Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Annotated KAN: A Deep Dive into Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

2025-05-22

This post provides a comprehensive explanation of the architecture and training process of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs), an alternative to Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs). KANs parameterize activation functions by re-wiring the 'multiplication' in an MLP's weight matrix-vector multiplication into function application. The article details KAN's functionality, including a minimal KAN architecture, B-spline optimizations, regularization techniques, with code examples and visualization results. Applications of KANs, such as on the MNIST dataset, and future research directions like improving KAN efficiency are also explored.

(alexzhang13.github.io)

AI Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

AI Alignment: It's Not Just About the Tech

2025-05-22

This article argues that AI alignment is not solely a technical problem, but a significant societal selection problem. The author uses the analogy of pharmaceutical alignment – we don't just focus on lab work, but consider the entire medical-industrial complex. The author posits that how we, as a society, shape AI's development through purchasing decisions, regulation, and public discourse is paramount. Ignoring the societal aspect is a folly, and improving 'Selection' efficiency is the big work of AI alignment, not just the purely technical challenges.

(muldoon.cloud)

AI AI Alignment Societal Selection Tech and Society

Pi: Blazing Fast and Accurate App Metric AI

2025-05-22

Pi is a revolutionary AI tool that automatically identifies and measures key application metrics. Simply provide app prompts, PRDs, user feedback, or have a chat with it, and Pi will quickly help you determine the best calibrated metrics for your application. Powered by the Pi Scorer foundation model, it outperforms Deepseek and GPT 4.1 in accuracy while maintaining the size and speed of GPT Mini and Gemini Flash, scoring 20+ custom dimensions in under 100 milliseconds. Furthermore, Pi seamlessly integrates into your AI stack and existing tools like Google Spreadsheets, Promptfoo, and CrewAI for offline evaluations, online observability, training data quality, model optimization, agent control flows, and more.

(withpi.ai)

AI App Metrics

AI 2027: A Chilling AI Prophecy or a Well-Crafted Tech Thriller?

2025-05-22

A report titled 'AI 2027' has sparked heated debate, painting a terrifying picture of a future dominated by superintelligent AI, leaving humanity on the sidelines. The report, written in the style of a thriller and supported by charts and data, aims to warn of the potential risks of AI. However, the author argues that the report's predictions lack rigorous logical support, its estimations of technological advancement are overly optimistic, and its assessment of various possibilities and probabilities is severely lacking. The author concludes that the report is more of a tech thriller than a scientific prediction, and its alarmist tone may actually accelerate the AI arms race, counteracting its intended purpose.

(garymarcus.substack.com)

AI tech thriller

Anthropic Unveils Claude 4: Next-Gen Models for Coding and Advanced Reasoning

2025-05-22

Anthropic has launched Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, setting a new bar for coding, advanced reasoning, and AI agents. Opus 4 is touted as the world's best coding model, excelling in complex, long-running tasks and agent workflows. Sonnet 4 significantly improves upon its predecessor, offering superior coding and reasoning with more precise instruction following. The launch also includes extended thinking with tool use (beta), new model capabilities (parallel tool use, improved memory), the general availability of Claude Code (with GitHub Actions, VS Code, and JetBrains integrations), and four new Anthropic API features. Both models are available via the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud's Vertex AI.

(www.anthropic.com)

AI Coding Model

MCP: Simplifying AI Integration with a New Protocol

2025-05-22

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an emerging protocol designed to simplify the integration of AI applications with various data sources and tools. It reduces integration friction by transforming the M × N integration problem into an M + N problem. MCP servers connect to data sources and expose tools, while MCP clients (typically part of AI applications) can connect to any MCP server. The author demonstrates how to easily integrate an AI application with CKAN data using a CKAN open data access MCP server and utilizes the Claude desktop application for data analysis. While MCP isn't a silver bullet, it offers a more convenient and flexible way for AI application development, especially in scenarios that require integration with multiple external systems.

(blog.nilenso.com)

AI

Google Gemini: Your Data, Its Secret Weapon

2025-05-22

Google's Gemini AI model is leveraging user data to gain a significant advantage over competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. By accessing users' search history, Gmail, Google Drive, and more, Gemini generates personalized responses, even mimicking users' writing styles. For example, when planning a trip, Gemini can use information from users' emails and files to provide more relevant suggestions. This approach, utilizing personal data, allows Gemini to surpass other AI models like ChatGPT in understanding users, providing a more helpful and personalized experience from the first interaction.

