Lifeboat Foundation

Please support us on Patreon to get access to the private Discord server, bi-weekly calls, early access and ad-free listening.
/ mlst.

Aman Bhargava from Caltech and Cameron Witkowski from the University of Toronto to discuss their groundbreaking paper, “What’s the Magic Word? A Control Theory of LLM Prompting.” They frame LLM systems as discrete stochastic dynamical systems. This means they look at LLMs in a structured way, similar to how we analyze control systems in engineering. They explore the “reachable set” of outputs for an LLM. Essentially, this is the range of possible outputs the model can generate from a given starting point when influenced by different prompts. The research highlights that prompt engineering, or optimizing the input tokens, can significantly influence LLM outputs. They show that even short prompts can drastically alter the likelihood of specific outputs. Aman and Cameron’s work might be a boon for understanding and improving LLMs. They suggest that a deeper exploration of control theory concepts could lead to more reliable and capable language models.

Continue reading “These two scientists have mapped out the insides or ‘reachable space’ of a language model using control theory, what they discovered was extremely surprising” »

Scientists pitted OpenAI and Meta chatbots against over 1,900 humans. The algorithms bested participants in areas like the detection of irony and faux pas.

New research says that quantifying progress in AI must account for the fact that the humans AI is measured against are actually a variable, noisy benchmark.

Reid was part of a 60-participant clinical trial that looked to use spinal cord stimulation to regain control of both hands. Similar treatments have shown promise in paraplegic patients, restoring the ability to walk in just a day. But those required surgery to place electrodes on the spinal cord.

ARC-EX therapy, by contrast, delivers two different types of electrical pulses through the skin—no surgery required. Developed by Grégoire Courtine and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the device improved hand strength, pinch, and other movements in 72 percent of participants.

Because the device is non-invasive, it’s a simple addition to physical rehabilitation programs—a sort of pilates for the fingers, explained the team. The trial only included two months of stimulation, and extending the timeline could potentially further improve results.

Understanding the biological processes of getting older could help us lead longer lives, and stay healthier later in life – and a new study links the speed at which our brain ages with the nutrients in our diets.

Researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln mapped brain scans against nutritional intake for 100 volunteers aged between 65 and 75, looking for connections between certain diets and slower brain aging.

They identified two distinct types of brain aging – and the slower paced aging was associated with nutrient intake similar to what you would get from the Mediterranean diet, shown in previous studies to be one of the best for our bodies.

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) introduce a polymer-based material with unique properties in the journal Nature Communications. This material allows sunlight to enter, maintains a more comfortable indoor climate without additional energy, and cleans itself like a lotus leaf. The new development could replace glass components in walls and roofs in the future. The research team has successfully tested the material in outdoor tests on the KIT campus.

The Neuralink and X.AI founder thinks Microsoft has gone too far with its AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature.

NVIDIA has record quarter revenue of $26 billion, up 18% from Q4 2023, and up 262% year-on-year. AI GPUs are pure money-making machines.

The long-awaited PureRef 2.0 update has arrived, introducing visual and performance improvements, as well as some of the most requested features.