Unsupervised Learning Newsletter NO. 384

Unsupervised Learning is a Security, AI, and Meaning-focused podcast that looks at how best to thrive as humans in a post-AI world. It combines original ideas, analysis, and mental models to bring not just the news, but why it matters and how to respond.

Hi!,

Back in the gunner seat after this year's annual Friendship Week. So needed but so exhausting. In a good way.

Here's a thought-splinter I've been unable to get out of my brain: The impact from everything we've talked about with ChatGPT, GPT-4, Langchain, and all the various projects out there all assume something that's unlikely to me at this point.

They all assume Altman and OpenAI will NOT be successful. Remember, their goal isn't to make cool AI stuff; it's to make true AGI. And everything we've seen so far is what they call failure. Now imagine what happens to productivity, the job market, and overall society if they actually succeed! I'm personally not betting against them, and I put AGI at 2-5 years from now.

Have a great week!

In this episode:

👁️ Worldcoin, OpenAI, and eye scanning: A global ID and currency?
⚡ Grid Threat: Russia-linked malware targets power grids
🧠 Neuralink gets FDA approval for clinical trials
🤖 Bing integrated into ChatGPT for enhanced AI chatbot experience
🚗 Tesla Model Y becomes world's best-selling car
🌈 LGBTQ searches soar 1,300% since 2004


MY WORK

The AI Attack Surface Map v1.0
My first capture of the various attack surfaces included in how AI will be deployed in the real world. MORE


SECURITY NEWS

Worldcoin + OpenAI + Eye Scanning
A company called Tools for Humanity raised a $115 million Series C to continue its mission to 1) create a global ID, 2) create a global currency, and 3) create an app that allows you to use the currency in various ways. Why am I mentioning this? Because Sam Altman is a co-founder. So here we have a guy doing in public what a lot of conspiracy theorists think people are doing in private. He's trying to build AGI that will massively disrupt human work, and then at the same time he's trying to create a digital currency that seems to me could be awful useful for something like UBI distribution. That's speculation of course, but it seems logical. Oh and this Worldcoin app works by scanning your eyeball so add that to the conspiracy porn list. I love how Altman is super transparent about what he thinks is coming, and how he thinks we should respond. He thinks AGI is coming and he's building it to be first. He thinks UBI will be needed so maybe he's building an infrastructure it could run on? MORE

Grid Threat
New Russia-linked malware, CosmicEnergy, could physically damage power grids, says Mandiant.

- Malware uploaded to VirusTotal in 2021 by a Russian IP address
- Similar to Industroyer, used in attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure
- Ties to Russia's "Solar Polygon" project for training cybersecurity specialists
- Targets communication protocol used in electric power industry
- Shares similarities with Triton and Incontroller malware
- Exploits insecure by-design protocols in industrial environments MORE

Guam Cyberattacks
Chinese hackers targeted critical infrastructure on US military bases in Guam using stealthy malware, according to Microsoft and Western spy agencies. Beijing dismissed the report as unprofessional disinformation. MORE

Sponsor

AT&T Account Takeover
AT&T resolved a vulnerability that could have allowed account takeovers with just a phone number and ZIP code, discovered by researcher Joseph Harris. The issue was fixed through their bug bounty program. MORE

Tesla Leak
A whistleblower has leaked 100GB of Tesla data to a German news site, revealing over 1,000 accident reports involving phantom braking or unintended acceleration.

- Handelsblatt, the German news outlet, confirmed the data's authenticity with the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology
- Over 2,400 self-acceleration complaints and 1,500 braking function problems were found in the files
- Tesla's internal guidelines prioritize offering as little attack surface as possible when communicating with customers
- Customers reported that Tesla employees avoid written communication and focus on verbal communication
- Elon Musk and Tesla face multiple lawsuits and investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Department of Justice MORE

Cloudflare Secrets Store
Cloudflare announced a new solution, Secrets Store, designed to help developers and organizations securely store and manage secrets across their platform. MORE

Zyxel Vulnerabilities Patched
Zyxel released patches for two critical buffer overflow vulnerabilities affecting their firewalls, which could have allowed unauthenticated attackers to cause denial-of-service and remote code execution. Users are urged to update urgently. MORE


TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Neuralink Approved
Neuralink claims FDA approval for clinical trials, but isn't enrolling patients yet.

