Hacker News Reader

Dario certainly had no qualms about working with authoritarian regimes when he worked for Baidu!

Also, if the US seeks a permanent advantage over China by 2027 with self-replicating AI, so much so that it can dictate whatever terms militarily. Wouldn't that just force China to send a few cruise missiles to TSMC before that happen?

Learyon OpenAI Furious DeepSeek Might Have Stolen All the Data OpenAI Stole from Us

Does this mean when you use OpenAI as an enterprise customer, they can see exactly the queries and answers? So much for privacy!

Learyon CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

Things that are true:

The first large cluster of infections was associated with the Huanan Seafood Market, and retrospective analyses of influenza-like-illness patients and blood donations in Wuhan found no evidence of earlier circulation.

Sampling of many individuals prior to December 2019 showed no positives for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, suggesting that the virus did not spread widely before the market outbreak.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is not known to have possessed a sufficiently close backbone strain to engineer SARS-CoV-2, and there is no public data indicating they had undisclosed viruses that match it.

Specific genomic features, like the furin cleavage site, appear suboptimal for an engineered virus (e.g. the PRRAR sequence and an out-of-frame insertion), which fits with a virus evolving naturally rather than through targeted gain-of-function work.

Several closely related bat coronaviruses have partial insertions near the S1/S2 region, suggesting that such changes can occur naturally over time and need not be artificially inserted.

A negative binomial pattern of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, with many zero-spreader events and a small number of superspreader events, is consistent with a spillover followed by rapid amplification in a crowded market setting.

Evidence of multiple potential intermediate animal hosts (e.g. wildlife farmed animals) further increases the probability that a bat coronavirus evolved into SARS-CoV-2 through natural spillover events rather than intentional engineering.

Early cases identified at the market and lack of widespread pre-epidemic infection clusters elsewhere in Wuhan align with the idea of a swift zoonotic jump to humans in late 2019.

Learyon DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via RL

Alexandr Wang did not even say they lied in the paper.

Here's the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Ekl9Izd38. "My understanding is that is that Deepseek has about 50000 a100s, which they can't talk about obviously, because it is against the export controls that the United States has put in place. And I think it is true that, you know, I think they have more chips than other people expect..."

Plus, how exactly did Deepseek lie. The model size, data size are all known. Calculating the number of FLOPS is an exercise in arithmetics, which is perhaps the secret Deepseek has because it seemingly eludes people.

Learyon DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via RL

or maybe the US economy will do even better because more people will be able to use AI at a low cost.

OpenAI will be also be able to serve o3 at a lower cost if Deepseek had some marginal breakthrough OpenAI did not already think of.

Learyon TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

That 1% golden share is in Douyin, the Chinese subsidiary of ByteDance, not ByteDance or Tiktok.

Learyon TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

Trump wants 50% US ownership in a joint venture for Tiktok. Shouldn't be a problem since 60% of bytedance ownership is already non-China (probably a lot of it already US investors - General Atlantic/SIG)

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1138556168486...

Learyon What if no one misses TikTok?

https://www.tiktok.com/@storytimewithpapajake/video/74609880...

This 102 year old American veteran who fought in WW2 sure will miss it.

Learyon The Origins of Wokeness

I think there’s a fascinating throughline from older Christian moral enforcement to what the essay calls “wokeness.” Historically, a lot of Christian movements had the same impulse to legislate language and behaviors—just grounded in sin rather than privilege. For instance, the 19th-century American Puritans famously policed each other’s speech and actions because the stakes were framed as eternal salvation versus damnation. That social dynamic—where the “righteous” person gains status by exposing the lapses of others—feels remarkably similar to what we see now with “cancellations” on social media.

Learyon China Suddenly Building Fleet of Special Barges Suitable for Taiwan Landings

Slight tangent: thoughts on the J-36 in a hypothetical Taiwan scenario?

Learyon Conscious unbossing – 52% of GenZ professionals don't want to be middle managers

GenZ boss and a mini. GenZ boss and a mini.

Learyon 30% drop in O1-preview accuracy when Putnam problems are slightly variated

Deepseek got it right: "A 10.01-pound bag of fluffy cotton is heavier than a 9.99-pound pack of steel ingots. Even though steel is denser and takes up much less space, the weight is determined by the mass, and 10.01 pounds is greater than 9.99 pounds."

