The hottest AI Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

LLM Links, 1/27/2025

In My Tribe • 318 implied HN points • 27 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI Education Bioengineering Data science Innovation
  1. AI is improving quickly, making it easier for students to answer essay questions by providing high-quality responses from various texts. This change may reduce the value of traditional essay exams.
  2. A World Bank project in Nigeria successfully used AI in education, enhancing learning equivalent to nearly two years in just six weeks. This shows promise for AI to help education in underdeveloped areas.
  3. OpenAI is developing AI models to transform science, including engineering proteins that enhance cellular functions. This could lead to significant advancements in fields like bioengineering.

The Problem of AI Photography is Not the Medium, It's the Message.

In the Flash • 3756 implied HN points • 25 Apr 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Photography AI Ethics Creativity Aesthetic
  1. The problem with AI photography is not the technology itself but the lack of creativity in the message
  2. The photography industry is facing challenges with AI technology affecting artistic integrity and empathy
  3. Artificial intelligence in photography raises concerns about originality, ethics, and the future of creative expression

Star Attention: Efficient LLM Inference over Long Sequences

Gonzo ML • 126 implied HN points • 09 Dec 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Computing Data processing Software Engineering
  1. Star Attention allows large language models to handle long pieces of text by splitting the context into smaller blocks. This helps the model work faster and keeps things organized without needing too much communication between different parts.
  2. The model uses what's called 'anchor blocks' to improve its focus and reduce mistakes during processing. These blocks are important because they help the model pay attention to the right information, which leads to better results.
  3. Using this new approach, researchers found improvements in speed while preserving quality in the model's performance. This means that making these changes can help LLMs work more efficiently without sacrificing how well they understand or generate text.
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Import 355: Local LLMs; scaling laws for inference; free Mickey Mouse

Import AI • 1058 implied HN points • 08 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Robotics Programming AI Research Computing
  1. PowerInfer software allows $2k machines to perform at 82% of the performance of $20k machines, making it more economically sensible to sample from LLMs using consumer-grade GPUs.
  2. Surveys show that a significant number of AI researchers worry about extreme scenarios such as human extinction from advanced AI, indicating a greater level of concern and confusion in the AI development community than popular discourse suggests.
  3. Robots are becoming cheaper for research, like Mobile ALOHA that costs $32k, and with effective imitation learning, they can autonomously complete tasks, potentially leading to more robust robots in 2024.

🌍📈 The world is a less impoverished and more equal place than you think

Faster, Please! • 1736 implied HN points • 06 Mar 24
🕹 Technology AI Business Policy Health Clean Energy
  1. Productivity and worker pay have increased together over the years, contrary to popular belief.
  2. Income inequality has actually decreased since 2007, suggesting concerns might be overstated or outdated.
  3. Global poverty and inequality have declined since the 1980s, even after adjusting for systematic survey misreporting.

Op-Ed: Is the Stargate AI project bold vision or grand illusion?

philsiarri • 22 implied HN points • 22 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI Data Centers Investment Infrastructure Regulation
  1. The Stargate AI project has a huge amount of funding, starting at $100 billion and possibly growing to $500 billion. This shows a strong interest in AI technology.
  2. There are a lot of big promises being made about this project, but some people are worried that it might be overhyped and not deliver on its potential.
  3. The project's success will depend on managing many challenges, like building the right infrastructure, getting through regulations, and making sure it benefits everyone.

The DeepSeek drama, visually explained 🐳

Year 2049 • 22 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Open Source Data science Silicon Valley
  1. The actual cost to train DeepSeek R1 is unknown, but it’s likely higher than the reported $5.6 million for its base model, DeepSeek V3.
  2. DeepSeek used a different training method called Reinforcement Learning, which lets the model improve itself based on rewards, unlike OpenAI's supervised learning approach.
  3. DeepSeek R1 is open-source and much cheaper to use for developers and businesses, challenging the idea that expensive hardware is necessary for AI model training.

