need an Update for AI
In 1942, the legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov introduced his Three Laws of Robotics in...
a week ago
In 1942, the legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov introduced his Three Laws of Robotics in his short story “Runaround.” The laws were later popularized in his seminal story collection I, Robot.
First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow...
One Useful Thing
Feats to astonish and amaze
A compendium of things I didn't think AI should be able to do
a year ago
A compendium of things I didn't think AI should be able to do
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
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 098: Flash Thinking
December 20, 2024.
a month ago
Daniel Miessler
AI is About to Feel Like AGI, and You Need to Get Ready
I just wrote a piece similar to this last week, but this one drives the point home even more....
over a year ago
I just wrote a piece similar to this last week, but this one drives the point home even more. Basically, the current trajectory of AI, with all the art generation, the language models, etc., are about to become a whole lot more instruction and response based. What does that mean?...
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...
The Berkeley...
Are We Ready for Multi-Image Reasoning? Launching VHs: The Visual Haystacks Benchmark!
Humans excel at processing vast arrays of visual information, a skill that is crucial for achieving...
6 months ago
Humans excel at processing vast arrays of visual information, a skill that is crucial for achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). Over the decades, AI researchers have developed Visual Question Answering (VQA) systems to interpret scenes within single images and answer...
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...
IEEE Spectrum
Ensuring the Security and Resilience of Autonomous Fleets with Advanced Testing Frameworks
Autonomous systems, particularly fleets of drones and other unmanned vehicles, face increasing risks...
2 weeks ago
Autonomous systems, particularly fleets of drones and other unmanned vehicles, face increasing risks as their complexity grows. Despite advancements, existing testing frameworks fall short in addressing end-to-end security, resilience, and safety in zero-trust environments. The...
Artificial Ignorance
The AI research tool that saves me hours every week
And why it might revolutionize the search industry.
a year ago
And why it might revolutionize the search industry.
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...
One Useful Thing
A quick and sobering guide to cloning yourself
It took me a few minutes to create a fake me giving a fake lecture.
a year ago
It took me a few minutes to create a fake me giving a fake lecture.
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...
Weighty Thoughts
Compute is Overrated as AI’s Bottleneck
You can’t just blindly extrapolate compute requirements
a year ago
You can’t just blindly extrapolate compute requirements
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
Society's Backend
Discussions around OpenAI's o1, Superhuman AI, When AI Should Be An App, and More
Discussions from the past week: 09/16/2024
4 months ago
Discussions from the past week: 09/16/2024
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 034: Meta Connect
September 29, 2023
a year ago
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...
Strange Loop Canon
We all live on a knife's edge, and it's fine
Or: How we weaponised serendipity
9 months ago
Or: How we weaponised serendipity
Society's Backend
Weekly Backend #7: 39 Resources and Updates
GPT-4o, Google I/O, Fugaku LLM, Prep for Machine Learning Interviews, and more
8 months ago
GPT-4o, Google I/O, Fugaku LLM, Prep for Machine Learning Interviews, and more
Weighty Thoughts
Software Engineering is Doomed
Or is it?
6 months ago
AI Snake Oil
Will AI transform law?
The hype is not supported by current evidence
12 months ago
The hype is not supported by current evidence
One Useful Thing
What just happened
A transformative month rewrites the capabilities of AI
a month ago
A transformative month rewrites the capabilities of AI
Society's Backend
A Privacy Review: Google
I read Google's privacy policy for you
a year ago
I read Google's privacy policy for you
Daniel Miessler
News & Analysis | NO. 352
over a year ago
Marcus on AI
Satya Nadella and the three stages of scientific truth
A textbook case in how good ideas are often initially throttled
a month ago
A textbook case in how good ideas are often initially throttled
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
Society's Backend
1000+ AI Agents Make a Civilization, xAI Creates the Largest Supercomputer in 4 Months, Possible AI...
Machine learning resources and updates 2024-09-09
4 months ago
Machine learning resources and updates 2024-09-09
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
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...
Marcus on AI
ChatGPT, at Age Two
The bullshit just keeps on coming.
a month ago
The bullshit just keeps on coming.
Weighty Thoughts
News Roundup: May 15, 2024
Open AI announcements, DeepSeek-v2, and TSMC Arizona
8 months ago
Open AI announcements, DeepSeek-v2, and TSMC Arizona
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.
