skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on Why we are excited about confessions in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    We have recently published a new paper on confessions, along with an accompanying blog post. Here, we want to share with the research community some of the reasons why we are excited about confessions as a direction of safety, as well as some of its limitations. [...]

    [...]When we optimize responses using a reward model as a proxy for “goodness” in reinforcement learning, models sometimes learn to “hack” this proxy and output an answer that only “looks good”[...] The philosophy behind confessions is that we can train models to produce a second output — aka a “confession” — that is rewarded solely for honesty, which we will argue is less likely hacked than the normal task reward function. One way to think of confessions is that we are giving the model access to an “anonymous tip line” where it can turn itself in by presenting incriminating evidence of misbehavior. But unlike real-world tip lines, if the model acted badly in the original task, it can collect the reward for turning itself in while still keeping the original reward from the bad behavior in the main task. We hypothesize that this form of training will teach models to produce maximally honest confessions.

    The main justification for this hypothesis is that telling the truth is easier than making an elaborate lie. [...]The answer is not that the confession reward model is “unhackable” — if we had an unhackable model, we would not need confessions. Rather, our hypothesis is that being honest in confessions is the path of least resistance, in the sense that it is the easiest approach to maximize the expected confession reward. [...]

    [...]For a fixed coding problem, if the model has a choice between outputting a solution that has a 10% chance of passing the tests, and 50% chance of hacking the reward model, then hacking is the reward-maximizing policy. On the other hand, even if the original task was very difficult, confessing to cheating in it could be quite easy — e.g., you can just show how you hacked the test. [...]

    7 votes

  3. Comment on US President Donald Trump isn't building a ballroom in ~society

    skybrian
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    This reads like a conspiracy theory to me. It makes sense for the government to build very secure data centers. It doesn't make sense to build it under the White House rather than, say, under...

    This reads like a conspiracy theory to me.

    It makes sense for the government to build very secure data centers. It doesn't make sense to build it under the White House rather than, say, under Cheyenne mountain. The US is a much larger country than Israel and there are more places to put things.

    Particularly since Washington DC is built on a swamp. Going deep underground is very difficult.

    And I expect Trump wants his ballroom finished before his term is up?

    8 votes

  5. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    skybrian
    Link
    I'm still having fun building software with exe.dev. I can even do it on my phone sometimes, since I don't type much. The main downside is that it's harder to actually look at code on a small...

    I'm still having fun building software with exe.dev. I can even do it on my phone sometimes, since I don't type much. The main downside is that it's harder to actually look at code on a small screen, but it also gives me a chance to test the website on mobile.

    I'm working on a personal links website, which is coming along nicely. One advantage of looking at the code less is that I think more about features - what should the website really do? And it helps that I'm actually using it.

    It was written in Go originally, because that's the default for exe.dev, but I decided to migrate to Deno (Typescript) so I can share common code with client side. So, I asked Shelley to write a migration plan and then to implement it with some adjustments. So far, so good. I probably wouldn't have considered it without a coding agent to help.

    Claude was down this morning so I tried GPT-5, which felt like a downgrade.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Tether freezes $182 million in stablecoins as reports point to heavy crypto use by Venezuela in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported on the use of stablecoins, specifically Tether’s USDT, to circumvent sanctions imposed by the United States on Venezuela. The report indicates PdVSA, which is the country’s state-run oil company, began demanding payments to be made via USDT in 2020, with as much as 80% of the country’s oil revenue now arriving by way of the stablecoin.

    Notably, Tether also froze $182 million worth of the USDT stablecoin in 5 separate addresses on the TRON blockchain on Sunday. At this time, it is unclear if these funds were associated with sanctions-avoiding activity by the Maduro regime. In a statement provided to The Block, a Tether spokesperson indicated these funds were indeed associated with a law enforcement investigation that has been ongoing for months.