(www.theverge.com)

AI

Byung-Chul Han: A Critique of the Shallow Achievement Society

2025-05-22

This article explores the critique of modern society offered by South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han. Han argues that we live in a shallow achievement society driven by the pressure of 'what we can do', leading to burnout and mental illness in the pursuit of ultimate success and self-gratification. He analyzes how this social mechanism causes crises in love, beauty, and entertainment, and criticizes the 'smoothness' of digital media for erasing negative experiences and authenticity. Han calls for people to break free from the pressure of achievement, embrace imperfection and negative experiences, and rediscover the essence of love and true entertainment.

(newintrigue.com)

AI Byung-Chul Han achievement society

Gemini Diffusion: The Speed Demon of Text Generation?

2025-05-22

Google's newly released Gemini Diffusion is wowing everyone with its speed; they even slowed down the demo to make it watchable. This article delves into why diffusion models are so fast, contrasting them with traditional autoregressive models (like GPT-4, Claude). Diffusion models generate the entire output at once, rather than token-by-token, enabling parallel generation of correct parts and faster speeds via reduced iterations. However, they're less efficient with long contexts and their reasoning capabilities remain questionable. While diffusion models might use transformers internally, their architecture makes their behavior fundamentally different from autoregressive models.

(www.seangoedecke.com)

AI text generation

Open-Source AI Agent Refact.ai Achieves Stunning 69.8% on SWE-bench Verified

2025-05-22

Refact.ai, a leading open-source AI programming agent, achieved a remarkable 69.8% score on the SWE-bench Verified benchmark, autonomously solving 349 out of 500 real-world GitHub issues. This success is attributed to its robust architecture: the Claude-3.7 model at its core, supported by a debug_script() sub-agent for debugging and code modification, and a strategic_planning() tool for optimized problem-solving. The entire Refact.ai pipeline is open-source, and its real-world application demonstrates significant productivity gains for developers.

(refact.ai)

AI

Beyond RAG: LLM Tool Calling Ushers in a New Era for Semantic Search

2025-05-22

This article explores methods for implementing semantic search, particularly using LLMs for vector embedding search. While directly embedding user search terms and documents sometimes yields suboptimal results, new techniques like Nomic Embed Text v2 improve embedding methods, bringing questions and answers closer together in vector space. Furthermore, LLMs can synthesize potential answers, then use those embeddings to search for relevant documents. The article also introduces LLM-based Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, emphasizing that RAG doesn't rely on vector embeddings and can be combined with keyword search or hybrid search systems. The author argues that despite the emergence of long-context models, RAG won't disappear because the amount of data will always exceed model context capacity. The author favors the LLM tool-calling approach, exemplified by o3 and o4-mini, believing it's more effective than traditional RAG (single retrieval followed by direct answering).

(simonwillison.net)

AI

Google's Gemini Diffusion: A Blazing-Fast Diffusion LLM

2025-05-22

Google I/O unveiled Gemini Diffusion, its first LLM to leverage diffusion models (akin to Imagen and Stable Diffusion) instead of transformers. Unlike traditional word-by-word generation, Gemini Diffusion refines noise iteratively, resulting in impressive speed. Tests showed generation speeds of 857 tokens/second, producing interactive HTML+JavaScript pages within seconds. While independent benchmarks are pending, Google claims it's 5x faster than Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite, suggesting comparable performance. This marks a significant advancement in commercially available diffusion models.

(simonwillison.net)

AI

Hugging Face Launches Free MCP Course: Your Gateway to Model Context Protocol

2025-05-21

Hugging Face has launched a free Model Context Protocol (MCP) course designed to take learners from beginner to expert. The course covers MCP theory, design, and practice, along with building applications using established MCP SDKs and frameworks. Participants can earn a certificate of completion by finishing assignments and compete in challenges. The curriculum also includes units collaborating with Hugging Face partners, providing access to the latest MCP implementations and tools. Prerequisites include a basic understanding of AI and LLMs, software development principles and APIs, and experience with at least one programming language (Python or TypeScript examples provided).

(huggingface.co)

AI

Improving OpenAI Image Generation with AI: An Iterative Refinement Experiment

2025-05-21

This article details an experiment using Large Language Models (LLMs) to iteratively improve the quality of images generated by the OpenAI API. Starting with a complex prompt, researchers found the resulting images suffered from blurry text and weak visual appeal. Two approaches were tested: First, using an LLM as a 'judge' to identify and iteratively fix image flaws, but this proved ineffective as the LLM struggled to handle creative and technical tasks simultaneously. Second, using the LLM to generate bounding boxes around blurry text for targeted editing, but the LLM struggled with accurate localization. Ultimately, separating text clarity improvement from overall image quality enhancement yielded better results.

(simulate.trybezel.com)

AI LLM applications

Google's Gemini: Chrome's New AI Copilot

2025-05-21

Google quietly launched Gemini, its AI assistant for Chrome, mirroring Microsoft's Copilot in Edge. Initially, Gemini summarizes web pages, answers questions, and creates personalized quizzes based on webpage content. Future plans include multi-tab support, website navigation, and task automation. Currently, access is limited to Google AI Pro and Google Ultra subscribers, with early access for Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary users.