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Agile Upgrade
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE...
5 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...
Daniel Miessler
NO. 359 | WhatsLeak, CCTV Ban, Meta Threats
SECURITY NEWS There appears to be a WhatsApp data leak of over 500 million users' data in 84...
over a year ago
SECURITY NEWS There appears to be a WhatsApp data leak of over 500 million users' data in 84 countries. They're supposedly selling the data for $7K in the UK, and around $2K in the US and Germany. MORE The FCC has banned Chinese CCTV cameras on sensitive government sites and...
Marcus on AI
Could 2025 see the largest cyberattack in history?
In a just-published series of very brief essays called “The Incredible, World-Altering ‘Black Swan’...
2 weeks ago
In a just-published series of very brief essays called “The Incredible, World-Altering ‘Black Swan’ Events That Could Upend Life in 2025”, Politico asked “15 futurists, foreign policy analysts and other prognosticators”, including me, “to provide some explosive potential...
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...
2 weeks 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...
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
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
Society's Backend
Anti-Social Media
How our technology habituates the paradoxical relationship between social media and social isolation
a year ago
How our technology habituates the paradoxical relationship between social media and social isolation
Society's Backend
What Apple Intelligence Means for You
"We think you're gonna LOVE it"
7 months ago
"We think you're gonna LOVE it"
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
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...
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
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...
Society's Backend
Why Machine Learning Technical Debt is Especially Bad
And effective ways to mitigate it
10 months ago
And effective ways to mitigate it
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
a month ago
Society's Backend Reading List 12-10-2024
Matt Mazur
Emergent Mind in The Atlantic
One of the many people who saw the incorrect Google Quick Answer about Kenya was an editor at The...
a year ago
One of the many people who saw the incorrect Google Quick Answer about Kenya was an editor at The Atlantic who asked Caroline Mimbs Nyce, one of their reporters, to look into it. Caroline interviewed me for the article they just published which focused on the challenges Google is...
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.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 030: OpenAI's $1B revenue
September 1, 2023
a year ago
Sam Altman
Hard Startups
The most counterintuitive secret about startups is that it’s often easier to succeed with a hard...
over a year ago
The most counterintuitive secret about startups is that it’s often easier to succeed with a hard startup than an easy one. A hard startup requires a lot more money, time, coordination, or technological development than most startups. A good hard startup is one that will be...
Society's Backend
The Slow, Painful Death of the Free Content Creator
It's happening as you read this
a year ago
It's happening as you read this
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...
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...
Matt Mazur
When LTD Purchasers Meet an Inactive User Policy
Last year I participated in a Lifetime Deal (LTD) promotion to offer Preceden to the AppSumo...
a year ago
Last year I participated in a Lifetime Deal (LTD) promotion to offer Preceden to the AppSumo community. Maybe I’ll dive into my experience there in another post, but I wanted to share an interesting thing that’s happening now, a year after the deal ended. AppSumo has a policy...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 092: Watermarking the AI wave
November 8, 2024.
2 months ago
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...
3 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...
The Gradient
Why Doesn’t My Model Work?
Have you ever trained a model you thought was good, but then it failed miserably when applied to...
11 months ago
Have you ever trained a model you thought was good, but then it failed miserably when applied to real world data? If so, you’re in good company.
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...
Weighty Thoughts
CUDA is Still a Giant Moat for NVIDIA
Despite everyone’s focus on hardware, the software of AI is what protects NVIDIA
10 months ago
Despite everyone’s focus on hardware, the software of AI is what protects NVIDIA
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
Top 10 Machine Learning Resources and Updates 06/14/2024
A new AI employee, a four hour video on recreating GPT-2, meritocracy at Scale, and more
7 months ago
A new AI employee, a four hour video on recreating GPT-2, meritocracy at Scale, and more
Andrej Karpathy blog
Short Story on AI: Forward Pass
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text-align: justify;
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.post pre, .post code {
border: none;
background-color:...
over a year ago
p {
text-align: justify;
}
.post pre, .post code {
border: none;
background-color: #eee;
}
The inspiration for this short story came to me while reading Kevin Lacker’s Giving GPT-3 a Turing Test. It is probably worth it (though not required) to skim this post to get...