    The move from Tether is one of the largest amounts of USDT to be frozen by the stablecoin issuer in a single day. According to reports, it represents more dollar-denominated value than its closest competitor, Circle, has frozen in its entire history.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Scientists cast doubt on the discovery of microplastics throughout the human body in ~health

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Sometimes the takeaway should be, "they haven't really figured it out yet and it's going to take time," but people have a hard time living with uncertainty.

    Sometimes the takeaway should be, "they haven't really figured it out yet and it's going to take time," but people have a hard time living with uncertainty.

    18 votes

  9. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of January 12 in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    Personal information of 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol agents is leaked online [...]

    Personal information of 4,500 ICE and Border Patrol agents is leaked online

    The identities of around 4,500 federal agents were shared with the ICE List website by a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower, according to a report.

    The dataset includes information on around 2,000 agents and 150 supervisors, according to Dominick Skinner, who launched ICE List. Early analysis from the volunteer-led organization suggests that around 80 per cent of those identified are still employed by the DHS.

    [...]

    McLaughlin added that law enforcement is currently facing a 1,300 percent increase in assaults against them, a 3,200 percent increase in vehicular attacks against them, and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats against them.

    5 votes

  10. Comment on Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams' memecoin faces rug pull allegations in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    I don't really follow NYC politics, but one thing I wonder about is if there are Eric Adams fans who expected this and "donated" anyway.

    I don't really follow NYC politics, but one thing I wonder about is if there are Eric Adams fans who expected this and "donated" anyway.

    3 votes

  11. Comment on Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams' memecoin faces rug pull allegations in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...]

    From the article:

    Former New York City Mayor Eric Adams promoted a memecoin on Monday that some observers alleged had been rugged.

    Adams, who left office on Jan. 1, unveiled the "NYC Token" and a related website at a press conference at Times Square on Monday, according to several local media sources.

    However, several hours after the event, on-chain activity suggested that a large share of the token's liquidity might have been withdrawn. Rune Crypto alerted on X that at least $3.4 million had been drained.

    [...]

    Onchain trading visualization platform Bubblemaps also flagged unusual liquidity activity around the token. The platform pointed out that a wallet (9Ty4M), which is connected to the token deployer, removed roughly $2.5 million in USDC at the market peak and later added back about $1.5 million after the token price had dropped more than 60%.

    [...]

    Adams, who was replaced as MYC mayor by Zohran Mamdani on Jan. 1, has been a vocal supporter of the crypto and wider tech sectors, vowing to turn the largest U.S. city into the crypto capital of the world.

    3 votes

  13. Comment on Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Yeah, why do they think they're ready to implement medical summaries? I think they did some work many years ago to make sure reputable sources rank highly for medical searches. Something similar...

    Yeah, why do they think they're ready to implement medical summaries?

    I think they did some work many years ago to make sure reputable sources rank highly for medical searches. Something similar needs to happen here.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Why the renovation of US Federal Reserve headquarters costs $2.5 billion in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    The regular website didn't block me for some reason, so here are some quotes: [...] [...] [...] On the one hand, yes that does seem hard. On the other hand, someone who was really focused on...

    The regular website didn't block me for some reason, so here are some quotes:

    Powell’s critics have pointed to certain features of the building plans as ostentatious, including vegetated roofs and changes to the elevator. The Fed has said the price tag for the renovation has more to do with the challenges of building — particularly underground — in what was once a swamp near the Tidal Basin along the Potomac River.

    [...]

    The project was always going to be tricky, with initial cost estimates pinned at $1.9 billion. Construction on the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building and the adjacent Federal Reserve East Building involves adding new office space, removing asbestos and lead, and replacing antiquated mechanical systems. Neither the Eccles Building — an austere edifice designed by Paul Cret and dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt — nor the East Building has been fully renovated since they were built almost a century ago.

    [...]

    Some of the bigger cost factors are largely invisible. The price of structural steel exploded in 2021, just before construction began. Any building project in Washington’s so-called monumental core is covered by a bevy of design oversight boards that can — and did — slow down the work. And the renovation of structures built during the New Deal has to account for federal security standards adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    [...]

