Unit ⑧ Letter #20243
We decided to open up to our wider network and share a selection of our resources with our colleagues and followers. 🦾
Dear Unit ⑧ friends,
We have been internally exchanging readings for a while, sharing links we find relevant for our development as a small organisation, looking for meaningful directions to head to, and keen to keep up-to-date in the realm of technology from a technical, political, ethical and artistic point of view. Here are some links to the articles we paid attention to these past weeks, covering topics from legal regulations of Blockchain and AI to the nature of consciousness and what it entails. We hope you enjoy them!
Video generation, antagonistic AI, and compute governance
In one of his latest Substack entries, researcher Harry Law’s article discusses recent developments in AI technology, including OpenAI's Sora video generation model, Meta's V-JEPA for understanding the physical world through videos, and a paper on the moral case for antagonistic AI systems—defined as those that are deliberately disagreeable. It also explores the governance of AI compute resources and the potential risks and benefits of these advancements. He summarises in three parts what crucial questions arise regarding economic impact, ethical considerations, and governance of video generation models and antagonistic AI systems.
Situational Awareness
In his post for Less Wrong, Simon Möller explores the concept of “situational awareness,” particularly in the context of current large language models (LLMs) like GPT. “Situational awareness describes the degree to which an AI system understands its environment, state, and behaviour, particularly when that understanding causes specific behaviour (such as deceptive alignment). It’s a spectrum rather than a binary property of the model.” – he says. The article expands on situational awareness’ implications for AI safety and how it manifests in particular models like Sydney.
Has Google gone too woke?
Unlike Mike Solana’s perception of Google’s Gemini behaviour as “Anti-white Lunatic,” Gary Marcus sees it as lousy software that fails to accurately represent historical and cultural information, particularly regarding diversity and accuracy in image generation. In his Substack post, he highlights the challenges of balancing historical accuracy with cultural sensitivity due to limitations in data representation and the intelligence required to understand nuanced requests. He concludes that, so far, current AI systems lack the sophistication to achieve this balance effectively.
AI+
Zora co-founder Jacob Horne discusses the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, particularly in minting NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and bringing AI-generated content onto blockchain platforms like Zora. It explores how AI and crypto are complementary technologies aiming to utilise and value information on-chain, leading to new possibilities and challenges in content creation, ownership, and monetisation. Horne believes that the convergence of AI and blockchain, exemplified by minting AI-generated content as NFTs, combines potential for both monetisation and challenging traditional existent systems.
Sora What
Zvi Mowshowitz doesn’t think Sora and its ilk will be ready to create watchable content by 2025 “in the sense of anyone sane wanting to watch it.” In his Substack article, he discusses OpenAI's new video generation model, Sora, and its technical capabilities, potential applications, and implications for the future of content creation and media industries. Through many critiques by other AI commentators and developers, he explores the model’s capabilities, which, in his mind, are impressive but limited. They may not revolutionise content creation or media industries as overwhelmingly as speculated.
Books
Read Write Own Reviewed
Dave Karpf’s Substack review critiques Chris Dixon's quasi-fanatic advocacy for Web3 and blockchain technology in his new book, “Read Write Own.” After a decent amount of praising reviews, Karpf accuses Dixon of overlooking the struggles of ordinary people and failing to address the flaws and risks associated with blockchain projects. Karpf believes that Dixon’s perspective lacks depth and fails to acknowledge broader implications.
Enter the Dark Forest
In the past years, amongst the dominance of mainstream network platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, and other mainstream platforms that often toxic discourses, a set of alternative online gathering spaces emerged, including “Do Not Research,” “New Models” and more. They all appeared independently but ended up interacting with each other and defining themselves as Dark Forests amidst the Internet ecosystem, borrowing the metaphor from Liu Cixin’s science fiction books. The Dark Forests respond to the need for alternative spaces, prioritising thoughtful discussion, safety, and context. A collection of several texts by members of these communities is included in The Dark Forest Anthology.
Events
In the context of our collaboration with ICP’s European Hub, we will host a Launch event on March 14th, continuing a series of events, including our Hackathon with Spiced Academy, which happened last week. Click on the links to learn more about each event.