Artificial Ignorance
GPT-4o and the illusion of AGI
Why speed and multimodality is becoming the name of the game.
8 months ago
Why speed and multimodality is becoming the name of the game.
fast.ai
There’s no such thing as not a math person
Many cultural factors, misconceptions, stereotypes, and obstacles turn people off to math.
over a year ago
Many cultural factors, misconceptions, stereotypes, and obstacles turn people off to math.
Society's Backend
Resources to Get a Job in ML, Post-Transformer Architectures, What's in Store for 2025, and More
Society's Backend Reading List 12-30-2024
3 weeks ago
Society's Backend Reading List 12-30-2024
One Useful Thing
15 Times to use AI, and 5 Not to
Notes on the Practical Wisdom of AI Use
a month ago
Notes on the Practical Wisdom of AI Use
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...
Matt Mazur
Preceden’s Spam Problem
Around a year ago, I started noticing some spammy timelines being created on Preceden, my SaaS...
a year ago
Around a year ago, I started noticing some spammy timelines being created on Preceden, my SaaS timeline maker tool. I’m honestly surprised it took spammers so long: Preceden is a freemium product (meaning people can sign up and try it for free), the product makes it very easy to...
One Useful Thing
Innovation through prompting
Democratizing educational technology... and more
9 months ago
Democratizing educational technology... and more
Weighty Thoughts
I'm writing a book!
Why I've been gone over a month, and how you can help
a month ago
Why I've been gone over a month, and how you can help
Made by Ollin
Mac Replacement Icons
A standardized, simplified, and beautiful icon set
over a year ago
A standardized, simplified, and beautiful icon set
AI Snake Oil
New paper: AI agents that matter
Rethinking AI agent benchmarking and evaluation
6 months ago
Rethinking AI agent benchmarking and evaluation
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. >...
over 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...
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?
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...
3 months ago
Watch now | If you’ve ever wanted to level up your AI prompting skills, this is the workshop for you.
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
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 080: Grok 2
August 16, 2024.
5 months ago
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...
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Quadruped Ladder Climbing
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...
The Berkeley...
TinyAgent: Function Calling at the Edge
The ability of LLMs to execute commands through plain language (e.g. English) has enabled agentic...
7 months ago
The ability of LLMs to execute commands through plain language (e.g. English) has enabled agentic systems that can complete a user query by orchestrating the right set of tools (e.g. ToolFormer, Gorilla). This, along with the recent multi-modal efforts such as the GPT-4o or...
AI Snake Oil
A misleading open letter about sci-fi AI dangers ignores the real risks
Misinformation, labor impact, and safety are all risks. But not in the way the letter implies.
a year ago
Misinformation, labor impact, and safety are all risks. But not in the way the letter implies.
Artificial Ignorance
What are logprobs?
Something to do with logs and probabilities.
a year ago
Something to do with logs and probabilities.
Society's Backend
The State of AI in China
Is China winning the race to AGI?
6 months ago
Is China winning the race to AGI?
Weighty Thoughts
Who’s Winning the AI War?
All of us, except the AI startups and VCs—unless a real war breaks out
a year ago
All of us, except the AI startups and VCs—unless a real war breaks out
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 057: Claude 3
March 8, 2024.
10 months ago
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
Rozado’s Visual...
The Great Awokening as a Global Phenomenon
The striking synchronicity with which Great Awokening terminology increased in news media worldwide
a year ago
The striking synchronicity with which Great Awokening terminology increased in news media worldwide
One Useful Thing
Prophecies of the Flood
What to make of the statements of the AI labs?
a week ago
What to make of the statements of the AI labs?
Artificial Ignorance
o3 is important, but not because of benchmarks
OpenAI's new model offers a peek at the future of AI investment.
4 weeks ago
OpenAI's new model offers a peek at the future of AI investment.
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...
over 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...
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...
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...
Marcus on AI
Where will AI be at the end of 2027? A bet
We, Gary Marcus, author, scientist, and noted AI skeptic, and Miles Brundage, an independent AI...
3 weeks ago
We, Gary Marcus, author, scientist, and noted AI skeptic, and Miles Brundage, an independent AI policy researcher who recently left OpenAI and is bullish on AI progress, have agreed to the following bet, at 10:1 odds, with criteria drawn from two earlier Substack essays by Gary...