- Elon Musk's brain implant startup, Neuralink, says it has FDA approval for human testing
- Company not yet recruiting test subjects, and trial details remain unknown
- Initial trials likely to focus on safety of brain implants and surgical robot
- Neuralink previously faced issues with federal regulators and animal abuse accusations
- FDA rejection turnaround indicates company addressed concerns effectively MORE

Meta's $1.3B EU Fine
Meta faced a record $1.3 billion fine from EU regulators for transferring user data from the region to the US, violating GDPR. The company must comply and delete unlawfully stored data within six months. MORE

Bing Integration in ChatGPT
OpenAI has made Bing the default search experience for ChatGPT, enhancing its AI chatbot with search and web data, including citations. The move follows Microsoft's multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI earlier this year. MORE

Windows Copilot Unveiled
Microsoft announced the launch of AI-powered Windows Copilot, a service designed to assist Windows 11 users by explaining, rewriting, or summarizing content. The feature will be available in preview mode next month. MORE

Model Y Tops Sales
Tesla Model Y became the world's best-selling car in Q1 2023, making it the first EV to achieve this milestone, according to JATO Dynamics. The Model Y dethroned the Toyota Corolla with 267,200 sales in Q1. MORE

Android-to-iPhone Switch
A recent CIRP report revealed that Android users switching to iPhones reached a 5-year high, with 15% of new iPhone owners in the US coming from Google's platform. It's amazing the difference in output that can occur when one competitor has a 10-20 year plan and the other is perpetually chasing and flailing. MORE

HUMAN NEWS

Long COVID Symptoms Narrowed
A new study narrows down long COVID's 200+ symptoms to a core list of 12, offering hope for better understanding and diagnosis of the condition.

- Loss of taste/smell and post-exertional malaise topped the list of core symptoms
- Researchers used data from 9,764 participants to create the weighted list
- The study is part of the National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER Initiative
- The core list could help direct further research and develop diagnostic tools
- A score of 12 was determined as a reasonable cutoff for identifying long COVID MORE

ChatGPT Awareness
58% of US adults are familiar with ChatGPT, but only 14% have tried it, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Users' opinions on its usefulness are mixed, with younger adults finding it more useful than older ones. MORE

LGBTQ Searches Soar 1,300%

Google searches related to sexual orientation and gender identity increased by 1,300% since 2004, with conservative states showing the highest search rates. MORE


IDEAS & ANALYSIS

Jobs Again
I've mentioned this many times but I keep coming back to it. It's stunning to me that people generally, and especially young people today, have been told their whole lives that people owe workers jobs. If someone graduates and can't get a job they feel like society has failed them. Has it? Where does the promise come from? I feel like jobs are more like a magical slot machine sitting in a forest that's always pumped out money. And whenever new grads or hard-working people step in front of it, it makes a whir and a clank sound and a job pops out. But nobody has stopped to ask why it does that or when it will stop. Well, I think we're about to find out when it'll stop. It won't completely stop of course. Jobs are the gap between what a business owner wants to do and what they're capable of doing with the people they have. And there will always be a gap there sometimes based on the fact that economies and ideas both grow and shrink. But when we add AI and robots to the mix, we're going to have a lot fewer gaps. At least for humans. The gaps will be there but they’ll be filled by robots and AI. What’s weird is that this shouldn’t be seen as attacking workers. Workers are what happens when everything fails. The idea is too big. The tech isn’t advanced enough. The tools aren’t efficient enough. In those situations you need workers. But if all those things are perfect, we as workers are not needed. That’s a strange thing. And it tells me once we get there we need to move as quickly as possible to a post-work society where human interaction isn’t something we must do at work, but something we choose to do because it’s the purpose of life.


NOTES

The Guidance Project
The most interesting AI project I've seen since Langchain is definitely Microsoft's new Guidance project. It's a completely new way of stitching up AI logic vs. how Langchain does things. It makes more of the moving parts visible and editable. It also pays special attention to making sure you get the right type of output as you're passing results between components. They also make extensive use of handlebar-like functionality for templates and variables. It's VERY powerful, and they have a good number of examples as well. If you're hacking on AI stuff, this is a must! MORE


DISCOVERY

🔥 Microsoft Guidance — A completely new way of controlling AI workflows instead of normal prompts and chains. Probably the coolest project I've seen since Langchain. If you're tinkering with AI, this is a MUST. MORE | NOTEBOOKS

Pandas AI MORE

OpenLLM Leaderboard MORE

Photoshop's Generative Fill is Being Massively Praised MORE

IPInfo's Free IP Location Database MORE

100 Very Short Bug Bounty Rules MORE

Guanaco — 99% ChatGPT performance on the Vicuna benchmark. MORE

6 Really Good AI-created Songs MORE

Run your own VPN using Fly and Tailscale MORE

The Twitter ranking algorithm MORE

Turn a Midjourney prompt into a formula that you can replicate MORE | MORE

Nvidia announces Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE), showing what happens when AI collides with gaming. MORE

Experiences don't make you happier than possessions? MORE

AgentGPT — Autonomous agents in your browser. MORE

CSA Report on Chinese APTs Living Off the Land to Evade Detection MORE


RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Consider making a list of the books you’ve read and what you got from them. Not a full summary, but at least 1-5 bullets. You can use AI to help you for older books, but only write down the AI-created bullet if you actually absorbed that knowledge from the book. We don’t need to remember books, I don’t think, but it’s nice to know we got some sort of osmosis effect from consuming them.

 
APHORISM OF THE WEEK

"It’s nice to be nice."

My Dad

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