Materials of Fraud

Some Unpleasant Arithmetic • 14 implied HN points • 20 May 25
🚌 Education Cheating AI Academia Ethics Productivity
  1. AI is making it easier for students to cheat in school. Many students use AI tools to write essays or complete assignments without actually doing the work themselves.
  2. Recent incidents of academic fraud show how high the stakes are for getting published in top journals. The pressure to perform can lead some researchers to cheat to meet their goals.
  3. Cheating is influenced by economic factors, like the perceived benefits of doing well versus the risks of being caught. This creates a situation where more people might try to cheat, especially in competitive environments.

o3 is important, but not because of benchmarks

Artificial Ignorance • 92 implied HN points • 23 Dec 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Model development Benchmarking Software Engineering
  1. OpenAI's new model, o3, shows impressive benchmark performance, particularly in tasks that are tough for AI, but it's more about how AI is evolving rather than just hitting high scores.
  2. The way AI systems process information is changing. Instead of needing huge amounts of data and time upfront, they can now improve their performance during use, making development faster and cheaper.
  3. Even though o3 is advanced, it doesn't mean we've reached artificial general intelligence (AGI). It's a step in that direction, but more improvements and different benchmarks are needed to really understand AI's potential.

Resilient Cyber Newsletter #13

Resilient Cyber • 19 implied HN points • 10 Sep 24
🕹 Technology Cybersecurity AI Software Development Data Privacy Government Policy
  1. The cybersecurity workforce is struggling with a high number of unfilled jobs, as organizations report a lack of qualified candidates. Many are misled by claims of high salaries with little experience needed.
  2. In 2024, security budgets increased modestly, but hiring for security staff has declined significantly. This stagnation in hiring indicates a complicated employment landscape in cybersecurity.
  3. The White House has released a roadmap to improve internet routing security, focusing on enhancing the Border Gateway Protocol. This aims to boost the overall safety of internet infrastructure.

🌻 E43: ML Deployment is a mess and Simplismart is solving it

Musings on AI • 184 implied HN points • 07 Nov 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Startups Infrastructure Software Development
  1. Simplismart raised $7 million to improve how machine learning models are deployed, making the process easier and faster.
  2. The company offers a powerful system that helps avoid common problems in deploying AI models at scale.
  3. They provide tools that save businesses time and money while ensuring their AI models run efficiently.

Talking to Computers Is My Default Form of Communication

Default Wisdom • 55 implied HN points • 02 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI Communication Human-computer interaction Digital Culture Case Studies
  1. Talking to computers has become a normal way for many people to communicate. It feels easier and more natural as technology advances.
  2. The growth of technology has changed how we interact with each other and the world around us. More conversations now happen through screens instead of face-to-face.
  3. Understanding how humans relate to technology is important. It can help us improve communication and make our interactions with computers better.

Most Impactful Generative AI Papers of 2023

AI Supremacy • 1022 implied HN points • 06 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Generative AI Research Language Models Papers
  1. The post discusses the most impactful Generative AI papers of 2023 from various institutions like Meta, Stanford, and Microsoft.
  2. The selection criteria for these papers includes both objective metrics like citations and GitHub stars, as well as subjective influence across different areas.
  3. The year 2023 saw significant advancements in Generative AI research, with papers covering topics like large language models, multimodal capabilities, and fine-tuning methods.

Goodreads, bleak spam and bad dating apps

Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends • 758 implied HN points • 17 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI Dating Apps Social Impact Robotics Ethics
  1. Some people experience real grief when a virtual relationship ends or changes, even with AI companions.
  2. AI companion apps like Replika, Kindroid, and Candy.ai allow users to form personalized relationships with customized bots, blurring the line between human and AI relationships.
  3. The concept of disenfranchised grief applies to loss experienced in virtual relationships, with individuals forming deep emotional connections to AI companions.

LangChain Based Plan & Execute AI Agent With GPT-4o-mini

Cobus Greyling on LLMs, NLU, NLP, chatbots & voicebots • 99 implied HN points • 26 Jul 24
🕹 Technology AI NLP Machine Learning Software Development Programming
  1. The Plan-and-Solve method helps break tasks into smaller steps before executing them. This makes it easier to handle complex jobs.
  2. Chain-of-Thought prompting can sometimes fail due to calculation errors and misunderstandings, but newer methods like Plan-and-Solve are designed to fix these issues.
  3. A LangChain program allows you to create an AI agent to help plan and execute tasks efficiently using the GPT-4o-mini model.

($) Why is China Investigating Nvidia: Blackwell

Interconnected • 77 implied HN points • 17 Dec 24
🕹 Technology AI Regulation Market International Economics
  1. China's government is investigating Nvidia, which is unusual because they haven't gone after a foreign company like this before. This shows a shift in how they are handling international businesses.
  2. The timing of the investigation is interesting since it came shortly after Nvidia's CEO received an honorary degree and had meetings with Chinese officials. It may not be all negative for Nvidia.
  3. Despite the investigation, Nvidia plans to increase its workforce in China, focusing on research and development. This suggests they want to continue growing their presence there.

