Tesla shareholders vote to reinstate Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package (3 minute read)
This article provides a summary of what was discussed at Tesla's annual meeting. Tesla shareholders have voted to ratify CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package. While the vote doesn't override an earlier court ruling that ordered Tesla to rescind the package, it provides a public relations victory for Musk and could help him sway a court to give him the performance options in the future. Shareholders also voted to move Tesla's site of incorporation out of Delaware and into Texas.
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How Amazon blew Alexa's shot to dominate AI, according to more than a dozen employees who worked on it (25 minute read)
Amazon demoed a generative AI-powered Alexa in September last year. There has been little news about the project since, besides some reports about a potential launch later this year. Shipment of the new Alexa is being delayed due to structure dysfunction and technology challenges within Amazon. Former Amazon employees say that the company is desperately behind its Big Tech rivals in the race to launch AI chatbots and agents. The new Alexa is reportedly still not ready for a prime time rollout and Amazon does not have enough data or access to the specialized chips needed to run large language models to compete. Amazon so far has been unable to capitalize on its partnership with Anthropic to build a better Alexa.
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Science & Futuristic Technology
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Want to make robots more agile? Take a lesson from a rat (4 minute read)
A group of researchers have collaborated with scientists at Google's DeepMind AI lab to build a biomechanically realistic digital model of a rat. They trained an artificial neural network to control a virtual body in a physics simulator using high-resolution data recorded from real rats. This resulted in a virtual rat with an artificial brain that can move around virtual environments like a real rodent. The research could provide convenient and fully transparent models for studying neural circuits and see how such circuits are compromised in disease.
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AI Will Become Mathematicians' ‘Co-Pilot' (16 minute read)
Computers can help solve the big, unsolved problems in mathematics. The latest advancements in artificial intelligence introduce completely new ways of working and open up new possibilities for cooperation in mathematics. This article contains a transcript of an interview with Terence Tao from the University of California in which he discusses the future of the field of mathematics. Tao also covers collaboration in the field, automated proof checking, new technologies, the big unanswered problems in mathematics, and more.
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Programming, Design & Data Science
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Smart Paste for context-aware adjustments to pasted code (13 minute read)
Smart Paste is a tool broadly available at Google that predicts the next state of a code environment and uses generative AI to create context-aware adjustments to pasted code. It streamlines the process of copy-pasting during code revisions. When testing the tool with around 40,000 engineers, Google found that 6.9% of all pastes in the IDE utilized Smart Paste - 42.5% of suggestions from the feature were accepted. This article discusses how Google developed the feature.
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Uncensor any LLM with abliteration (23 minute read)
Abliteration is a technique that uncensors any large language model without retraining. It effectively removes the model's built-in refusal mechanism, allowing it to respond to all types of prompts. Large language models that are fine-tuned for safety and instruction-following have a stream that moderates the model's ability to refuse requests. Preventing models from representing this direction makes the model lose its ability to refuse requests. Adding to the direction artificially can cause models to refuse even harmless requests. This article discusses the abliteration technique and walks readers through how to implement it.
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How to do the jhanas (31 minute read)
The jhanas are a series of altered mental states induced via sustained concentration without any external stimuli or substances. These states vary in intensity, with some comparable to drug-induced states. Practicing the jhanas can be a good way to cultivate attention. This guide teaches readers how to enter these states. Anyone can access the jhanas regardless of their meditation experience.
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Introducing Dream Machine (2 minute read)
Dream Machine is a next generation video model from Luma AI. It can create high quality, realistic shots from text instructions and images. Dream Machine is available to everyone for free. Examples of videos generated with Dream Machine along with a link to try the model are available.
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Programming Is Mostly Thinking (11 minute read)
Instead of pushing people to be typing all the time, managers should instead provide the materials, environment, and processes necessary to ensure that the thinking developers do is of high quality.
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