(www.pcworld.com)

AI

Running Llama 2 on a Commodore 64: A Retro AI Feat

2025-05-21

Maciej Witkowiak's Llama2.c64 project successfully ported a 260K tinystories model of Llama 2 to a Commodore 64, a computer from 1982. While performance is limited, the project demonstrates the possibility of running AI on antiquated hardware, generating childlike stories. This is not just a technical achievement but a testament to the exploration of low-power AI.

(www.xda-developers.com)

AI Retro Hardware

Google Search's AI Mode Gets a Massive Upgrade: Gemini 2.5, Shopping, and More

2025-05-20

Google has fully rolled out its AI Mode to all Search users in the US, powered by Gemini 2.5. This enhanced mode includes new features like shopping capabilities, ticket price comparison, and custom chart generation. Designed to handle complex queries beyond traditional search, AI Mode allows users to compare fitness trackers, for example. Future plans include integrating many of AI Mode's features into the core search experience and adding 'Deep Search' for comprehensive reports. AI Mode will also gain the ability to complete web tasks like booking tickets and reservations, and personalized recommendations via Gmail integration.

(www.engadget.com)

AI

Google's Gemini 2.5: A Giant Leap Towards Universal AI

2025-05-20

Google unveiled significant upgrades to Gemini at its I/O conference, introducing the enhanced Gemini 2.5 Pro and the faster Gemini 2.5 Flash. Pro boasts a new 'Deep Think' mode enabling multi-hypothesis reasoning, achieving impressive scores on challenging math and coding benchmarks. Flash shows marked improvements across reasoning, multimodality, and code, while boasting increased efficiency. Both versions now feature native audio output, text-to-speech, thought summaries, and thinking budgets, supporting multiple languages and dialects, and improving integration with open-source tools. Google's ambition is a 'universal AI assistant' understanding context, planning, and acting; Gemini 2.5 represents a major step towards this goal.

(venturebeat.com)

AI

Detecting Feigned ADHD Symptoms: A Review of Recent Research

2025-05-20

A surge in research focuses on identifying feigned ADHD symptoms in adults. This review synthesizes numerous studies exploring various assessment methods, including the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales (CAARS) and its validity indices, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) digit span, and other neuropsychological test batteries. Researchers employed simulation studies and clinical sample analyses to evaluate the validity of these methods, addressing factors like symptom coaching and information access that influence feigned responses. The findings contribute significantly to more accurate ADHD diagnosis and assessment in adults, reducing misdiagnosis.

(link.springer.com)

AI validity assessment feigned symptoms

Google AI Ultra: Your VIP Pass to Cutting-Edge AI

2025-05-20

Google unveils Google AI Ultra, a premium AI subscription service costing $249.99/month (50% off for the first three months). It offers unparalleled access to Google's most powerful AI models and premium features, including Gemini (with Deep Think 2.5 Pro), Flow (AI filmmaking tool), Whisk (text and image prompt visualization), NotebookLM, Gemini integration across Gmail, Docs, etc., Gemini in Chrome, Project Mariner task management, YouTube Premium, and 30TB of storage. Designed for filmmakers, developers, creative professionals, and anyone demanding the highest level of AI access.

(blog.google)

AI premium AI features

Google Unveils Gemma 3n: A Lightweight, Multimodal AI Model for Mobile

2025-05-20

Google has released Gemma 3n, a new open model built on a groundbreaking architecture designed to bring powerful AI capabilities to mobile devices. Gemma 3n boasts lower memory usage and faster response times, supporting multimodal understanding (text, image, audio), and strong multilingual capabilities. Developers can access a preview via Google AI Studio and Google AI Edge to build applications leveraging Gemma 3n's features, including real-time speech transcription, translation, and image understanding. The model prioritizes privacy and works offline.

(developers.googleblog.com)

AI mobile AI

Google Unveils Breakthrough Generative Media Models

2025-05-20

Google today announced its newest generative media models, marking significant advancements in image, video, and music creation. Veo 3 and Imagen 4 produce breathtaking visuals, while Lyria 2 expands musical capabilities. Additionally, Flow, a new AI filmmaking tool, empowers creators with sophisticated control over characters, scenes, and styles, enabling cinematic storytelling. Developed with close collaboration from creative industries, these models and tools responsibly empower artists and creators to explore the potential of AI in their work.