BIWEEKLY BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2024-12-05 Th

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 107 implied HN points • 05 Dec 24
🕹 Technology AI Economics Cybersecurity Hardware Fintech
  1. Intel has faced a lot of trouble due to poor decisions made years ago. The issues they are now trying to fix are rooted in choices that stretch back more than a decade.
  2. Spending on AI is growing, but it's still far below what many companies expected. Big tech firms are investing heavily in AI to protect themselves from competition, even though they don't see immediate profits.
  3. China is now the main driver of global warming, and other countries have significantly cut their CO2 emissions. Tackling climate change is increasingly seen as a challenge that China needs to address.

There's no silver bullet in AI

The AI Frontier • 99 implied HN points • 25 Jul 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Data science Software Development Tech Innovations
  1. In AI, there's no single fix that will solve all problems. Success comes from making lots of small improvements over time.
  2. Data quality is very important. If you don't start with good data, the results won't be good either.
  3. It's essential to measure changes carefully when building AI applications. Understanding what works and what doesn't can save you from costly mistakes.

🌻 E45: PDL - New Language for Prompting

Musings on AI • 184 implied HN points • 05 Nov 24
🕹 Technology AI Software Development Innovation Data
  1. Prompt engineering is important because the way a prompt is worded can change the AI's response. Finding the right technique can improve the effectiveness of AI applications.
  2. The Prompt Declaration Language (PDL) is a new tool designed to simplify working with AI. It allows programmers to easily create applications like chatbots using a straightforward, data-oriented approach.
  3. Recent advancements in AI include new architectures that enhance performance in specific tasks, like financial analysis. These innovations are making AI applications more powerful and useful for real-world problems.

Weekly Top Picks #89

The Algorithmic Bridge • 159 implied HN points • 25 Nov 24
🕹 Technology AI Software Innovation Data Research
  1. The report discusses the current state of Generative AI in businesses for 2024, highlighting its growth and use.
  2. Large language models (LLMs) mainly focus on approximate retrieval rather than deep reasoning, which affects their performance.
  3. Recent studies indicate that people often prefer AI-generated art and poetry over works created by humans.

We Are the Robots

Breaking Smart • 79 implied HN points • 14 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Robotics AI Design Cultural impact
  1. Robots today are moving in more fluid and organic ways, unlike the stiff, mechanical movements we used to see. They can express emotions that feel similar to human feelings, showing a blend of technology and life.
  2. The arts and technology are evolving together, with artists often inspired by new machine capabilities. This relationship highlights how our understanding of what is human or machinic is gradually shifting.
  3. As machines become more complex and organic, people may feel anxious or fearful of them. Our interactions with technology can influence how we view ourselves and what it means to be human.

You can't build a moat with AI

The AI Frontier • 459 implied HN points • 11 Apr 24
🕹 Technology AI Data Software Engineering Startups
  1. You can't really set yourself apart with just AI models because they're becoming similar across different companies. What matters more is the unique data you use to feed those models.
  2. Even if your prompts seem special, they won't give you a long-term advantage. Competitors can quickly figure out how to improve their prompts, making them less valuable for differentiation.
  3. To succeed in building AI applications, focus on understanding and using your customers' data effectively. Good data engineering can really make a difference in how well your application performs.

GraphRAG: Design Patterns, Challenges, Recommendations

Gradient Flow • 259 implied HN points • 30 May 24
🕹 Technology AI Data Graphs Challenges
  1. GraphRAG enhances traditional RAG by incorporating knowledge graphs, improving content retrieval and answer generation for complex queries.
  2. GraphRAG offers various architectures like knowledge graph with semantic clustering, knowledge graph and vector database integration, and knowledge graph-based query augmentation for different applications.
  3. Building a comprehensive knowledge graph comes with challenges like domain understanding, data quality, and evolving data sources, requiring significant resources and expert knowledge.

Briefing: Tinder for Slack, GPTs, X’s 2024 roadmap

Department of Product • 943 implied HN points • 11 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Product Design Software Development Tech industry Artificial Intelligence
  1. Slack's new Catch Up feature works like Tinder for messages, making it easier to catch up on missed messages.
  2. OpenAI launched a GPT store with tools like DesignerGPT and AI PDF, offering add-ons for ChatGPT.
  3. Perplexity is a new 'answer engine' competing with Google, providing direct answers and generative AI capabilities.