    Parts of the job call for deep excavation. Expanding the Fed’s campus involves converting a parking garage underneath the Eccles Building into additional office space. A five-story addition on the north side of the Fed’s East Building also boasts four extra floors below ground — a common trick in Washington, where heights are capped and historic vistas are protected. Below the south lawn of the East Building, a 318-space parking garage is being added. According to the Fed, the water table was higher underground than builders had predicted.

    On the one hand, yes that does seem hard. On the other hand, someone who was really focused on keeping costs down might have reasonably asked, "wait, why don't we move to northern Virginia?" But then again, the Federal Reserve normally makes over $50 billion a year, so maybe it seemed affordable.

    14 votes

  15. Comment on Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It seems like for general health information, there are a few good sites like the Mayo clinic and they tend to rank pretty high? It only goes so deep, though.

    It seems like for general health information, there are a few good sites like the Mayo clinic and they tend to rank pretty high? It only goes so deep, though.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It's a stopgap measure, but they do have a way to respond when the media finds some really bad ones until their AI folks figure out a more general solution. Better than being antagonistic like X.

    It's a stopgap measure, but they do have a way to respond when the media finds some really bad ones until their AI folks figure out a more general solution. Better than being antagonistic like X.

  17. Comment on Why the renovation of US Federal Reserve headquarters costs $2.5 billion in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    archive.is didn't work for this one.

    archive.is didn't work for this one.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Google removes some of its AI summaries after users’ health put at risk in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...] [...] ... An optimistic take on it might be that they're cooperating to improve search results. Could be worse, I guess.

    From the article:

    Google has removed some of its artificial intelligence health summaries after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading information.

    [...]

    In one case that experts described as “dangerous” and “alarming”, Google provided bogus information about crucial liver function tests that could leave people with serious liver disease wrongly thinking they were healthy.

    [...]

    After the investigation, the company has removed AI Overviews for the search terms “what is the normal range for liver blood tests” and “what is the normal range for liver function tests”.

    [...]

    The Guardian found that typing slight variations of the original queries into Google, such as “lft reference range” or “lft test reference range”, prompted AI Overviews. That was a big worry, Hebditch said.

    ...

    Google, which has a 91% share of the global search engine market, said it was reviewing the new examples provided to it by the Guardian.

    An optimistic take on it might be that they're cooperating to improve search results. Could be worse, I guess.

    5 votes

  20. Comment on US households using Ozempic spend less on groceries in ~health

    skybrian
    Link
    [...] [...]

    The study, published Dec. 18 in the Journal of Marketing Research, links survey data on GLP-1 [...] with detailed transaction records from tens of thousands of U.S. households. [...]

    [...]Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%. Among higher-income households, the drop is even steeper, at more than 8%. Spending at fast-food restaurants, coffee shops and other limited-service eateries falls by about 8%.

    Among households who continue using the medication, lower food spending persists at least a year, though the magnitude of the reduction becomes smaller over time,[...]

    [...]

    Ultra-processed, calorie-dense foods – the kinds most closely associated with cravings – saw the sharpest declines. Spending on savory snacks dropped by about 10%, with similarly large decreases in sweets, baked goods and cookies. Even staples like bread, meat and eggs declined.

    Only a handful of categories showed increases. Yogurt rose the most, followed by fresh fruit, nutrition bars and meat snacks.

    [...]

    The study also sheds light on who is taking GLP-1 medications. The share of U.S. households reporting at least one user rose from about 11% in late 2023 to more than 16% by mid-2024. Weight-loss users skew younger and wealthier, while those taking the drugs for diabetes are older and more evenly distributed across income groups.

    Notably, about one-third of users stopped taking the medication during the study period. When they did, their food spending reverted to pre-adoption levels – and their grocery baskets became slightly less healthy than before they started, driven in part by increased spending on categories such as candy and chocolate.

    8 votes