Strange Loop Canon
AI bill vetoed; what's next?
Make AI regulations evidence based
3 months ago
Make AI regulations evidence based
One Useful Thing
Reshaping the tree: rebuilding organizations for AI
Technological change brings organizational change.
a year ago
Technological change brings organizational change.
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
Tutorial: How to build an AI agent (Part 1)
Part 1: What is an agent, and how do they work?
a year ago
Part 1: What is an agent, and how do they work?
The Berkeley...
Modeling Extremely Large Images with $x$T
As computer vision researchers, we believe that every pixel can tell a story. However, there seems...
10 months ago
As computer vision researchers, we believe that every pixel can tell a story. However, there seems to be a writer’s block settling into the field when it comes to dealing with large images. Large images are no longer rare—the cameras we carry in our pockets and those orbiting our...
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...
Strange Loop Canon
The mystery of the garage
11 months ago
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.
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...
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?
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...
7 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...
AI Snake Oil
Licensing is neither feasible nor effective for addressing AI risks
Non-proliferation only benefits incumbents
a year ago
Non-proliferation only benefits incumbents
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...
Rozado’s Visual...
The Increasing Frequency of Terms Denoting Political Extremism in U.S. and U.K. News Media
Published manuscript Twitter Thread Introduction I summarize here a published study co-authored with...
over a year ago
Published manuscript Twitter Thread Introduction I summarize here a published study co-authored with Eric Kaufmann where we examine longitudinally the prevalence of terms denoting far-right and far-left political extremism in more than 30 million written news and opinion articles...
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 028: Sunak's Safety Summit
August 18, 2023
a year ago
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.
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
Marcus on AI
The impeccable logic of Sam Altman
From a Bloomberg interview, spotted and summarized by Harlan Stewart, presented without further...
a week ago
From a Bloomberg interview, spotted and summarized by Harlan Stewart, presented without further comment:
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 036: The money pit
October 13, 2023.
a year ago
One Useful Thing
What AI can do with a toolbox... Getting started with Code Interpreter
Democratizing data analysis with AI
a year ago
Democratizing data analysis with AI
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
How to build an AI search engine (Part 1)
Working with Claude, Brave, and streaming responses.
3 months ago
Working with Claude, Brave, and streaming responses.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 087: DevDay SF
October 4, 2024.
3 months ago
Society's Backend
Why Rust Isn't Killing C++
And a consideration for choosing a language
9 months ago
And a consideration for choosing a language
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
The Gradient
Financial Market Applications of LLMs
The AI revolution drove frenzied investment in both private and public companies and captured the...
9 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
The State of AI Engineering
Notes from the first AI Engineer Summit.
a year ago
Notes from the first AI Engineer Summit.
Stories by Andrej...
Virtual Reality: still not quite there, again.
over a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
YCombinator's AI boom is still going strong (W24)
Combing through all 158 YC AI startups (65% of the batch).
9 months ago
Combing through all 158 YC AI startups (65% of the batch).
One Useful Thing
Using AI to make teaching easier & more impactful
Here are five strategies and prompts that work for GPT-3.5 & GPT-4
a year ago
Here are five strategies and prompts that work for GPT-3.5 & GPT-4
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
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 […]
One Useful Thing
What just happened, what is happening next
The tasks AI can do well are expanding rapidly
9 months ago
The tasks AI can do well are expanding rapidly
Weighty Thoughts
Apple Wins
Apple Intelligence and aggregation puts Apple in a dominant AI position
7 months ago
Apple Intelligence and aggregation puts Apple in a dominant AI position
Daniel Miessler
News & Analysis | NO. 350
over a year ago
Sam Altman
A Clarification
I made a point in this post inelegantly in a way that was
easy to misunderstand, so I’d like to...
over a year ago
I made a point in this post inelegantly in a way that was
easy to misunderstand, so I’d like to clarify it.
I didn’t mean that we need to tolerate brilliant homophobic
jerks in the lab so that we can have scientific progress.
Although there are famous...
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...
3 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...
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...
Daniel Miessler
Your Experience is Your Creativity
Creativity is usually described as an external force that graces you with inspiration. Something...
over 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...
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...
Rozado’s Visual...
