Steve Savides

Director | Problem Solver for startups and F100’s | Social Innovator I APAi (Africa, People, Ai)

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

Now is the time for “being human in the age of Ai” and understanding [where you stand at] the intersection of business, technology & community.

Watch this space.

[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.

[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.

[Dee W Hock @deewhock]

All the teaching of all the schools since time began has not settled whether society shall be governed by the power of the brute, or the wisdom of the sage.

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

Through the series “Decoding Humanity, MIT ORSEL explores the intersections of technology and spirituality.

These are all specialties of MIT's Office of Religious, Spiritual and Ethical Life (ORSEL).

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

The soul of AI. A discussion.

Philosophy and meaning, the principles and definitions of sentience and consciousness; the intersections of technology and spirituality.

It isn’t flashy. It’s not showy. It’s far too meaningful for that..

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

3/3 and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

1/3 Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

William Hutchison Murray

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

2/3 that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

@scottpetty

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

How does @VodafoneUK ‘s mobile capacity planning in Kensington actually work if there is literally zero data access all day, every day. (Months!) after 10pm and before 830am. No problem. Thank goodness I always have dual network suppliers.

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

@AmericanExpress almost pointless telling us priority pass is a benefit when it literally hasn’t worked the last 6 airports I’ve been to

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

What an honour and a privilege to have witnessed such an incredible start to a journey of Trust based action. Thank you @BeyondSkin team

[Beyond Skin @BeyondSkin]

Newry Mourne & Down has planted the inaugural Global Trust Project !
The first satellite team on the planet galvanised this weekend at a residential at the foot of the Mourne Mountains.
A legacy Blueprint #PeaceIV project @SEUPB
@nmdcouncil
https://t.co/3ccDRrEI9D
#Trust #sdgs

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

I just supported @calumraasay on @buymeacoffee! 🎉

Calum is creating lots of niche Videos. Loved falling down a few of his rabbit holes this week.

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

A year on. Worthy of reflecting.

#awareness #choice #socialchange #beingAleader #health #wellbeing #mentalhealth https://t.co/hN6XFbfnPc

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

What can you live with?

#choices #life #living #U2 #bono #mindfulness #meditation https://t.co/8G6WRZmqpi

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

What can you live with?

#choices #life #living #U2 #bono #mindfulness #meditation https://t.co/Z9oIBBXYFN

[Steve Savides @stevesavides]

Carrier pigeons and smoke signals it is then. Amazing what is going on behind the scenes for infrastructure projects these days. Feel your pain @PeteThomond - hope all is well.

[Pete Thomond @PeteThomond]

NO BROADBAND at home until next week!
How
Will
We
Survive
😤😤😤😬😬😬
Digging deep!!!!!!

[nora bateson @NoraBateson]

Theory is beautiful. But it is not enough. Until the theory lives in your breakfast, in your walk, in your spine, in your kiss, in your memories, in your laugh and your tears -it will remain disintegrated. This is why we do warm data: its more than a lovely intellectual exercise.

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

18 misconceptions about the state of the world (as captured in the Sustainable Development Goals) revealed by the Ignorance Project from Gapminder (@OlaRosling & Anna Rosling Ronnlund @AnnaGapminder).