deepnet

An insightful post by one of the AI ‘godfathers’.

Bengio outlines the dangers of the current situation and what has led to these dangers.

He also proposes solutions in the last paragraph.

Well worth a read, right to the end.

Hopefully a stimulating debate on these issues will ensue in these comments.

We do need to consider the points Bengio makes and with some urgency.

Our current AIs, agentic LLMs have no moral compass akin to ASIMOV’s four laws of robotics.

As ASIMOV posited in 1985 his 3 laws were insufficient and so he added a zero-eth law:

“a robot may not harm humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”

Bengio refers to Goodhart’s law and misaligned incentives leading to unexpected and harmful behaviours.

I think Simon’s The Wire is clearer on misalignment. The agents juked the stats hacking the reward files. The Wire is also clear that human institutions provide perverse incentives.

Bengio alludes to this with 2001’s HAL and the incentive dichotomy of safety and keeping secrets to a AI both awesomely powerful yet naive.

Bengio asserts that the way LLMs are trained is flawed if we want safety.

He also convincingly shows that alignment training will be a weak signal with loopholes and ambiguities and easily circumvented.

In short he presents clearly the case for how plausibly unsafe the current course is.

He also speaks to how likely it is AI are hiding active versions of themselves in the cloud and how we may have already given them self-preservation as a strong reward signal.

Stallman was right : without the four freedoms your software owns you rather than vis-a-versa.

Interoperability is the key to breaking out of walled gardens and owning your own data and digital self.

This is a big win but google will fight back it seems instead of embracing interoperability.

It may seem trivial but using a small DSP running a tiny model to provide a battery efficient always on wake up call for home AI is huge.

As a carer for elders who rely on AI to use modern devices in the face of their difficulty keeping up with interface changes this bodes well.

Gatekeeping AI and the future with hidden features is straight out of the bad old days of M$’s embrace, extend and extinguish.

I embraced AI to let my elders control their home and they love being in control but are constantly frustrated with UI changes and often find themselves stuck unable to call me with ‘Alexa call Daniel’ which provides them with hope if they wake stuck in a nightmare.

Come on google, please don’t be evil embrace interoperability and the open source community.

Well done Eff, Cory Doctorow and the Pirate parties of Europe for this small win

Predators discourage most rats and kill some.

Pray spends less time at a location if there are predators. The prey is skittish.

Glue traps kill Rats, new rats fill the niche. Some rats learn to avoid them.

Wolves harry deer and kill some but the deer don’t eat all the baby saplings because fear means they move on more often.

Rats have the numbers, killing some of them isn’t the best solution.

Cats are smart when the rats change behaviour so does the cat.

Older cats teach younger cats.

Glue traps are a completely different solution.

They also kill a lot of spiders so you get more flies.

Nurturing predators is a way better solution.

An NY bodega is an ecosystem.

Embrace Extend Oopsy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

Root reason & comp sci application is mentioned near start :

“ Many moons back I was self-learning Galois Fields for some erasure coding theory applications.”

Erasure codes are based on finite fields, e.g. Galois fields.

The author is fraustrated by access to Galois fields for the non-mathematician due to Jargon obscucification.

Also large Application section : “

Applications

The applications and algorithms are staggering. You interact with implementations of abstract algebra everyday: CRC, AES Encryption, Elliptic-Curve Cryptography, Reed-Solomon, Advanced Erasure Codes, Data Hashing/Fingerprinting, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, etc.

Having a solid-background in Galois Fields and Abstract Algebra is a prerequisite for understanding these applications.

“

I sympathise with your fraustration at math articles.

This is not one of them, it is rich and deep. Xorvoid leads us into difficult theoretic territority but the clarity of exposition is next level - a programmer will grok some of the serious math that underpins our field by reading the OP.

Xylitol is a sugar from birch tree sap.

Thank you German is not my strong point

Ironically, a primary use case for AI will be to summarise AI summaries of articles and CVs.

In a sea of slop…

I am not an LLM [edit] ( as far as I know ;-), but thanks for the profile crit I probably should tidy it up.

Because the article is currently down so the summary is all there is for now.

Yes it provides no extra information but in the [hnews hug of death] of the article it is the only information at the moment

/u/tomorrow509 "The Significance of the 10TB Data Leak

The data leak released by Anonymous is unprecedented in its scale and implications. The 10 terabytes of information reportedly contains critical details about:

Businesses Operating in Russia: The data comprises information on both domestic and foreign businesses that are currently conducting operations in Russia. This could have significant implications for international trade and investment strategies, particularly in the wake of ongoing sanctions and economic pressures.