The Increasing Negativity and Emotionality of News Media Headlines
Published article Introduction I have recently published a paper where we describe a chronological...
over a year ago
Published article Introduction I have recently published a paper where we describe a chronological (2000–2019) analysis of sentiment and emotion in 23 million headlines from 47 news media outlets popular in the United States. We used Transformer language models fine-tuned for...
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
AI Snake Oil
AI existential risk probabilities are too unreliable to inform policy
How speculation gets laundered through pseudo-quantification
6 months ago
How speculation gets laundered through pseudo-quantification
Daniel Miessler
News & Analysis | NO. 349
over a year ago
Matt Mazur
Experimenting with GPT-4 Turbo’s JSON mode
One of the many new features announced at yesterday’s OpenAI dev day is better support for...
a year ago
One of the many new features announced at yesterday’s OpenAI dev day is better support for generating valid JSON output. From the JSON mode docs: A common way to use Chat Completions is to instruct the model to always return JSON in some format that makes sense for your use case,...
AI Snake Oil
What the executive order means for openness in AI
Good news on paper, but the devil is in the details
a year ago
Good news on paper, but the devil is in the details
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...
Society's Backend
The Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Machine Learning Engineer
And other practical guides to understand machine learning
a year ago
And other practical guides to understand machine learning
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...
11 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,...
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...
11 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
LLMs are getting dumber and we have no idea why
Five theories that could explain how chatbots are getting worse.
4 months ago
Five theories that could explain how chatbots are getting worse.
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
3 months ago
Society's Backend Reading List 10-07-2024
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 079: Don't call it an acquisition
August 9, 2024.
5 months ago
Artificial Ignorance
Lessons from 139 YC AI startups (S23)
The evolution of the AI landscape, and YC's Copilot era.
a year ago
The evolution of the AI landscape, and YC's Copilot era.
Society's Backend
Alignment: Understanding the Multi-Billion Dollar Opportunity within Machine Learning
A glimpse into the biggest challenge in the world of AI, why it matters to you, and why it's worth...
11 months ago
A glimpse into the biggest challenge in the world of AI, why it matters to you, and why it's worth so much
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
Sam Altman
How To Invest In Startups
There is a lot of advice about how to be a good startup founder. But there isn’t very much about...
over a year ago
There is a lot of advice about how to be a good startup founder. But there isn’t very much about how to be a good startup investor.
Before going any further, I should point out that this is a particularly hard time to invest in startups—it’s easier right now to be a...
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
Daniel Miessler
UL NO. 354 | THE NEWS & ANALYSIS SERIES
SECURITY NEWS The US has implemented a number of aggressive export controls to stop China from...
over a year ago
SECURITY NEWS The US has implemented a number of aggressive export controls to stop China from attaining advanced semiconductors. And now it looks like the bans will be expanded to quantum computing and AI as well. NYTIMES | MY ANALYSIS BELOW It appears Bytedance had a plan to...
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
Artificial Ignorance
How to leverage long form content with AI
Specific tools and tactics for authors, podcasters, and videographers.
7 months ago
Specific tools and tactics for authors, podcasters, and videographers.
Daniel Miessler
Frontview Mirror: 2023 Edition
This is member content. Thank you for being a subscriber. This is UL Member Content Subscribe...
over 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
A Fundamental Overview of Machine Learning Experimentation [Part 1]
And how it differs from the software development you're familiar with
a month ago
And how it differs from the software development you're familiar with
Matt Mazur
Redesigning Preceden’s Pricing Page
Milan (Preceden’s designer) and I recently wrapped up a project to redesign Preceden’s pricing page....
a year ago
Milan (Preceden’s designer) and I recently wrapped up a project to redesign Preceden’s pricing page. Here’s the previous above-the-fold content: And here’s how the new design turned out: Few things to highlight: Very happy with how it turned out. Kudus to Milan for suggesting we...
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...
Matt Mazur
Looking to sell Emergent Mind
I currently have two products: Preceden, a SaaS timeline maker, and Emergent Mind, an AI news site...
a year ago
I currently have two products: Preceden, a SaaS timeline maker, and Emergent Mind, an AI news site and newsletter. Emergent Mind began last December as LearnGPT, a ChatGPT examples site, and I later renamed it to Emergent Mind and transitioned it the news site that it is today:...
