Neil Traft

What if instead of buying software from a store, you could grow it in your garden?

What an incredible tool! I think I'll be returning to this a lot over the next month!

The most interesting papers might be the ones that seem misclassified or out of place...

Haha

It's too easy to write garbage survey papers and get lots of citations. Over time, I've learned to ignore most survey papers and recognize some markers of quality.

The blog post is available: blog.arxiv.org/2025/10/31/a...

Lena A note from the author You can now buy this story as part of my collection, Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories. This collection also includes a sequel story, titled "Driver". This articl...

Just take ten minutes to read "Lena" (and enjoy the clever reference to the old school computer vision test image). OMFG so good. qntm.org/mmacevedo

It's been 8 months since I notified @springernature.com of a clear-cut case of fake references in a book chapter which they published. They have still not taken any action as they claim to still be investigating.

I will not review for Springer again until this matter is satisfactorily resolved.

Bela Fleck is so great.

UBC’s department of Computer Science invites applications for up to 2 full-time tenure-track positions. The department is particularly interested in researchers in: visualization, robotics, reinforcement learning, data management, and data mining. @cs.ubc.ca

science.ubc.ca/about/careers

Aurora: the best Kim Stanley Robinson by far, provocative ideas about ecosystems and generational ships. And also a really neat depiction of the evolving consciousness of an AI. I wept at the end.

For something in the "epic space opera" dimension of your list, I'll contribute Pandora's Star & Judas Unchained (a duology).

A Fire Upon the Deep was also quite fun with many clever concepts of different types of aliens.

Seconded, as well as the rest of the Manifold trilogy. But the good thing is that they are all pretty independent, so you don't need to read them together. They all bring a heady concoction of mind-bending ideas, similar to what Greg Egan does (though no one is quite as mind-bendy as Egan).

LinkedIn email: "You have 1 new message"

Translation: You have no new messages.

Hmm, fair point.

ALICE workshop guest speakers

This year's ALICE guest speakers 🧑‍🔬

- Angel Goñi-Moreno - @angelgm.bsky.social
- Alyssa Adams - @alyssa-m-adams.bsky.social
- Alexander Mordvintsev
- Eric Medvet - @ericmedvetts.bsky.social
- Kyrre Glette - @kyrre2000.bsky.social
- Stefano Nichele - @stenichele.bsky.social
- Susan Stepney

"Consider another human difference: financial solvency, which can be measured and quantified, just like IQ. It is heritable in twin studies and (less so) in SNPs. But would you bet that sooner or later we are going to know 'what’s going on' with your bank account at the level of genes?" Same for IQ.

Ahhh, talking about generative models, got it.

Yes, interesting thought... Is language fundamentally discrete??

What even is a continuous model for vision?

Oh, this video really brings it to life! Fantastic!

I have found Olivia's writing worth engaging with, at least. But sometimes hard to parse, like a lot of philosophy. Potentially weak arguments hiding in that abstruseness. I don't think just having a strong opinion and wanting to be heard should constitute a conflict, but there is a line.

I do know some EA folks who are real parasites on the system so I agree there's a whole category of faux "experts" causing confusion and wheedling their way into middle-management positions of minor power.

I don't think that's necessary.

Well, referring to her paper is just a way of providing commentary. The conflict of interest she's referring to is taking advice from people who have something to gain from adoption of GenAI technologies. (E.g., many experts being consulted may work for GenAI companies. Olivia is just an academic.)

GPT now has ads. 💀

They are voluntary... for now.

Reads like satire but is actually enlightened

@springernature.com where are you on this? You have a reputation to defend.

Note also that I can't tag the authors on Bsky but they appear to have Twitter accounts:
x.com/YasirFahim20
x.com/Sumanmaji94

Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers We align the aligners

Q. Who aligns the aligners?
A. alignmentalignment.ai

Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

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Every single part of this website is solid gold. 😂 Thank you!

What are the tokens on the left side representing?

At #AutoML25, Dr. Manuela Veloso calls for 3 major directions for AI research:

1) AI must know what it doesn't know (uncertainty).
2) AI must be able to continually improve (continual learning).
3) AI systems must include humans at all times to be more robust (automation is always only partial).