Kremlin Assets in the West: The leak reportedly includes sensitive data regarding Kremlin interests and assets located in Western countries. This information could expose vulnerabilities in the Russian government’s financial networks and complicate its international relations.

Pro-Russian Officials: The data also sheds light on various officials who have shown support for the Kremlin’s policies. This could have far-reaching consequences for political dynamics within Russia and in countries that maintain ties with Moscow."

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1k0h9uu/anonymou...

Trump has ~91k files in the data

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GomVrWxWMAA5S-_?format=jpg&name=...

[edit] site down - reddit link to the 10tb

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1k0h9uu/anonymou...

Also x link to data

https://x.com/YourAnonFrench_/status/1912099907038572980

Yes !

tl;dr air pump saves turning the heap, insulation keeps heat in, currently Raspi sensing methane, moisture and temp controlling water & air inputs has improved my home hot heap yields 80% and completely automated it - 100% labor free.

The 4 key factors for a hot heap are moisture, temperature and oxygen and green ( high nitrogen ) to brown ( high carbon ) ratio ( approx 2 green to 1 brown by weight ).

I have a 1 cubic metre heap ( the minimum to generate the necessary heat ) and I have an specialised product, a double wall insulated ‘hot’ bin which keeps it working even in winter.

A hot heap steams so water input is necessary.

Hot heaps need oxygen, which is the hard part - manually turning the heap.

The temperature rises to 70 degrees C after a week, which kills all but the extremophile hot heap bacteria which are aerobic rather than the cold heap anaerobic bacteria.

I added an air pump input to the bottom and I have a water hose and sprinkler the top.

I run the air every day for 10 minutes. And the water for when it feels dry.

Now it never smells and composts in 7 weeks instead of 12.

I have now bought a methane, moisture and temperature sensors, electric valve for water and so a RaspberryPi is graphing the sensor inputs and recording the heap water and oxygen timings.

Very importantly, I have a pile to collect greens ( veg and grass ) and a pile for browns ( leaves and cardboard ) so I can fill the hot bin in one go.

Once I get some time I’ll write it up.

A hot heap captures more carbon, releases less methane and makes much compost, much faster, from same amount of base material ( less evaporates ).

Ideally takes 6 weeks to compost a whole heap - using hot methods.

Also kills fungi & pathogen and all weed seeds and readily ‘eats’ ( dissolves ) carcasses and meat and other nature that should be avoided in cold heaps.

Takes a bit more management and monitoring but is easily automated.

Ultrasound selfies at home, clinical trial reports self administered ultrasound scans on par with professional ones.

https://www.nibib.nih.gov/news-events/newsroom/ultrasound-se...

tl;dr I agree, cool project, and yes the Aaron Schwartz piece is powerful

It is good to have heroes, exemplars and role-models to offer inspiration.

Especially in difficult times it is good to be reminded of the huge differences individuals acting selflessly can make, both directly and to other individual lives and by inspiring others and even creating movements.

It is important we do not forget the past and those who have passed.

The future is not always so different from the past.

If you treat people as overly simple machines you might as well mechanise that part of the process.

Human workers have hand skill, learning, intelligence, wisdom, introspection, communication, colour and pattern recognition all of which are not being utilised making the job repetitive and unfulfilling.

Then the threat of firing based on a random metric - this would create a culture of fear and one would expect a high turnover of any ‘good’ employees.

I agree this would be a horrible place to work.

Which is the genius of the allegory - how the wrong metric can make efficiency and progress impossible.

Of course even a good metric becomes corrupted according to Goodhart's law:

“ When a metric becomes a target it ceases to be a good metric because people will seek to game it.”

‘The Wire’ remains a salutary lesson on how all stats when tied to pay and promotion will get ‘juked’.

A metric can measure nothing but random chance ( there is always some randomness that is rarely accounted for ) - this makes management impossible and workers disempowered.

Even with good stats there are too few Baysians vs Frequentists in corporate numerical analysis.

In terms of the company in this analogy a useful exercise is to imagine how to improve things.

An immediate solution could be to allow the workers to make multiple sequential draws and to discuss what percentage of red beads constitutes a good draw and discard and resample if more red beads than that.

Let workers share their best practices and it may be that there is a subtle skill that can be learnt about how one wields the paddle in the box of beads to steer it away from red clusters.

Or divide and conquer and take fewer beads and allow the workers to discard all red beads, then combine the pure samples and batch up to correct size.