Learyon Notes on China

Americans: I'm not anti-China, just anti-CCP

Chinese: I'm not anti-west, just anti people who are anti-China

Learyon Gukesh becomes the youngest chess world champion in history

https://live.lczero.org/

Learyon TikTok divestment law upheld by federal appeals court

The court must not have looked very hard.

"Let us be very clear: TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China. We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period. Our US moderation team, which is led out of California, reviews content for adherence to our US policies – just like other US companies in our space. We are not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government; TikTok does not operate in China, nor do we have any intention of doing so in the future."

https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/statement-on-tiktoks-conte...

"58. Have members of the Chinese Communist Party, or other members of the Chinese government, asked ByteDance or TikTok employees to heat content?

TikTok does not heat content in the U.S. at the request of any government, including the Chinese Communist Party. TikTok may promote or "heat" specific content (including, e.g., promoting the video of an artist who will be hosting a concert on TikTok Live) in line with company content policies to support the inclusion of diverse and high-quality content on the platform. A content operations team will review heating requests submitted by a limited number of cross-functional partners with access to the heating request, and the Content Operations team will either approve or reject the request based on their assessment of whether it follows the platform's best practices in support of content diversity and quality (including, e.g., being engaging and meaningful and focusing on timely/relevant content) and business objectives. An audit function, that is in the process of being refined, will regularly review the heating request process to ensure internal compliance with company policies. Even if the request is approved, increasing visibility or video views ("VV") is not guaranteed as the recommendation system will not heat low quality content (e.g, reposted or irrelevant content). Heating impacts less than 1% of VV in the US."

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20230323/115519/HHRG...

Learyon TikTok divestment law upheld by federal appeals court

1. Apps stores remove them. 2. Any transactions paying the creators are banned. Any Tiktok shopping stuff banned. 3. ISPs?

Learyon Romanian court annuls result of presidential election first round

Are they going to cancel the parlamentary elections, which were held one week after the Presidential election?

Learyon TikTok divestment law upheld by federal appeals court

Surprisingly, the court (2/3) thinks the law both requires strict scrutiny and satisfies it.

Strict Scrutiny has two tests: 1. Compelling Government Interest 2. Narrowly Tailored (least restrictive means)

Note the court does not say foreign actors don't have First Amendment rights.

Learyon Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

Wrong. People move from China to India despite the higher prices in America precisely because the increase in wages is more than enough to offset the higher prices.

Learyon Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals

Just the opposite. PPP is less useful when comparing intra-country than inter-country. It's only relevant because there are barriers to trade, especially in services.

Learyon Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds

Biased, or just Bayesian?

Learyon The Lion of St. Mark's Square in Venice Is Chinese

"Further proof arrives through the holes in the sculpture’s head, which researchers believe would have once held horns, and ears which have been rounded off. The sculpture, which is known to have arrived in parts and reassembled, was essentially modified to look more lion-like."

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/bronze-venice-lion-from-ch...

Learyon China's newest nuclear submarine sank in dock, US officials confirm

Rather, the submarine shape was a shadow from the crane ship to the left:

https://ibb.co/NLzJtw9

Learyon China's Newest Nuclear Submarine Sank, Setting Back Its Military Modernization

The supposed submarine shaped dark area is clearly a shadow cast by the crane of the boat on the left

https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1r...

Learyon Qwen2-Math

Where could I try this?

Learyon Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

Exactly, the Yuezhi is about as Chinese as the Japanese are, both first entering into the historical records in official Chinese dynastic history during the Han Dynasty.

Learyon Chinese-born chemist cleared of last conviction under US’s espionage probe

That conviction was overturned a week ago[1]

[1] https://cen.acs.org/research-integrity/misconduct/Court-over...

Learyon China–US research collaborations are in decline – this is bad news for everyone

There has been plenty of groundbreaking science from China, look no further than ResNet, which was a great example of US-China research collaboration. [1]

[1]https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...

Learyon TSMC CEO predicts AI chip shortage through 2025

You really think China will attack in the next few years when it's not even building the gas pipeline from Russia? [1]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-china-gas-pip...

Learyon China Outspends the U.S. on Fusion in the Race for Energy's Holy Grail

https://archive.is/2024.07.08-030220/https://www.wsj.com/wor...