Society's Backend
The Problem with American Emergency Alerts
In a world of self-driving cars and human-like chatbots, shouldn't the best technologies would be...
a year ago
In a world of self-driving cars and human-like chatbots, shouldn't the best technologies would be used for life-saving applications?
Daniel Miessler
My Answer to the “ChatGPT Isn’t Really Creative” Argument
There’s a river of argument about ChatGPT that goes something like this: I know GPT can do some cool...
over a year ago
There’s a river of argument about ChatGPT that goes something like this: I know GPT can do some cool stuff, but it’s really just a next-word-completion trick. It’s not doing real creativity like humans do. I get that argument, and it’s attractive to me as well, but I think it’s...
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...
Made by Ollin
A Video History of Self-Driving Cars
over a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI and the workplace
How employees and CEOs alike can plan for the future.
8 months ago
How employees and CEOs alike can plan for the future.
Society's Backend
Allen AI and DeepSeek are Taking Off, Professional Advice for Working in AI, Agentic Web Design, and...
Society's Backend Reading List 12-2-2024
a month ago
Society's Backend Reading List 12-2-2024
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
2 months ago
Seemingly minor technical decisions can have life-or-death effects
Artificial Ignorance
10 of the most impactful AI stories of 2023
A quick look back on a very busy year in AI.
a year ago
A quick look back on a very busy year in AI.
Society's Backend
What Makes Machine Learning so Hard for Software Engineers
How decades of learning a mindset makes adapting difficult
5 months ago
How decades of learning a mindset makes adapting difficult
The Gradient
The Artificiality of Alignment
This essay first appeared in Reboot.
Credulous, breathless coverage of “AI existential risk”...
a year ago
This essay first appeared in Reboot.
Credulous, breathless coverage of “AI existential risk” (abbreviated “x-risk”) has reached the mainstream. Who could have foreseen that the smallcaps onomatopoeia “ꜰᴏᴏᴍ” — both evocative of and directly derived from children’s cartoons —
Daniel Miessler
Sponsored Interview: Erkang Zheng of JupiterOne
In this standalone episode we’re doing a sponsored interview with Erkang Zheng of JupiterOne. So...
over a year ago
In this standalone episode we’re doing a sponsored interview with Erkang Zheng of JupiterOne. So Jupiter One is a special company to me. I just built a vuln management program at Robinhood based around them, and I believe so much in their vision that I’m looking to actually...
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?
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
Jascha’s blog
The hot mess theory of AI misalignment: More intelligent agents behave less coherently
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...
a year ago
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Many machine learning researchers worry about risks from building artificial intelligence...
Strange Loop Canon
Strange Loop Canon Commencement Address
6 months ago
Society's Backend
AI Reading List 2: Mathematical Limitations of LLMs, A SQL Roadmap for Data Science, and...
Society's Backend Reading List 10-14-2024
3 months ago
Society's Backend Reading List 10-14-2024
Strange Loop Canon
Slouching Towards Utopia
by Brad DeLong
a year ago
Society's Backend
5 Highlights From Society's Backend in 2024
The top 5 articles and resources
3 weeks ago
The top 5 articles and resources
Marcus on AI
AGI isn’t coming in 2025 — and GPT-5 may well not emerge this year, either.
Much was quietly revealed yesterday
a week ago
Much was quietly revealed yesterday
Sam Altman
The Merge
A popular topic in Silicon Valley is talking about what year humans and machines will merge (or, if...
over a year ago
A popular topic in Silicon Valley is talking about what year humans and machines will merge (or, if not, what year humans will get surpassed by rapidly improving AI or a genetically enhanced species). Most guesses seem to be between 2025 and 2075.
People used to call this the...
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
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 month 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...
Marcus on AI
The Five Stages of AGI Grief
And a look at how people keep trying to redefine (or even revoke) the goalposts of what Artificial...
2 weeks ago
And a look at how people keep trying to redefine (or even revoke) the goalposts of what Artificial General Intelligence means.
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”...
2 months ago
Have you ever wondered what’s actually happening inside ChatGPT and Claude, but found “explainers” too complex or technical?
One Useful Thing
Freeing the chatbot
Intelligence, of a sort, is going to be all around us
8 months ago
Intelligence, of a sort, is going to be all around us
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.