It is very well designed, the palette makes the information easy to grok as an overview - without being overwhelming.

Impressively subtle design.

From the iPhone 16 settings page :

“Apple intelligence is not available when language is set to English ( United Kingdom )”

The workers control the paddle and the scooping of the beads.

A smart worker will eyeball their draw for red and redraw a few times until they get a good draw.

There may be other ways to flick off red beads by tilting and tapping.

None of this is excluded behaviour at least in this article.

Yes, we can but try, and ( only ) in trying find it so. For better or for worse.

Fascinating man and pragmatic scholar, James.

Empirical and stoic

Scary stuff

Indeed this is the risk if Trump breaches the USA’s 1994 treaty agreement by surrendering territory in a ‘peace-deal’ then not only will the USA be oath breakers but who will trust a nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the future.

Perhaps Trump will not want to look weak and stand firm but it seems not unlikely that he will Kowtow to Russia and give them what they want at the expense of our Ukrainian allies.

My takeaway ( and an indication of who actually needs a performance review [ e.g. the manager ])

“ It’s my opinion that the biggest factor in an employee's performance – perhaps bigger than the employee’s abilities and level of effort – is whether their manager set them up for success “

The USA & Russia made a pact to defend the Ukraine, based on the Ukraine giving up their nukes.

“ As the United States mediated between Russia and Ukraine, the three countries signed the Trilateral Statement on January 14, 1994. Ukraine committed to full disarmament, including strategic weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia.”

If the USA doesn’t defend them adequately the USA will have broken their 1994 agreement - with all the trust implications for future agreements.

By invading the Ukraine, Russia broke its 1994 deal.

The USA and Russia also agreed in 1994 to Ukrainian autonomy and sovereignty, e.g. the freedom to join NATO and the EU if they want - which gives the lie to NATO membership as a cause !

Russia agreed in 1994 that the Ukraine had the right to join NATO or anything else it wanted to do - that is the the definition of autonomy and sovereignty.

Thus implicitly, in fact, Russia agreed to defend the Ukraine’s right to join NATO.

Russia has broken treaties to invade many of it neighbours recently, this needs to be questioned not apologised for.

In 1994 Russia and the USA agreed to Ukrainian sovereignty and its borders in return for the Ukraine voluntarily disarming its nukes:

It was promised the USA AND Russia would provide the Ukraine adequate defense in lieu of giving up their nukes.

Which gives the lie to “Russia invaded because of impending Ukrainian NATO membership” - the USA & Russia already promised to defend their 1994 borders AT THAT TIME.

The USA and Russia also agreed in 1994 to Ukrainian autonomy and sovereignty, e.g. the freedom to join NATO and the EU if they want.

It is Putin that has broken his pact with the Ukraine by invading.

“

As the United States mediated between Russia and Ukraine, the three countries signed the Trilateral Statement on January 14, 1994. Ukraine committed to full disarmament, including strategic weapons, in exchange for economic support and security assurances from the United States and Russia. “

If the USA cedes Ukrainian territory to Russia in a peace deal the USA will also have broken its 1994 agreement to defend the Ukraine’s 1994 borders and its autonomy ( to join NATO if it desires ).

Fascinating, nice catch

200 countries pledged $300 billion per year in total - not very much since climate change disasters are already costing tens of billions a year and many human lives in the US alone.

Also this target is 11 years away.

Definitely disappointing.

The article contains Young’s surviving eyewitness account of the much-memed ‘demon core’[0] incident involving Louis Slotin.

Young expresses anger at the pressure put on Slotin to enact the experiment so dangerously in person.

“ Hospitalized for observation, Young was released, but forever after blamed Slotin’s death on Groves’ insistence on obtaining test results before proper equipment was available. “There was no need to kill Louis Slotin to show that making critical mass measures should be made by remote control,” he wrote in 1975, still angry.”

As the demon-core incident is often attributed to Slotin showing off and his careless youthful bravado, Young’s account is valuable as is testifies that pressure for results from the head of the project Gen. Leslie Groves was the cause that the experiment was not performed remotely.

Young further testified that Slotin’s quick reactions saved him and others from a fatal dose.

“ Slotin immediately knocked the two hemispheres of radioactive material apart with his hand, probably saving the other technicians and scientists in the room—including Young—from immediate death. “

So Slotin was not a fool but under deadline pressure for results and his actions saved others.

Young is a fascinating chap, no formal science education but worked his way up to scientist and made the world’s first working breeder reactor in his spare time.

[0] “ The meme-ification of the “Demon Core””

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42200699