Ness Afsham

An explorer.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

Google Scholar Labs is impressive. Found better papers in less time than my usual workflow. The potential as a research assistant is enormous. This is what democratizing research looks like.
https://t.co/1gbG6dKA9c
#ResearchTools #AI #OpenScience #GoogleScholarLabs

[Geoffrey Hinton @geoffreyhinton]

There is a book on Amazon called "Modern AI Revolution" by Geoffrey Hinton. This is a scam. It has nothing to do with me and I wish Amazon would remove it.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

Human cognitive capital is depreciating in the time of AGI advancement.
Let's enjoy it while it lasts.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

Poem of the day :)

[Amanda Askell @AmandaAskell]

I asked Claude to write an original poem about itself. Claude is such a weird egg.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

"agents _are_ world models."

[Jon Richens @jonathanrichens]

Are world models necessary to achieve human-level agents, or is there a model-free short-cut?
Our new #ICML2025 paper tackles this question from first principles, and finds a surprising answer, agents _are_ world models… 🧵

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

Imagine your child, similarly persuaded, finding a flourishing career in skilled labor.
#AI_Safety

My conversation with the "brainstormer" of @character_ai:
"The world is just not filled with doctors, computer scientists and lawyers."

[Yoshua Bengio @Yoshua_Bengio]

Today marks a big milestone for me. I'm launching @LawZero_, a nonprofit focusing on a new safe-by-design approach to AI that could both accelerate scientific discovery and provide a safeguard against the dangers of agentic AI.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

@rohanpaul_ai AGI isn't essential; scaled AI is. Talking from experience, PhD-level problem-solving accelerates dramatically by accessing an army of AI scientist agents that explore and evaluate potential solutions. Achieved desired outcomes? That's called invention.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

"What if, like doctors, AI engineers also vowed to do no harm?"
https://t.co/cGCMqGo8AM

[Max Tegmark @tegmark]

Our new paper tries to quantify how smarter AI can be controlled by dumber AI and humans via nested "scalable oversight". Our best scenario successfully oversees the smarter AI 52% of the time, and the success rate drops as one approaches AGI. My assessment is that the "Compton constant", the probability that a race to AGI culminates in loss of control of Earth, is >90%.

[American Mathematical Society @amermathsoc]

Today, we celebrate International Women in Mathematics Day in memory of Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to win the Fields Medal (2014), to honor the contributions and achievements in women in mathematics in hopes to inspire future generations.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

The inside story of California's SB-1047, the AI safety bill that exposed Silicon Valley's deep ideological divides and sparked an unprecedented power struggle over humanity's most transformative technology:
https://t.co/tXf2GcgSvM

[Geoffrey Hinton @geoffreyhinton]

I like OpenAI’s mission of 'ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity”, and I’d like to stop them from completely gutting it.
I’ve signed on to a new letter to @AGRobBonta & @DE_DOJ asking them to halt the restructuring. (1/2)

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

very interesting read:
https://t.co/LKvid8G6ft

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

"Doing AI research at the moment [unfortunately] can feel like participating in a war."

I incidentally just read a piece on AI and Stress from #Felix_Hill. Rest in peace man.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

Building innovation through a social impact lens panel.
A showcase of #Diversity.
@innovationUBC
#ImmersionWeek

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

@innovationUBC
Building innovation through a social impact lens panel:
Excellent showcase of #Diversity in terms of age :), gender, race, and background.
@innovationUBC
#ImmersionWeek

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

@chatrmobile The issue is not fixed. I went to a store in metrotown and they couldn't find my previous sim number. Their proposed solution: change your provider to a better one! I'm going to do so.
Worst customer service I've ever encountered 😡.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

More than an hour waiting to get the support from @chatrmobile to fix my apn issue.
Not acceptable.

[Ness Afsham @ness_afsham]

@chatrmobile waited around 100 minutes, eventually ended the call with no luck. I found out from friends that I had to change my Mobilicity sim card to be able to continue with Chatr after the latest upgrade. You should notify your customers in case of such a disruption. very disappointed.