SB 1047 on Newsom's desk, Strawberry drops, Kendrick brings it
Employees of frontier AI labs call for Newsom to sign SB 1047. Interesting to note the varying numbers of anonymous signatories by lab: many choosing to stay anonymous at DeepMind and OpenAI, only one at Anthropic.
"The performers union, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Fund Her have each sent letters to Newsom [in support of SB 1047]."
A playbook for sending SB 1047 letters to Newsom's office.
nytimes profile on data center expansion: "[Nearby] residents rarely learn how data centers may affect their lives until it’s too late. Big tech operators are aggressively deploying nondisclosure agreements to force local officials, construction workers and others to keep these projects under wraps."
wsj on how Apple moved against a child safety bill.
The Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance now has a website. And what a website it is!
How do elite Chinese students feel about the risks of AI?
The Center for AI Safety announces FiveThirtyNine, a superhuman AI forecasting bot.
Review of neuromodulation-enhanced meditation out of Sacchet's Harvard/MGH group.
Tyler Cowen on the Daylight computer: "This seems to be the best general reading device humans ever have invented." I put in a pre-order.
The UAE and Russia score about the same on the Human Rights Index. Both much higher than Saudi!
How to engage with my big TOE. (Tom Campbell's theory of everything.)
nytimes profile of a 20-person NYC polycule.
Why Indian firms don’t scale: "India’s labor law tries to do too much; instead of merely setting standards, the statutes micromanage workplaces, colors, fonts, uniforms, and more by requiring permissions for a host of workplace activities such as changing the tasks of a worker."
Network Society Camp is October 11-14 in Austin. I probably won't be there but I've heard that many lovely people will be! Here is the foundational text, for those looking to brush up.
Help Dwarkesh build a media empire.
Hiroo Onoda kept fighting WWII until 1974... and then proceeded to split time between Brazil and Japan following his surrender until his death in 2014(!)
Dustin DiPerna on Wilber's Wake Up, Grow Up,
Clean Up, Show Up
Human drivers are to blame for most serious Waymo collisions.
OpenAI releases Strawberry. Tyler Cowen's coverage: 1, 2; Zvi's coverage.
Terence Tao on Strawberry's mathematical ability: "The experience seemed roughly on par with trying to advise a mediocre, but not completely incompetent, graduate student. However, this was an improvement over previous models, whose capability was closer to an actually incompetent graduate student. It may only take one or two further iterations of improved capability (and integration with other tools, such as computer algebra packages and proof assistants) until the level of "competent graduate student" is reached, at which point I could see this tool being of significant use in research level tasks."
DeepMind position paper: Levels of AGI for operationalizing progress on the path to AGI
Ukrainian drones spray 2,500° C thermite streams into Russian trenches.
Taylor Swift endorses Kamala following fake news suggesting otherwise; Elon... wiles out
Elon Musk now controls two-thirds of all active satellites.
Bhutan's new mindfulness city.
"By tradition, dzongs are constructed without the use of architectural plans. Instead construction proceeds under the direction of a high lama who establishes each dimension by means of spiritual inspiration."
Kendrick drops another track as he continues to bring it against Drake et al. It's very, very good.
La Baye Aréa. Benedict Evans: "Just watch it, and then remember that this is as bad as this tech will ever be."