Monthly Roundup #18: May 2024

As I note in the third section, I will be attending LessOnline at month’s end at Lighthaven in Berkeley. If that is your kind of event, then consider going, and buy your ticket today before prices go up.

This month’s edition was an opportunity to finish off some things that got left out of previous editions or where events have left many of the issues behind, including the question of TikTok.

AI #63: Introducing Alpha Fold 3

It was a remarkably quiet announcement. We now have Alpha Fold 3, it does a much improved job predicting all of life’s molecules and their interactions. It feels like everyone including me then shrugged and went back to thinking about other things. No cool new toy for most of us to personally play with, no existential risk impact, no big trades to make, ho hum.

But yes, when we look back at this week, I expect what we remember will be Alpha Fold 3.

Unless it turns out that it is Sophon, a Chinese technique to potentially make it harder to fine tune an open model in ways the developer wants to prevent. I do not expect this to get the job done that needs doing, but it is an intriguing proposal.

We also have 95 theses to evaluate in a distinct post, OpenAI sharing the first draft of their model spec, Apple making a world class anti-AI and anti-iPad ad that they released thinking it was a pro-iPad ad, more fun with the mysterious gpt2, and more.

The model spec from OpenAI seems worth pondering in detail, so I am going to deal with that on its own some time in the coming week.

I Got 95 Theses But a Glitch Ain’t One

Or rather Samuel Hammond does. Tyler Cowen finds it interesting but not his view.

I put up a market, and then started looking. Click through to his post for the theses. I will be quoting a few of them in full, but not most of them.

I am not trying to be exact with these probabilities when the question calls for them, nor am I being super careful to make them consistent, so errors and adjustments are inevitable.

Dating Roundup #3: Third Time’s the Charm

The first speculated on why you’re still single. We failed to settle the issue. A lot of you were indeed still single. So the debate continues.

The second gave more potential reasons, starting with the suspicion that you are not even trying, and also many ways you are likely trying wrong.

The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over again expecting different results. Another definition of insanity is dating in 2024. Can’t quit now.

AI #62: Too Soon to Tell

What is the mysterious impressive new ‘gpt2-chatbot’ from the Arena? Is it GPT-4.5? A refinement of GPT-4? A variation on GPT-2 somehow? A new architecture? Q-star? Someone else’s model? Could be anything. It is so weird that this is how someone chose to present that model.

There was also a lot of additional talk this week about California’s proposed SB 1047.

Q&A on Proposed SB 1047

Previously: On the Proposed California SB 1047.

Text of the bill is here. It focuses on safety requirements for highly capable AI models.

This is written as an FAQ, tackling all questions or points I saw raised.

Safe & Secure AI Innovation Act also has a description page.

AI #61: Meta Trouble

The week’s big news was supposed to be Meta’s release of two versions of Llama-3.

Everyone was impressed. These were definitely strong models.

Investors felt differently. After earnings yesterday showed strong revenues but that Meta was investing heavily in AI, they took Meta stock down 15%.

DeepMind and Anthropic also shipped, but in their cases it was multiple papers on AI alignment and threat mitigation. They get their own sections.

We also did identify someone who wants to do what people claim the worried want to do, who is indeed reasonably identified as a ‘doomer.’

Because the universe has a sense of humor, that person’s name is Tucker Carlson.

Also we have a robot dog with a flamethrower.

Changes in College Admissions

This post brings together various questions about the college application process, as well as practical considerations of where to apply and go. We are seeing some encouraging developments, but mostly the situation remains rather terrible for all concerned.

On Llama-3 and Dwarkesh Patel’s Podcast with Zuckerberg

It was all quiet. Then it wasn’t.

AI #60: Oh the Humanity

Many things this week did not go as planned.

Humane AI premiered its AI pin. Reviewers noticed it was, at best, not ready.

Devin turns out to have not been entirely forthright with its demos.

OpenAI fired two employees who had been on its superalignment team, Leopold Aschenbrenner and Pavel Izmailov for allegedly leaking information, and also more troubliningly lost Daniel Kokotajlo, who expects AGI very soon, does not expect it to by default go well, and says he quit ‘due to losing confidence that [OpenAI] would behave responsibly around the time of AGI.’ That’s not good.

Nor is the Gab system prompt, although that is not a surprise. And several more.

On the plus side, my 80,000 Hours podcast finally saw the light of day, and Ezra Klein had an excellent (although troubling) podcast with Dario Amodei. And we got the usual mix of incremental useful improvements and other nice touches.