Dave5

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  • Why scientists are making transparent wood

    Transparent wood windows would therefore be stronger and aid in temperature control better than traditional glass, but the view through them would be hazy, more similar to frosted glass than a regular window. However, the haziness could be an advantage if users want diffuse light: Since thicker wood is strong, it could be a partially…

  • Guidelines for use of generative artificial intelligence in Courts and Tribunals

    Guidance from NZ Courts on Generative AI. The provide guidelines for Judges, Lawyers and non-lawyers. Impressed they are as proactive about this as they are. https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/going-to-court/practice-directions/practice-guidelines/all-benches/guidelines-for-use-of-generative-artificial-intelligence-in-courts-and-tribunals/

  • What OpenAI shares with Scientology

    A few weeks ago I made the comment: The OAI soap opera marks the point where Silicon Valley disappeared up it’s own bum. Which, I guess, is a singularity of sorts. I was not the only one to see the parallels… The consequences are what you might expect when a crowd of bright but rather…

  • Benevolent AI Is a Bad Idea

    Let’s start looking at this as the speed run for first-contact… our assumptions and values are never going to be universal and here is the perfect practice run. AI safety, originally “friendly AI,” was conceived as the problem of how to create an agent that would be benevolent towards humanity in general, on the assumption…

  • The real research behind the wild rumors about OpenAI’s Q* project

    Instead of immediately leaping in with speculation, I decided to take a few days to do some reading. OpenAI hasn’t published details on its supposed Q* breakthrough, but it has published two papers about its efforts to solve grade-school math problems. And a number of researchers outside of OpenAI—including at Google’s DeepMind—have been doing important work in…

  • A framework for exploring AI as a tech savvy org

    I really like this framework. It’s AI focused, but I think you could apply it to many big tech changes. The BMJ publishes the British Medical Journal and 60+ other scientific journals, together with a number of technology products in the health sector. As an organisation, they’re a few hundred people. So this is a…

  • Israel Is Losing this War

    Dark bloody cycles on dark bloody cycles… By shattering a status quo that Palestinians find intolerable, Hamas has put politics back on the agenda. Israel has significant military power, but it is politically weak. Much of the US establishment supporting Israel’s war assumes that violence emanating from an oppressed community can be stamped out by…

  • Three Things That LLMs Have Made Us Rethink

    A super important read. Cuts thru the BS and asks the big “is it an intelligence” questions. Get a coffee, do the mahi for 10 mins.

  • Togs, togs, undies: The story behind NZ’s most iconic summer ad

    If you ever work with me, at some point “togs, togs, undies” will come up… Up there with “ghost chips”, “bugger” and “good on ya mate”, “togs, togs, undies” has become one of the most enduring advertising phrases to enter our cultural lexicon since it was first uttered in a 2006 ad for Trumpet ice…

  • Climate ‘tipping points’ can be positive too – our report sets out how to engineer a domino effect of rapid changes

    Ignoring the fact that Norway is now regretting a car-centric move to electrification… this is an interesting example of how action can happen (and it involves A-ha) Suitably impressed, they set about importing a similar specimen into Norway. They exploited every photo opportunity, and campaigned to make EVs the cheapest, most convenient option by abolishing…