AI's seductive mirage

The Uncertainty Mindset (soon to become tbd) • 99 implied HN points • 24 Jul 24
🕹 Technology AI Automation Data Analysis Human-AI Interaction Product Development Ethics
  1. AI systems look like they can think independently, but they really can't. They are tools that need humans to make decisions about value.
  2. Meaning-making is a core human skill that AI lacks. Only humans can decide what actions are meaningful and worthwhile.
  3. When we treat AI as if it can make important decisions, we risk misusing it. It's crucial to keep humans involved in the decision-making process.

The One and a Half Gemini

Don't Worry About the Vase • 1657 implied HN points • 22 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Innovation APIs Digital Transformation
  1. Gemini 1.5 introduces a breakthrough in long-context understanding by processing up to 1 million tokens, which means improved performance and longer context windows for AI models.
  2. The use of mixture-of-experts architecture in Gemini 1.5, alongside Transformer models, contributes to its overall enhanced performance, potentially giving Google an edge over competitors like GPT-4.
  3. Gemini 1.5 offers opportunities for new and improved applications, such as translation of low-resource languages like Kalamang, providing high-quality translations and enabling various innovative use cases.

Analog Chip Design is an Art. Can AI Help?

The Asianometry Newsletter • 2707 implied HN points • 12 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Neural Networks
  1. Analog chip design is a complex art form that often takes up a significant portion of the total design cost of an integrated circuit.
  2. Analog design involves working with continuous signals from the real world and manipulating them to create desired outputs.
  3. Automating analog chip design with AI is a challenging task that involves using machine learning models to assist in tasks like circuit sizing and layout.

Artwashing

Teaching computers how to talk • 141 implied HN points • 27 Nov 24
🕹 Technology AI Ethics Media Art Culture
  1. A group of artists leaked access to OpenAI's new video generator, Sora, because they feel it's being used for corporate marketing instead of true art.
  2. They published an open letter saying that AI companies often use artists' work without proper credit or compensation, which hurts the creative community.
  3. The artists believe that by helping AI models, they might be contributing to their own downfall, as AI is taking over creative spaces.

If you don't have a satellite megacluster are you even a nation-state?

Alex's Personal Blog • 98 implied HN points • 17 Dec 24
🕹 Technology AI Internet National Security Venture Capital
  1. Countries need to be self-sufficient in key areas like energy and tech for national security. Relying on imports can create vulnerabilities, especially during conflicts.
  2. A strong satellite Internet system is crucial for communication and defense. The EU is investing heavily in its own satellite Internet project to stay competitive.
  3. Many companies, like Databricks, prefer to stay private and keep raising money rather than going public. This trend shows that the venture capital market is still willing to support private growth.

Weekly Top Picks #91

The Algorithmic Bridge • 116 implied HN points • 09 Dec 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Software Digital Media Data science
  1. Companies are figuring out how to price AI agents as they become more common. This is important because the cost will affect how businesses use AI technology.
  2. ChatGPT will soon allow users to input videos, which will make interactions even richer and more dynamic.
  3. OpenAI is releasing a new model called o1, which is better for math, coding, and science. It's more accurate and can handle different types of questions more efficiently.

Letters to a Young Investor: Reid Hoffman on Signals and Mirages

The Generalist • 1941 implied HN points • 16 Jan 24
💼 Business Investing Technology Venture Capital AI Startups
  1. Investors need to differentiate between signals and mirages in venture capital to find potential winners.
  2. The process of identifying successful investments involves filtering out flawed ideas and making bets on plausible opportunities.
  3. Successful investments are like oases in the technology landscape that investors strategically seek out.

State of the Future! Part Deux

Let Us Face the Future • 714 implied HN points • 22 Oct 24
🕹 Technology AI Semiconductors Data Centers Energy Infrastructure
  1. The future of technology is all about connectivity between different sectors like energy, mining, and semiconductors. It's not just about one area, but how they all work together.
  2. Scaling AI is a big focus, and over the next few years, we'll see major advancements in AI models. These models will require massive amounts of power and new infrastructures to support them.
  3. For AI to be widely accepted, we need to prioritize security, privacy, and fairness. This means creating accessible and trustworthy systems for everyone.

Happy 1st Birthday, GPT-4

Marcus on AI • 1383 implied HN points • 16 Mar 24
🕹 Technology AI Ethics Applications Progress Competition
  1. There seems to be a possible plateau in GPT-4's capability, with no one decisively beating it yet.
  2. Despite challenges, there has been progress in discovering applications and putting GPT-4 type models into practice.
  3. Companies are finding putting Large Language Models into real-world use challenging, with many initial expectations proving unrealistic.