Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦

PhD student in Machine Learning at ETH Zurich

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

Dusting off this tweet from April because this gap in shared understanding of LLM capability is *widening*. It's now less "two groups of people speaking past each other" and more a sharp funnel.

- Napkin math somewhere around 6B people (~75% of the population) have barely come in contact with LLMs at all.
- Around 1-2B (~20%) are casual and infrequent users of free-tier ChatGPT-like products. This group sees derpy chatbots and treats them a bit like a better Google search, a writing aid, or etc. Maybe an agent tries to book you a flight. I have non-tech friends who (reasonably, imo) say they have not much use for it at all. Even many professionals outside of math&code are in this tier. For example, execs and many other functions spend a lot of their time talking to other people, so while they understand what is happening intellectually, it is still second-hand and a bit abstract.
- Now we get to professional use of frontier-grade LLMs in math&code. Somewhere around 20M people (0.2%) see first-hand that large, complex projects that used to take them weeks/months can now be completed by agents with a prompt. Building apps, copying apps, translating apps, decompiling apps from binaries... This has all happened very quickly and recently - less than 1 year ago, I was writing code manually by hand, typing memorized computer code commands into a code editor character by character, occasionally pressing Tab to autocomplete a little chunk of code.
- And finally we get to the ~5,000 people (~0.00006%) with access to frontier-grade systems internally. The external world has seen the preview. It looks like swarms of thousands of agents collaborating over weeks on software mega projects: minting zero days, running cyber attacks and defenses at machine speeds, discovering new science, advancing the frontier of mathematics. Things that would have taken top professionals in the industry years of work. Meanwhile, human review and comprehension are starting to fall behind. For example, people are still involved in the "archeology" of the OpenAI-HF incident from many months ago. Mathematicians may be poring over the 722 manuscripts on frontier mathematics for a while.

The funnel is driven by a combination of factors:
1. The impact scales with ambition, problem size, and horizon. A question with a paragraph answer barely stresses the system. You need a reservoir of big, difficult problems that you really care about. This aspect drives the consumer / professional dimension of the funnel.
2. The jaggedness of the system (which I have written about a lot separately). Capability peaks in domains that are digital, verifiable and economically valuable. This is because LLM capability emerges from reinforcement learning on verifiable rewards on a curated environment mixture driven by revenue potential. This aspect primarily drives the area (e.g. math&code) dimension of the funnel.
3. Access. Free-tier, paid-tier, internal.

So this is the weirdness of the moment. The general public has mostly not interacted with these systems. When they have, it looks like a derpy chatbot. The majority of professionals still see only a modest uplift. And a small sliver of professionals are experiencing the vertigo of the curve going vertical. And it is all happening at the same time.

[Команда Навального | ФБК @teamnavalny]

«Всех не пересажаете. Хоть 113 [лет] просите. Вы ни меня, ни таких, как я, не испугаете»

Публикуем отрывок из последнего слова Алексея Навального на суде по сфабрикованному делу о мошенничестве и оскорблении судьи. Гособвинение потребовало для Навального 13 лет строгого режима.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Gains in global renewable energy capacity from 2010 to 2020 have been outstripped by growth in fossil fuel use by a factor of three.

Scaling up renewables is not enough. We need to actively scale *down* fossil fuels. And right now none of our leaders have plans to do this.

[Журнал DOXA 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @doxa_journal]

Блокадница Елена Осипова снова вышла на акцию против войны, несмотря на неоднократные задержания.

Видео: ФБК

[Igor Sushko @igorsushko]

🧵My translation of the analysis of the current situation in Russia by an active FSB analyst. Buckle up for a long thread and definitely please share far & wide. The full text is over 2000 words. This is a highly insightful look behind the curtain - covers many subjects.

[Anders Östlund @andersostlund]

Four things we should push for:
1. More weapons to Ukraine
2. No fly zone over Ukraine, by NATO or donated NATO planes
3. Total embargo on Russian oil and gas
4. Cut all remaining Russian banks from SWIFT
Retweet if you agree!

[Kamil Galeev @kamilkazani]

How is the war in Ukraine going? Today they confirmed the death of Russian General Major Suhovetsky. He's unsurprisingly a paratrooper. So let's discuss the role of paratroopers in Russian military doctrine. That'll shed a light on the course of this war and why Russia lost it🧵

[Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦 @iov9000]

It comes as no surprise, given the pervasive incompetence throughout the Russian governmental structures.

[ShadowBreak Intl. @sbreakintl]

Intelligence acquired since the beginning of the Russian military operation over Ukraine has shown an immense lack of logistic support, making this war one of the most unique in 2022 when it comes to surveillance.

A thread 👇🧵

[BBC News (World) @BBCWorld]

Putin critic Navalny could 'die within days', say doctors https://t.co/bAnQyq64nH

[Кира Ярмыш @Kira_Yarmysh]

Люди обычно избегают слова "умирает". Но сейчас Алексей умирает. При его состоянии это вопрос дней.

https://t.co/i4dsEi9RqE

[Кира Ярмыш @Kira_Yarmysh]

В ситуации, когда мы не понимаем, что с Алексеем, а ФСИН будет скрывать правду до последнего, потому что они боятся даже пикнуть без согласования с начальством, только огласка и публичное требование освободить может ему помочь https://t.co/BnhWlqQ5hK

[Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦 @iov9000]

.@EDA_DFAE Kreml-Kritiker #Nawalny wurde zu einer Haftstrafe verurteilt, tausende Demonstrierende festgenommen. Die Schweiz darf nicht einfach zuschauen. Ich fordere eine öffentliche Stellungnahme! @ignaziocassis muss handeln!

[Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦 @iov9000]

.@ignaziocassis Kreml-Kritiker #Nawalny wurde zu einer Haftstrafe verurteilt, tausende Demonstrierende festgenommen. Die Schweiz darf nicht einfach zuschauen. Ich fordere eine öffentliche Stellungnahme! @ignaziocassis muss handeln!

[Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦 @iov9000]

Protest gegen die Verurteilung von Alexei Nawalny https://t.co/Rmv9JjrwSQ

[António Costa @eucopresident]

I reiterate the call of the #EU to release Alexey #Navalny immediately.

We do not accept his sentence - justice must not be politicised.

Protesters have the right to demonstrate peacefully and voice their political views.

[Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦 @iov9000]

Мрази. #FreeNavalnyNow #свободуНавальному

[Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦 @iov9000]

#свободунавальному #23январяЗаСвободу

[Ivan Ovinnikov 🇺🇦 @iov9000]

#23январяЗаСвободу

[Илья Яшин @IlyaYashin]

⚡️Уверен, что арест Навального сделает его только сильнее. Он доказал, что готов идти до конца ради того, во что верит. А вот Путин превращается в карикатуру — в злобного пенсионера, цепляющегося за власть. Я требую освободить Алексея: https://t.co/wcSow1ibwf
Поддержите ретвитом

[Sergey Levine @svlevine]

Offline model-based RL for goal reaching: learn a distance "Q-like" function from offline data, and a video prediction model, then use them to accomplish visually indicated goals.

w/ Stephen Tian et al.

https://t.co/pmXL8fGHXv
https://t.co/x9XXI7PN06

🧵>