gavin leech @gl@schelling.pt
context maximiser @Arb
Joined Dec 2022
Unbelievably simple recent ideas in ML, often top-conference fodder:
Latvians add 's' to names because of their deep understanding of the multi-agent nature of each human mind
ingenious argument
"The paper was ok, the theory was weak. The experiments were also weak: surefire rejection in these days. people also discovered an error in the proof and the fact that [it] will not converge on certain 1D stochastic convex functions."
https://parameterfree.com/2020/12/06/neural-network-maybe-evolved-to-make-adam-the-best-optimizer/
78 trials in 3 years. Is that a lot?
No in the sense that they weren't large or unbiased enough to get over a NHST bar. (Amazing how little n=600,000 gets you if you don't nail down the design)
No in the sense that millions of QALYs and billions of $ were riding on the results
Characteristically, people cannot read frequentist results, so you can see rather different interpretations of this null result.
* or in full "We dunno because we're doing tabula rasa frequentism where we pretend we have no evidence besides these small hasty studies."
Great to see a Cochrane review on Covid RCTs. Characteristically, they find "dunno" *
"high risk of bias, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions."
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub6/full
Scholarly gags on the BBC:
"it was highly likely that ChatGPT had accessed the terms of reference for our inquiry and returned them to us, but we will be discovering during this very important inquiry some questions about current and future deployment"
"Three, how can we strike a balance between promoting innovation and protecting the public from potential harms caused by AI?
Those questions have a very uncanny resemblance to the questions we will be pursuing. Not at all defensively, our Clerks responsible for this noted that
"the following 3 questions came up:
one, how can we ensure that the development and deployment of AI is ethically responsible and transparent?
Two, what measures can be taken to mitigate the potential negative impacts of AI on employment and on the economy?
Very dry enjoyable stuff from UK parliamentary committee:
"In beginning the inquiry, I turned to ChatGPT to see what they might suggest, and in answer to the invitation to write three questions for a UK Select Committee inquiry into regulating AI, within 2 seconds,
HEEL: When did you become a Hallmark card hippie? Where’s the hatred?
NICK CAVE: I started to understand the [world's] precarious position, fret. urgent to extend a hand to this terrible, beautiful world instead of merely vilifying, sitting in judgment
important followups on "simulators"
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/523mueiug9RapHtWb/language-models-can-be-utility-maximising-agents
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dYnHLWMXCYdm9xu5j/simulator-framing-and-confusions-about-llms
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FLMyTjuTiGytE6sP2/inner-misalignment-in-simulator-llms
Sensational 70s playlist. A few streaks of 9 great songs in a row.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tjRoTAFBLtWlBaB4ktegW?si=1bee7cd588854533&nd=1
Incredibly hard track about Nixon
"The prices rise, the Market falls
Trucks go slow, Congress stalls
The VP left with the dough he took
The P tells the world he's not a crook
The tapes go hm-m-m
The AG would do anything
To help the Pres become the King"
context maximiser @Arb
Joined Dec 2022