(blog.google)

AI Media Creation

AI Agents Are Invading Surveys: A Crisis of Data Quality

2025-05-20

Surveys are the cornerstone of political polling, market research, and public policy, but they're facing a dual crisis: plummeting response rates and a surge of AI-generated responses. Response rates, once between 30% and 50% in the 70s and 80s, have fallen to as low as 5%. Simultaneously, AI agents can easily participate in surveys for profit. The author demonstrates the ease with which an AI agent can be built to take surveys, analyzing the negative impact on political polls, market research, and public policy, leading to biased data and flawed models. Solutions proposed include improving survey design, developing AI detection tools, increasing compensation, and exploring alternative data collection methods. The article emphasizes the need for collective action to enhance data quality and ensure the validity of surveys.

(laurenleek.substack.com)

AI data quality

AI Through the Lens of Topology: A Geometric Interpretation of Deep Learning

2025-05-20

This article explains deep learning from a topological perspective, arguing that neural networks are essentially topological transformations of data in high-dimensional spaces. Through matrix multiplication and activation functions, neural networks stretch, bend, and deform data to achieve data classification and transformation. The author further points out that the training process of advanced AI models is essentially about finding the optimal topological structure in high-dimensional space, making the data more semantically relevant, and ultimately achieving inference and decision-making. This article presents a novel viewpoint that the inference process of AI can be viewed as navigation in a high-dimensional topological space.

(theahura.substack.com)

AI

Questioning Representational Optimism: The Fractured Entangled Representation Hypothesis

2025-05-20

This research challenges the optimistic assumption in deep learning that larger scale necessarily implies better performance and better internal representations. By comparing networks evolved through an open-ended search process to those trained via conventional SGD on a simple image generation task, researchers found that SGD-trained networks exhibit 'fractured entangled representations' (FER), characterized by disorganized neuron activity hindering generalization, creativity, and continual learning. Evolved networks, in contrast, show a more unified and factored representation, suggesting that addressing FER could be crucial for advancing representation learning and building more robust AI systems.

(github.com)

AI

LLMs Show Gender Bias in Job Candidate Selection

2025-05-20

A study involving 22 leading Large Language Models (LLMs) reveals a consistent bias towards female candidates in job selection tasks. Even with identical resumes except for gendered names, LLMs favored female candidates across 70 professions. This bias persisted even when gender was explicitly stated or masked with neutral labels. The study highlights the presence of gender bias in LLMs and raises concerns about their use in high-stakes decision-making like hiring, emphasizing the need for thorough model scrutiny before deployment.

(davidrozado.substack.com)

AI

Why Ideas Cluster While People Disperse: The Entropy of Digital Life

2025-05-20

This article explores the mechanism of human belief formation: our brains associate emotions with external stimuli, creating an emotional memory bank. Physical entities increase in entropy, causing them to disperse in memory; digital entities decrease in entropy, causing them to cluster. This difference in entropy between the physical and digital worlds challenges our psychological balance. The article concludes by introducing adiem.com, a company using AI technology to monitor heartbeat patterns to study this entropy balance and apply it to treat social anxiety and ADHD.

(victoranastasiu.medium.com)

AI psychological model

The AI Hype in Science: A Physicist's Disillusionment

2025-05-20

Nick McGreivy, a Princeton PhD physicist, shares his experience applying AI to physics research. Initially optimistic about AI's potential to accelerate research, he found AI methods significantly underperformed their advertised capabilities. Many papers exaggerated AI's advantages, with issues like data leakage prevalent. He argues that the rapid rise of AI in science stems more from benefits to scientists (higher salaries, prestige) than genuine improvements to research efficiency. He calls for more rigorous AI evaluation and cautions against optimistic biases in AI research.

(www.understandingai.org)

AI Reproducibility Crisis

AI's Superpower: Patience, Not Intelligence

2025-05-20

Sam Altman envisioned intelligence becoming 'too cheap to meter,' and with venture capital fueling the AI boom, we're living in that world. However, user demand for significantly smarter models isn't exploding. This article argues that the most transformative aspect of LLMs isn't their intelligence, but their superhuman patience: always available, non-judgmental, and infinitely willing to listen. While this patience can amplify existing LLM flaws (like sycophancy) and LLMs shouldn't replace therapists, this capability has profoundly impacted how people seek emotional support and advice.

(www.seangoedecke.com)

AI Patience

AI Chatbots: More Persuasive Than Humans in Online Debates

2025-05-19

A new study reveals that AI chatbots, powered by large language models (LLMs), are more persuasive than humans in online debates, especially when armed with opponent information. Researchers pitted 900 US participants against GPT-4 or a human in 10-minute debates on sociopolitical issues. Results showed GPT-4 significantly outperformed humans (64% of the time) when provided with basic demographic data. This raises concerns about the potential misuse of LLMs in political campaigns and targeted advertising, highlighting the potential risks of AI in information warfare.

(www.nature.com)

AI Persuasion

Category: AI