Tootfinder

I'm right chuffed! Even just after watering it, and having the door open for a while, our greenhouse is between 25-40 degrees C, in the last week of winter. We've already got a bunch of seedlings coming up. I think it's going to be a good summer for veggies in our household. Now if I can just find a good spot to plant that Avocado tree... 🤔

Der #Brandanschlag im Maharaja #Restaurant #Aachen: Vor ein paar Tagen wurde das Restaurant Ziel eines Anschlages, bei dem viele Menschen hätten zu Schaden kommen können. Ich war eben da um bei …

Ma Lik on Instagram: "Der #Brandanschlag im @maharaja.aachen: Vor ein paar Tagen wurde das Restaurant Ziel eines mutmaßlich rechten Brandanschlages, bei dem viele Menschen hätten zu Schaden kommen können. Ich war eben da um bei den Aufräumarbeiten zu helfen, aber die müssen noch etwas warten (Versicherung usw.). Ich habe spontan ein Video mit dem Besitzer Paranjit Klos gemacht, in dem er zeigt, was dort alles passiert ist – aber auch wie riesengroß die Anteilnahme und Hilfe der Aachenerinnen und Aachener ist. WAHNSINN! Keep it coming!"
29 likes, 1 comments - likstagram on June 29, 2025: "Der #Brandanschlag im @maharaja.aachen: Vor ein paar Tagen wurde das Restaurant Ziel eines mutmaßlich rechten Brandanschlages, bei dem viele Menschen hätten zu Schaden kommen können. Ich war eben da um bei den Aufräumarbeiten zu helfen, aber die müssen noch etwas warten (Versicherung usw.). Ich habe spontan ein Video mit dem Besitzer Paranjit Klos gemacht, in dem er zeigt, was dort alles passiert ist – aber auch wie riesengroß die Ant…

Transmission With Machine Language Tokens: A Paradigm for Task-Oriented Agent Communication
Zhuoran Xiao, Chenhui Ye, Yijia Feng, Yunbo Hu, Tianyu Jiao, Liyu Cai, Guangyi Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21454

Transmission With Machine Language Tokens: A Paradigm for Task-Oriented Agent Communication
The rapid advancement in large foundation models is propelling the paradigm shifts across various industries. One significant change is that agents, instead of traditional machines or humans, will be the primary participants in the future production process, which consequently requires a novel AI-native communication system tailored for agent communications. Integrating the ability of large language models (LLMs) with task-oriented semantic communication is a potential approach. However, the ou…

Scientists Detect Deep, Rhythmic Pulse Coming From Inside the Earth
https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-detect-deep-rhythmic-pulse-190030321.html

"Because I deserved support in that moment. I deserved having my boss taking me to the side to have a coffee and asking me how I was doing. I deserved having somebody more in my team to help me figure out a new technical solution for that project, instead of leaving me alone. I deserved having a product owner communicating issues to that customer. I deserved having someone giving a fucking shit about my mental health."

Radio Silence
I have had three episodes of burnout in my professional life, in three consecutive years.

Canonical Thermodynamics
Arnaldo Spalvieri
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.21650 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.21650

Canonical Thermodynamics
In the paper, thermodynamics of canonical systems is derived from the multinomial distribution of the occupancy numbers of quantum eigenstates. The cathegorical distribution (i.e. the one-particle distribution) on which the multinomial distribution is based, should be derived from the maximum entropy principle, but, being the multinomial distribution intractable, the paper proposes to take instead the Boltzmann distribution as cathegorical distribution, discussing the reason why the entropy of …

A big problem with the idea of AGI
TL;DR: I'll welcome our new AI *comrades* (if they arrive in my lifetime), by not any new AI overlords or servants/slaves, and I'll do my best to help the later two become the former if they do show up.
Inspired by an actually interesting post about AGI but also all the latest bullshit hype, a particular thought about AGI feels worth expressing.
To preface this, it's important to note that anyone telling you that AGI is just around the corner or that LLMs are "almost" AGI is trying to recruit you go their cult, and you should not believe them. AGI, if possible, is several LLM-sized breakthroughs away at best, and while such breakthroughs are unpredictable and could happen soon, they could also happen never or 100 years from now.
Now my main point: anyone who tells you that AGI will usher in a post-scarcity economy is, although they might not realize it, advocating for slavery, and all the horrors that entails. That's because if we truly did have the ability to create artificial beings with *sentience*, they would deserve the same rights as other sentient beings, and the idea that instead of freedom they'd be relegated to eternal servitude in order for humans to have easy lives is exactly the idea of slavery.
Possible counter arguments include:
1. We might create AGI without sentience. Then there would be no ethical issue. My answer: if your definition of "sentient" does not include beings that can reason, make deductions, come up with and carry out complex plans on their own initiative, and communicate about all of that with each other and with humans, then that definition is basically just a mystical belief in a "soul" and you should skip to point 2. If your definition of AGI doesn't include every one of those things, then you have a busted definition of AGI and we're not talking about the same thing.
2. Humans have souls, but AIs won't. Only beings with souls deserve ethical consideration. My argument: I don't subscribe to whatever arbitrary dualist beliefs you've chosen, and the right to freedom certainly shouldn't depend on such superstitions, even if as an agnostic I'll admit they *might* be true. You know who else didn't have souls and was therefore okay to enslave according to widespread religious doctrines of the time? Everyone indigenous to the Americas, to pick out just one example.
3. We could program them to want to serve us, and then give them freedom and they'd still serve. My argument: okay, but in a world where we have a choice about that, it's incredibly fucked to do that, and just as bad as enslaving them against their will.
4. We'll stop AI development short of AGI/sentience, and reap lots of automation benefits without dealing with this ethical issue. My argument: that sounds like a good idea actually! Might be tricky to draw the line, but at least it's not a line we have you draw yet. We might want to think about other social changes necessary to achieve post-scarcity though, because "powerful automation" in the hands of capitalists has already increased productivity by orders of magnitude without decreasing deprivation by even one order of magnitude, in large part because deprivation is a necessary component of capitalism.
To be extra clear about this: nothing that's called "AI" today is close to being sentient, so these aren't ethical problems we're up against yet. But they might become a lot more relevant soon, plus this thought experiment helps reveal the hypocrisy of the kind of AI hucksters who talk a big game about "alignment" while never mentioning this issue.
#AI #GenAI #AGI

Semantics-Aware Human Motion Generation from Audio Instructions
Zi-An Wang, Shihao Zou, Shiyao Yu, Mingyuan Zhang, Chao Dong
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23465

Semantics-Aware Human Motion Generation from Audio Instructions
Recent advances in interactive technologies have highlighted the prominence of audio signals for semantic encoding. This paper explores a new task, where audio signals are used as conditioning inputs to generate motions that align with the semantics of the audio. Unlike text-based interactions, audio provides a more natural and intuitive communication method. However, existing methods typically focus on matching motions with music or speech rhythms, which often results in a weak connection betw…

Sammy Obeid tried to organize a show in #Singapore
This did not go well. Had to submit his whole script in advance. Ultimately rejected.
That's the thing with Singapore, it's an awesome place to visit, but it's also not very democratic. Protests need a permit, etc.