Ravi Gummadi

This works really well btw, at the end of your query ask your LLM to "structure your response as HTML", then view the generated file in your browser. I've also had some success asking the LLM to present its output as slideshows, etc. More generally, imo audio is the human-preferred input to AIs but vision (images/animations/video) is the preferred output from them. Around a ~third of our brains are a massively parallel processor dedicated to vision, it is the 10-lane superhighway of information into brain. As AI improves, I think we'll see a progression that takes advantage: 1) raw text (hard/effortful to read) 2) markdown (bold, italic, headings, tables, a bit easier on the eyes) <-- current default 3) HTML (still procedural with underlying code, but a lot more flexibility on the graphics, layout, even interactivity) <-- early but forming new good default ...4,5,6,... n) interactive neural videos/simulations Imo the extrapolation (though the technology doesn't exist just yet) ends in some kind of interactive videos generated directly by a diffusion neural net. Many open questions as to how exact/procedural "Software 1.0" artifacts (e.g. interactive simulations) may be woven together with neural artifacts (diffusion grids), but generally something in the direction of the recently viral x.com/zan2434/status… There are also improvements necessary and pending at the input. Audio nor text nor video alone are not enough, e.g. I feel a need to point/gesture to things on the screen, similar to all the things you would do with a person physically next to you and your computer screen. TLDR The input/output mind meld between humans and AIs is ongoing and there is a lot of work to do and significant progress to be made, way before jumping all the way into neuralink-esque BCIs and all that. For what's worth exploring at the current stage, hot tip try ask for HTML.

Mechanistic Interpretability be like.. We wanted to see what the bread slice is thinking when it is in the toaster. Is it taking its singing equanimously? thinking religious thoughts? or plotting revenge? (Face it--a vengeful singed slice is the last thing we want!) But alas, the bread slice doesn't talk! Its thoughts are intricately encoded in its singe pattern. So we devised a clever method--of showing the bread slice to a random Joe, asking him to describe its feelings. Joe says that the slice is having a religious experience involving Mother Mary. But is random Joe describing these feelings right? To check, we called random artist Jane and asked her to render these thoughts back to the external appearance of a (different!) bread slice. We co-trained Joe and Jane until they learn to auto-encode the real truth about the slice's thoughts. We are finding this technique to be a great way to understand what the bread slice is thinking. The tehcnique is not always (or even sometimes) correct, but it gives us a great window into publishing bread slice thought related podcast articles. Hope you find this research useful. #AIAphorisms

@BoringBiz_ they think it is 20x, not just 20%

The AI labor replacement theory makes absolutely no sense to me Here is the simple math Let’s say an engineer making $300K/yr was generating $500K in P&L output for me. Now I arm that engineer with $20K in input to make him 20% more productive My total engineering cost goes to $320K/yr but the output is now $600K (+20%) Because of AI, my ROI on hiring engineers just went up massively. As a CEO, that should make me want to hire more engineers, not less What am I missing here? Genuinely curious about people’s thoughts

After coding 100% agentic for 6 months, my key observation is that software design is more important than ever.

Noticing an interesting version of gell-man amnesia where people use AI for their job and see all the various things they have to do in the “last mile”, but then look at someone else’s job and think that AI will eliminate it immediately. We all have a much deeper appreciation for the nuances and complexities of the work that we do every day. We run into issues about accessing data, we know how much context is needed to get AI models to work the way we need, we have to review the output of the AI to make sure it’s accurate, and then we have to incorporate that work into some broader business process. We see all those steps deeply for the work that we do. Then, a moment later, we see AI do something in a foreign space and think that it can go automate that entire function. We tend to dramatically underestimate the work that goes into making the AI work just as effectively in those jobs. This is reason to be skeptical about many of the theories of job loss. It’s coming from the lens of being able to automate individual tasks with AI, without understanding all the work that goes into doing the job fully.

you used to spend a day messing with your neovim config, feel self conscious, then get back to work now people are spending weeks on some hyper customized coding agent workflow that definitely is worse than vanilla but they can talk about it like they're ahead of the game

@_arohan_ also anything under “spicy” for a Vijayawada biryani is blasphemy.

With life and food the lesson is that there are only two known options: spicy or very spicy.

Still shocked John Ternus pulled off Apple CEO with lazy LinkedIn profile: ▫️no banner image ▫️blank profile photo for logged out users ▫️no breakdown of all Apple positions (including role-by-role achievements) ▫️0 social posts (should pin commencement speech) How are suppliers, manufacturers and future customers going to make a connection in the future with so little to work off? Truly a curious choice.

OVERRATED: running tons of agents in parallel; working on too many things at once; perpetual context-switching; opening lots of low-quality PRs that may never land. UNDERRATED: using one or two agents at a time; focusing on the task in front of you; thinking deeply; finishing stuff; making your code works in prod.

I like LLMs but I'm convinced many people in the space are delusional and we'll look back at this time and laugh. The whole idea of an "intelligence explosion" or "recursive self-improvement" or "takeoff" rely on strong premises related to functionalism that are easy to reject

What made Shreyas Iyer’s catch so special was not just the athleticism, but the awareness behind it. He had to judge the speed of the ball, the height, where the boundary rope was, how close he was to stepping on it, and get his jump absolutely perfect. Then, while still in the air, he caught the ball and released it to a teammate before landing, all the while knowing exactly where that fielder was positioned. To process all of that in a split second takes unbelievable awareness, timing, fitness, and composure. @ShreyasIyer15 got everything spot on. One of the best catches I’ve ever seen live! x.com/IPL/status/204…

how did Allbirds pivot to AI compute hardware before the shoe company literally called ASICS

"Planet Earth: You. Are. A. Crew." Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch reflects on what it means to be a "crew."

Congratulations to Alex and the whole team at MSL. As a sucker for all things speedy (patrickcollison.com/fast), I thought this was an impressive chart:

Cannot underline this enough: send your human-prepared return to an LLM for review prior to signing it. The closest thing to free money. It isn't even necessarily on the complex or hard bits, either. The first thing it surfaced me was an IL credit for elementary school tuition.

@stanfordNYC @tszzl lack of competence usually also tracks with lack of self awareness, so they might not view it as malice themselves

@tszzl Yes, though accepting a position of responsibility when you lack commensurate competence is not far off from malice towards those who will depend on you.

malice and incompetence are so often confused because competence is an extremely important moral virtue most often missing from the world

This. This entire sequence is precisely crafted. Ranveer moves like a trained soldier, not a star performing action. From action choreography and stunt design to performance and bgm, everything lands with such technical finesse. One of the finest film openings I’ve ever seen.

I feel like youre not allowed to talk about your agentic coding failure stories in the SF zeitgeist unless youre prepared for everyone to tell you you have some skill issue because youre not trying their workflow or set of plugins. It's like telling people you have cancer and then everyone has their home remedy their aunt tried that they would like you to try too. Well meaning, but not helpful.

the generation that refused to accept cookies. is now giving AI access to their desktops, files, and bank accounts.