How a big shift in training LLMs led to a capability explosion
Reinforcement learning, explained with a minimum of math and jargon.
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Timothy B. Lee
Senior tech policy reporter
timothy.lee@meincmagazine.com
Timothy B. Lee was on staff at Ars Technica from 2017 to 2021, covering technology policy and the future of transportation. He holds a master's degree in computer science from Princeton. He lives with his family in Washington, DC. You can follow him on Twitter.
Recent stories by
Timothy B. Lee
Study: Meta AI model can reproduce almost half of Harry Potter book
The research could have big implications for generative AI copyright lawsuits.
Timothy B. Lee
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After 50 million miles, Waymos crash a lot less than human drivers
Waymo has been in dozens of crashes. Most were not Waymo’s fault.
Timothy B. Lee
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392
Why AI language models choke on too much text
Compute costs scale with the square of the input size. That’s not great.
Timothy B. Lee
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How a stubborn computer scientist accidentally launched the deep learning boom
“You’ve taken this idea way too far,” a mentor told Prof. Fei-Fei Li.
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Human drivers keep rear-ending Waymos
We took a close look at the 25 most serious Waymo crashes.
Timothy B. Lee
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Driverless semis could be months away
I visited two startups working to bring driverless technology to long-haul trucking.
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On self-driving, Waymo is playing chess while Tesla plays checkers
We’ll know Tesla is serious about robotaxis when it starts hiring remote operators.
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Most Read
Why The New York Times might win its copyright lawsuit against OpenAI
The AI community needs to take copyright lawsuits seriously.
Timothy B. Lee and James Grimmelmann
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DeepMind AI rivals the world’s smartest high schoolers at geometry
DeepMind solved 25 out of 30 questions—compared to 26 for a human gold medalist.
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7.1 million miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo’s safety data looks good
Waymo says its cars cause injuries six times less often than human drivers.
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The real research behind the wild rumors about OpenAI’s Q* project
OpenAI hasn’t said what Q* is, but it has revealed plenty of clues.
Timothy B. Lee
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Opinion: The Copyright Office is making a mistake on AI-generated art
A rule against copyrighting AI art will be unworkable.
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Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers?
I learned a lot by reading dozens of Waymo and Cruise crash reports.
Timothy B. Lee
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A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work
Want to really understand large language models? Here’s a gentle primer.
Timothy B. Lee and Sean Trott
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The “death of self-driving cars” has been greatly exaggerated
GM’s Cruise aims to turn self-driving into a billion-dollar business.
Timothy B. Lee
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The dumb reason Twitter won’t allow retweeting tweets linking to Substack
“Some actions on this tweet have been disabled by Twitter.”
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Stable Diffusion copyright lawsuits could be a legal earthquake for AI
Experts say generative AI is in uncharted legal waters.
Timothy B. Lee
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The robot takeout revolution is closer than you think
I learned a lot ordering a donut and a muffin from delivery robots.
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Ethereum’s “Merge” is about to put every ether miner out of work
The ambitious change is expected to cut energy consumption by a factor of 1,000.
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Cryptocurrency plunges as crypto “bank” Celsius suspends withdrawals
Celsius says “extreme market conditions” forced it to suspend withdrawals.
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Bitcoin plunges to lowest price since 2020 amid broader sell-off
The “stablecoin” tether briefly lost its peg to the dollar on Thursday morning.
Timothy B. Lee
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El Salvador buys more bitcoin after ratings agency downgrades its debt
Meanwhile, the leading algorithmic “stablecoin” has broken its peg to the dollar.
Timothy B. Lee
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Tesla sues thermal engineer for allegedly stealing secrets of “Dojo” supercomputer
“Dojo” supercomputer will train neural networks that power self-driving software.
Timothy B. Lee
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Opinion: Here’s a simple way Elon Musk could make Twitter better
Prioritizing “engagement” has made Twitter a hotbed of misinformation.
Timothy B. Lee
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Senators want to mandate anti-piracy technology across the web
Websites could face mandatory anti-piracy technology upgrades every three years.
Timothy B. Lee
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231
How Walmart and Alphabet jumped ahead of Amazon in drone delivery
Drone delivery could be poised to take off in the United States.
Timothy B. Lee
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Elon Musk offers to “buy 100% of Twitter” for $43 billion
“Free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote.
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Wikipedia community votes to stop accepting cryptocurrency donations [Updated]
Critics argue the bitcoin and ethereum networks consume too much energy.
Timothy B. Lee
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Apple defies Russian government, restores opposition voting app
Apple and Google removed the app last September, days before a key election.
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101
Intel suspends all operations in Russia “effective immediately”
Intel says it’s working to support its 1,200 employees in Russia.
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Russia threatens Wikipedia with fines over “false information”
Wikipedia articles “deliberately misinform users” about Ukraine, Russia says.
Timothy B. Lee
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502
Biden sanctions Russian tech companies, including country’s biggest chipmaker
Chipmaker Mikron accounts for half of Russia’s chip exports.
Timothy B. Lee
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174
Tesla Autopilot director contradicts Musk’s self-driving timeline
Musk described full autonomy as “basically a solved problem” in 2016.
Timothy B. Lee
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301
Why hasn’t Waymo expanded its driverless service? Here’s my theory
Suburban ride-hailing is a lousy business to be in.
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Biden backs plan to accelerate vaccine production by waiving patents
Experts disagree on whether patents are a bottleneck for vaccine production.
Timothy B. Lee
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