Lifeboat Foundation

Greg Yang is a mathematician and AI researcher at Microsoft Research who for the past several years has done incredibly original theoretical work in the understanding of large artificial neural networks. Greg received his bachelors in mathematics from Harvard University in 2018 and while there won the Hoopes prize for best undergraduate thesis. He also received an Honorable Mention for the Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student in 2018 and was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians in 2019.

In this episode, we get a sample of Greg’s work, which goes under the name “Tensor Programs” and currently spans five highly technical papers. The route chosen to compress Tensor Programs into the scope of a conversational video is to place its main concepts under the umbrella of one larger, central, and time-tested idea: that of taking a large N limit. This occurs most famously in the Law of Large Numbers and the Central Limit Theorem, which then play a fundamental role in the branch of mathematics known as Random Matrix Theory (RMT). We review this foundational material and then show how Tensor Programs (TP) generalizes this classical work, offering new proofs of RMT. We conclude with the applications of Tensor Programs to a (rare!) rigorous theory of neural networks.

Continue reading “Greg Yang | Large N Limits: Random Matrices & Neural Networks | The Cartesian Cafe w/ Timothy Nguyen” »

Metamorworks/iStock.

Safe and helpful answers.

Though OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said it would be “a mistake” to use ChatGPT for anything important.

Microsoft aims to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot into its Bing search engine in order to boost its user count and rival Google, as per a report from The Information.

Could OpenAI enhance Microsoft’s search engine credibility?

Continue reading “Microsoft aims to boost its search engine with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to rival Google” »

“She cooks, she cleans, and she still finds time to play ball with Elroy,” George and Jane Jetsons’ six-and-a-half-year-old son. Set in the year 2062 and described in the 1960s animated sitcom The Jetsons as an “aluminum-encased, battery-powered robotic maid” who is the “perfect answer for any modern family,” Rosie the Robot takes care of chores around the house while also serving as friend and confidante of mother Jane. Sarcastic and funny, Rosie is a hardworking nanny and aunt figure to children Elroy and Judy.

While many technologies The Jetsons predicted for 2062 have become reality, such as video calls and smart watches, the full realization of robots as the 1960s ideal friend and helper who makes life easier has yet to be fulfilled. For twenty-five years, roboticist Daniel Theobald has been on a mission to create robots that can solve the world’s most pressing problems. But rather than focus solely on making robots be more human, his calling has been to use them to help humans be more human.

Continue reading “Meet The Roboticist Working To Make Robots Help Us Be More Human” »

Despite surges in fields like AI, medicine and nuclear energy, major advances in science and technology are slowing and are fewer and farther between than decades ago, according to a study published in Nature.

The researchers analyzed some 45 million scientific papers and 3.9 million patents between 1945 and 2010, examining networks of citations to assess whether breakthroughs reinforced the status quo or disrupted existing knowledge and more dramatically pushed science and technology off into new directions.

Across all major scientific and technological fields, these big disruptions—the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, which rendered earlier research obsolete, is a good example of such research—have become less common since 1945, the researchers found.

Both the European Space Agency and NASA are planning to test even more sensitive sensors on future moon missions to try and hone in on satellite signals. If they can truly connect with sats back home, we could get closer to achieving autonomous moon travel. But eventually that won’t be enough. To help direct humans on the lunar surface, we’re going to need a fleet of satellites specifically around the moon. NASA calls its project LunaNet, and it’s part of the Gateway space station, which is the culmination of America’s plan to return to the moon. It needs to be designed to play well with ESA technology and, eventually, will be the source of high-speed internet on the moon.

Artemis I launched back in November, rounded the moon just 81 miles above the lunar surface and touched down Earth-side in December. Artemis II, which will carry astronauts around the moon in a similar trajectory, is slated to launch in late 2024, according to Space.com. Artemis III, which will be humanity’s first boots on the moon since 1972, could launch as early as 2025.

Nearly three years into the pandemic, travel has returned but hotel staff have not. Unable to find workers, hotel owners and managers are having to adapt to what they believe is the new normal.

Check out all the on-demand sessions from the Intelligent Security Summit here.

Over the last half-decade, quantum computing has attracted tremendous media attention. Why?

After all, we have computers already, which have been around since the 1940s. Is the interest because of the use cases? Better AI? Faster and more accurate pricing for financial services firms and hedge funds? Better medicines once quantum computers get a thousand times bigger?

A new study shows that AI makes doctors better at screening cancer even when the AI sorts over half of scans automatically, dramatically reducing radiologists’ workloads.