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links 1/30/25: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/01-30-2025
- https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-recurring-dream-themes Scott Alexander on recurring dreams
- https://darioamodei.com/on-deepseek-and-export-controls Dario Amodei on DeepSeek and export controls
- he's right that efficiency improvements in AI training shouldn't reduce demand for chips; In This House We Believe in Jevon's Paradox
- I believe him if he says he's priced in efficiency improvements into his estimates for time and cost to human-level AI performance. it would be stupid not to, and he's not stupid.
- the case he's making is "no, DeepSeek doesn't show that export controls backfire by motivating Chinese AI researchers to pursue efficiency."
- I think I agree narrowly.
- China's top AI researchers aren't stupid either; they're pursuing efficiency anyhow. So is everyone.
- I think it's never wise to bet on the best people in a competitive field being complacent, even when they can "afford to be."
- Poverty is a cost, not a benefit. It's not clear to me that China's chip-poverty (or overall poverty) made DeepSeek more innovative than its American counterparts.
- I know there are DeepSeek stans out there who think everything about American culture is toxic, but the world is big, you have not read every AI paper under the sun, and you simply do not have enough information to conclude that they are uniquely innovative.
- also, whether we have export controls or not right now, it is Known that the US-China relationship is chilly and that it's in both countries' national interest to pursue independent tech stacks.
- otoh, while I don't think DeepSeek's strong performance was caused by export controls, I also think we can't make strong claims in the other direction like "if we have these export controls, Chinese AI will be such-and-such amount far behind American AI". Progress towards more cost-efficient and compute-efficient models is something everyone expects, but it's very hard to predict how fast it will happen, or whether it'll be steady or bursty, or how it will be implemented.
- if what we really care about, as Dario claims, is ensuring victory in a potential US-China war, rather than economically immiserating the Chinese, then I think it is also very questionable whether the AI that wins wars is the most "advanced" AI.
- People like Dario whose bread-and-butter is model performance invariably over-index on model performance, especially on benchmarks. But practical value comes from things besides the model; what tasks you use it for and how effective you are at deploying it.
- If you want to win a war, does it help to have an AI that can win math Olympiads? I dunno. All things equal, I'd bet on the country that's three years behind on the benchmarks and has a functional military procurement system.
- if what we really care about, as Dario claims, is ensuring victory in a potential US-China war, rather than economically immiserating the Chinese, then I think it is also very questionable whether the AI that wins wars is the most "advanced" AI.
- we should also note that this is a push from the CEO of a private company who wants to outlaw selling advanced chips to his competitors. there's a self-interested motive here.
- stuff I looked up while reading about Venice
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euboea
- home of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgios_Papanikolaou, father of the Pap smear. apparently, as with so many scientists, his wife was his unpaid lab tech.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Thessaloniki
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Thessaloniki
- former Salonika; second largest city in the Byzantine Empire; crucial port
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Loredan_(admiral)
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Veronese
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murad_II
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euboea
- https://explorer.globe.engineer/ AI tool for learning about topics; generates heavily nested, illustrated "intros". I don't love the workflow; it's overwhelming rather than sequential. If I'm trying to learn something in earnest, I need to go through it systematically rather than bopping around.
- https://www.emilybynight.com/p/why-makeup-works
- frustratingly, not a detailed how-to.
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213671118304776 I don't know how to compare this to anything, but indeed surface microenvironment makes a big difference for mammalian cell culture & cell differentiation.
- 3D culture is hard; 2D culture can't get big; solution: tuuuuuubes.
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46314-8 possibly the solution to the high cost of cultured meat is by using edible fungi instead.
- https://nintil.com/why-so-few-women-in-cs-the-google-memo-is-right Jose Luis Ricon back in 2017 on the Damore memo
then I think it is also very questionable whether the AI that wins wars is the most "advanced" AI. / People like Dario whose bread-and-butter is model performance invariably over-index on model performance, especially on benchmarks. But practical value comes from things besides the model; what tasks you use it for and how effective you are at deploying it.
Dario is about the last AI CEO you should be making this criticism of. Claude has been notable for a while for the model which somehow winds up being the most useful and having the best 'vibes', even w... (read more)