Marcus on AI
Casey (Newton) Strikes Out
His continued skepticism of AI skepticism continues to miss the mark
a month ago
His continued skepticism of AI skepticism continues to miss the mark
Society's Backend
I Beat Newsletter Fatigue With AI
And why direct forms of communication will always be super valuable
11 months ago
And why direct forms of communication will always be super valuable
Made by Ollin
Maple Diffusion
I ported Stable Diffusion to my phone
over a year ago
I ported Stable Diffusion to my phone
Rozado’s Visual...
Excess mortality during COVID pandemic, % of population vaccinated and Stringency Index of...
Please be mindful of potential confounds: population density, population behavior, virus virulence...
over a year ago
Please be mindful of potential confounds: population density, population behavior, virus virulence drift, herd immunity, etc.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 060: Another CEO gone
March 29, 2024.
9 months ago
One Useful Thing
A prosthesis for imagination: Using AI to boost your creativity
AI can already beat humans in many measures of creativity. Let's use that to our advantage.
a year ago
AI can already beat humans in many measures of creativity. Let's use that to our advantage.
Daniel Miessler
How to Survive and Thrive in a World Where AI Can Do Almost Everything
Click for printable size. Here’s a quick list of things we can do to get ready for AI’s ascendance....
over a year ago
Click for printable size. Here’s a quick list of things we can do to get ready for AI’s ascendance. You can click it to get the full size to print out. This is UL Member Content Subscribe Already a member? Login
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
AI Snake Oil
Evaluating LLMs is a minefield
Annotated slides from a recent talk
a year ago
Annotated slides from a recent talk
Strange Loop Canon
Predicting AI
I revisit past predictions
4 months ago
I revisit past predictions
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
Marcus on AI
AI influencer hype gone wild
Reality is quite the opposite
2 months ago
Reality is quite the opposite
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...
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 038: Preparedness
October 27, 2023.
a year ago
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!
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 072: The new new Claude
June 21, 2024.
7 months ago
Rozado’s Visual...
Which is the Wokest AI?
A Wokeness Ranking of LLMs
11 months ago
A Wokeness Ranking of LLMs
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
IEEE Spectrum
Video Friday: Mobile Robot Upgrades
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.
ROSCon 2024: 21–23 October 2024,...
Andrej Karpathy blog
A from-scratch tour of Bitcoin in Python
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over a year ago
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Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 061: The AI innovator's dilemma
April 5, 2024.
9 months ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 055: Race conditions
February 23, 2023.
11 months ago
Daniel Miessler
Generate AI Art Using Your Own Writing
One of the most challenging parts of finishing a post is coming up with a good image. The AI art...
over a year ago
One of the most challenging parts of finishing a post is coming up with a good image. The AI art tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are cool, but a lot of the magic comes down to prompt engineering, which is non-trivial. Prompt Engineering is almost equal parts...
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
One Useful Thing
The shape of the shadow of The Thing
We can start to see, dimly, what the near future of AI looks like.
a year ago
We can start to see, dimly, what the near future of AI looks like.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 039: The governance issue
November 3, 2023.
a year ago
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 069: Project Greymatter
May 31, 2024.
7 months ago
Matt Mazur
LearnGPT is for sale. Contact me if you’re interested.
On Friday I announced that I intended to shut down LearnGPT to focus on Preceden, my main business....
over a year ago
On Friday I announced that I intended to shut down LearnGPT to focus on Preceden, my main business. I didn’t plan to sell LearnGPT because I didn’t think a month-old, pre-revenue project like this would be able to sell for enough to warrant going through a sale. It’s been three...
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
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...
11 months ago
New benefits for paid subscribers, support Society's Backend for just $1/mo, a referral program, and more
Strange Loop Canon
State of the Canon
Onwards
a year ago
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...
AI Snake Oil
How Transparent Are Foundation Model Developers?
Introducing the Foundation Model Transparency Index
a year ago
Introducing the Foundation Model Transparency Index
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?
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...
fast.ai
In defense of screen time
Pundits say my husband and I are parenting wrong.
2 months ago
Pundits say my husband and I are parenting wrong.
Artificial Ignorance
AI Roundup 027: Challenge accepted
August 11, 2023
a year ago
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